Category Archives: Web Schtuff

Tetelestai (It is Finished)

Posted on by

I’ve been trying to write this blog post since Saturday when I got the news that Courtney, the daughter of Mary of Passionate Perseverance, had taken her last breath at 1:51 a.m. She is no longer a slave to her body which worked against her for pretty much her whole life and she is now healed and whole.

From the Lutheran Book of Worship:

Into your hands, O merciful Savior, we commend your servant, Courtney. Acknowledge, we humbly beseech you, a sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming. Receive her into the arms of your mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the glorious company of the saints in light. Amen.

I wish I had adequate words to describe how much love, respect, and gratitude I have for Mary. She was devoted to Miss Courtney and through her blog, she managed to show the world how to live with joy, grace, and faith while taking care of a kid with special needs. She encouraged all of us mamas with kiddos who weren’t typical not just through her writing, but on Twitter and Facebook. She and I had Facebook messaging conversations while one of us was sitting in the ER with a sick kid and she shares my gallows humor (which is rare).

The information about final arrangements for Miss Courtney is here. If you want to make a donation in memory of Courtney, Mary gives you the options for that. (She also writes the BEST thank-you notes.) If you can give, please do. If you can’t, your prayers are more than appreciated.

Mary, we love you and my family wants you to know how much your witness, encouragement, and all-around awesomeness mean to us.

Five Favorites: Miscellanea (XXIII)

Posted on by

Five Favorites

One

Neutrogena Clear Pore Oil-Eliminating Astringent. I’ve got a bit of cabin fever I needed to pray over some things and clear my head so I went for a walk this morning. Have I mentioned that it’s bloody hot here right now (93F when I got home from my walk) and that I have a stress injury in my right foot? (Yeah, I’m desperate.) Considering that I sweated off all the water I drank, I thought I might need something to clean my face. This stuff works amazingly and I smell like witch hazel and eucalyptus.

Two

MapMyRun I use MapMyRun to calculate my route. Today it was 2.06 miles which was not half bad. I’m aiming for 3 so I’m ready for the Run for the Little Flowers 5K.

Three

My Saucony running shoes. Considering how discalced I am most of the time, I need something comfortable for walking/running/chasing Daniel. (My policy on running is that I only run when chased.) These shoes are seriously helping with the stress injury because it’s compressing my foot in a way that my flip-flops don’t.

Four

Trader Joe’s pumpkin ice cream. I’ve been eating it for dinner for the last few nights because it is so freaking hot and I don’t want to use the stove. I think one of the best things about being an adult is that I can eat whatever I want. 🙂 Anyway, I’m a huge fan of pumpkin ice cream and it’s a seasonal item.

Five

Montclair Plaza. Daniel and I needed to get out of the house and walk a lot of energy off yesterday. It was 106F outside so we went to the local mall and did laps around every floor. Interestingly, it started pouring rain when we got there — enough rain to trigger flash flood warnings. It was bone dry when we got back outside an hour later.

Go love up Mary and the others.

A Blog Hop About Writing

Posted on by

When I was really little (around 5 or 6 years old), I would write “books” on pieces of paper and give them to people. My mom actually has a pretty good collection of them. I also wrote lots of stories on our Apple II when I was really little. (Yes, I *am* that old.) I got into web design 17 years ago when I had to miss a ski trip as I was home with bronchitis and that cleared the way to start blogging 3 years later.

When Beth Anne asked if I wanted to be part of this blog hop on writing, I was happy to do it. Answering the questions also gave me something to do this past weekend while on a call interview with not much to do. 😉

1 – What am I writing or working on?

Currently, my writing is limited to my blog here at ::Meditatio::, a blog for Brett (the little boy I advocate for through Reece’s Rainbow), and whatever piece I try to whip out for NaNoWriMo in November. Right now, I’m trying to be intentional about posting decent cand unique content at ::Meditatio:: instead of just link-ups. For example, I will probably be posting something on how to do a control journal for your child with special needs this week as well as this and the three link-ups I usually join.

2 – How does my work differ from others of its genre?

To answer this, I’d have to define my genre and the closest approximation I can give is that it is a “personal blog”. I really hate trying to label what I do here because that would just pigeonhole it. For example, I don’t look at myself as a “Christian blogger”. Instead, I look at myself as a blogger who happens to be a devout Christian. I don’t view myself as a “mommy blogger”. I’m a blogger who happens to be a mom with a kid.

So… the way my work differs from those in my genre is that the interests are specific to me. I write about topics as diverse as autism, why the cranberry-colored ELCA hymnal is evil, the doings of my cats, pastor’s wife commentary, Scripture that interests me, the interplay between science and faith, why I am not going to homeschool my child from K-12, my irritation about various political things, and why the San Francisco Giants are infinitely better than the LA Dodgers. (Why yes, that last one *WAS* intentionally added to needle my husband Jon. How ever did you guess?)

Brett’s blog is pretty basic — just prayer requests and updates on his adoption if I have them.

My NaNo pieces involve a pastor’s wife as the main character because I write about what I know best. I haven’t read a lot of the work of other people who write murder mysteries for NaNoWriMo but I think their main character probably involves some kind of element of themselves.

3 – Why do I write what I write?

Short answer: it’s cheaper than therapy.

Long answer: I’m incredibly shy and introverted so I tend to function very much internally and I can get lost in my head. Getting some of the contents of my head out can help me work through something that is giving me a problem and sometimes the feedback I get can be helpful. I password the really difficult stuff and those with the password are people I trust not to spread it around and also people I trust to tell me the truth in love.

The joke about the pieces I write for NaNoWriMo is that I do it to kill off the people who are irritating me at the time. In all seriousness, it’s a creative itch that I don’t get to scratch all that often so I have some fun with it.

4 – How does my writing process work?

I like link-ups because they act as post seeds for me, whether it be telling what five things are my favorite this week, listing 7 short topics on my mind, or filling out a survey of sorts like one does for The Simple Woman’s Daybook. Otherwise, post seeds can be anything from comments on my blog to emails I get to things I see in the media upon which I think I should comment to stories that I think need to be told. Recently, I was getting some nasty comments (which were subjected to my Bloggess-inspired comment policy) left by a troll who refused to be banned so I flipped the nasty comments on their head and used them to talk about who I am as a pastor’s wife.

As far as NaNoWriMo goes, I have a static list of characters and places for the town in which I set my pieces. The characters are based on a mixture of people from previous parishes (good and bad) and occasionally characters who are seriously evil will be based solely on that person without being a composite of two irritating people. The saying, “truth is stranger than fiction” really is true and I’ve found that it is pretty hard to top some of the things people have done in churches where my husband Jon has served. If I know that there has been a big event in the life of a previous parish (anniversary celebration for the parish/wedding of VIP’s/death of prominent parishioner), I occasionally base a year’s piece around that.

Having said all that, here’s the really fun part: getting to introduce you to three people whose writing I love.

Amanda is simply an amazing woman. We met through one of the groups we’re part of online and the two of us have had some great conversations about Catholicism, me explaining aspects of Protestantism to her, and just everything in general. She has written a book called Worthy: See Yourself As God Does which is on my list of books to read and I also had the blessing and honor of watching her courtship with her husband whom she married on May 31st.

Amanda Amanda Sloan is a Belmont Abbey grad, theology nerd, and Director of Faith Formation at her home parish. She is a newlywed and mother-to-be, living in her home state of Colorado with her husband, who is a teacher. When she isn’t working or spending time with her husband, she blogs at worthy of Agape, promotes her book, and is a managing editor at Ignitum Today.

I got to know Hevel through the 7 Quick Takes on ConversionDiary.Com. The two of us have bonded over discussing religion, some politics, crocheting, and just life in general. He has a very unique family (which I can’t keep straight to save my life) and he keeps me updated on the doings of Harel Skaat. 🙂

HevelHevel is a second hand vegetarian, he only eats animals that are herbivores. He is dedicated to find the best kosher bacon replacement, living the immigrant life in Israel, raising a noisy, multilingual and multicultural family. He loves to crochet, cook, watch Doctor Who, and go to Harel Skaat concerts. The most important week after the high holy days for him is the week of the Eurovision Song Contest.

I discovered Claire only recently and I’m glad that I did. She’s about half my age but I find her writing on ethics, religion, and public policy to be pretty compelling even if I disagree from time to time. She starts college this fall and I can’t wait to see what adventures she has.

ClaireClaire is an opinionated 18-year-old living in Virginia and about to head off to college in DC. She converted to Catholicism in February and enjoys blogging from Laughing Joyously, where she has been subjecting the Internet to her eclectic ramblings for the last six months. In her free time, she likes catching up on all the books she didn’t get to read during high school, good-naturedly arguing with friends, and bothering her legislators.

They’ll be posting their thoughts on writing next week and I’ll link them to here when they do. I recommend you go and check all of them out!

The Type of Pastor’s Wife I Am

Posted on by

I’ve been dealing with a troll for the last couple of weeks who has been using a proxy server and Fake Mail Generator to get past my domain block of them. I’d link them and call them out except that doing so would drive traffic to their site and I’m against being used for free publicity like that. Besides, I really don’t have time to engage their desire to be persecuted by others and to feed their martyr complex.

Anyway, they started leaving me nasty comments several weeks ago (which got altered per my comment policy) and this was among them:

… You, on the other hand, appear to never be able to accept criticism or hear another’s perspective. Gawd – how do you ever manage to survive as a pastor’s wife… or is that why you have to move every couple of years?

Then there was:

Really? Because it seems to me as if you go out of your way to call people names, talk about them behind their back and then twist their words to mean other things. I’m guessing they ride you and your poor hubby out on a rail every couple of years. If there was ever a good example of why priests should remain celibate, you would be exhibit A!

Given that people are pretty surprised that I’m a pastor’s wife when they meet me in person, I thought I’d turn these comments on their head and answer as to what kind of pastor’s wife I am.

A quiet one.

One thing that surprises people who know me online when they meet me in person is how quiet I am. Part of it is that I’m pretty shy, part of it is that I’m a strong introvert, and part of it is that I tend to be pretty irenic as a rule. I have enough of a front row seat to conflict and dysfunction by virtue of being married to someone whose job is to sort it out and thus I really don’t desire to seek it out on my own. I’m also quite aware that I need to keep on peoples’ good sides because they pay my husband’s salary and provide our housing. Not pointing out hypocrisy means that I tend to stay out of trouble.

An invisible one.

The best thing I ever did was get a job 60 miles from home because it meant that I had an excuse not to be at every single church event. Now that I have Daniel, I really can’t go to everything or stay after a certain point because of him on the occasions when I do make it to a special church dinner or service. I’ve been asked frequently what I do as a pastor’s wife and the answer is: “be married to the pastor”. That’s it. There are some things I *like* doing and some areas which fit my gifts but I’m not a hugely visible presence these days.

A secret keeper.

I’m privy to a large amount of information because I’m married to Jon. Without trying, I hear from people about all the dirt happening in the parish because people either tell me or I overhear phone calls. I’ve had a number of people try to get me to spill on what I’ve heard about someone and my answer is usually that I know nothing about that and that I don’t want to know. Anything I hear stays with me unless it falls under the mandatory reporting category, at which point the proper authorities will be notified. (Jon is a mandatory reporter and I am by extension.)

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go pop some popcorn to eat while sitting back and watching my troll self-destruct. Later days, y’all!

7 Quick Takes: Answered Prayers, Cat Drama, and Science Geekery

Posted on by

7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Answered Prayers. Do you see the precious child on my sidebar? Yep… Brett. His adoption is fully funded now and his prospective parents are ecstatic. They head overseas later this month to meet him. I’ve been praying for this for two years now. My deepest thanks go to Becki who has loved him so incredibly much for these last two years, partnered her prayers with mine, and convened a panel of a bunch of us to find him a mama about two months ago. Girlfriend brought his FSP from $7612 to $14000 with her advocating for him and her networking. I’m grateful that she could succeed where I couldn’t.

— 2 —

Happy birthday, Nicholas! Dwija at House Unseen blogged about the first anniversary of her son Nicholas being born into Heaven. I unfortunately have at least a few blogging friends who have lost children and many of them never cease to surprise me in their joy, even on really painful days for them. This is one of those occasions.

— 3 —

Prerequisite baseball take. The Giants are one game behind the Dodgers and it popped up on my Twitter tonight that Lincecum was about to “no hit” the Padres again. I started obsessively refreshing Twitter and found nothing. It turns out that they weren’t playing tonight and the tweet was just letting people know that the specific game from this year was on CSN. Oh well… it was worth a shot. Hopefully, the Giants will flatten Miami and the Dodgers will start cellar-dwelling again so Jon can stop gloating.

— 4 —

Congratulations Marie and Brian! Mi amiga Marie of Catholic Coffee Talk is getting married this weekend in Ohio. Go leave her comments to congratulate her. Do it now!

— 5 —

Cat drama. On Tuesday night, I came in after sitting on the porch and talking to my mom on my cell phone to find out from my mother-in-law that Edda had sat at the door and meowed for me for a good 15 minutes. (Someone is a bit of a mama’s panther.) Last night, we had one cat fight after another with FOUL language uttered. Today, Freya went out and refused to come back in. We eventually ascertained that she was hiding under the water tanks and mother-in-law dispatched Jon with cat treats to go get her. No luck. She crawled under my car and after I got something to poke her out, she ran under the fence into the backyard. Eventually, I sat down 5 feet from her on the back steps and the little monster surrendered but it was unnerving, especially after she vanished for a day or two a few weeks ago.

I just went to go see if my in-laws’ orange tabby patch male cat Arthur (referred to by me as “the citrus cat”) was ready to come in and the Birman that adopted my in-laws decided to waltz into the house. He saw Edda and hissed at her but I informed him that proper Birmans do not use such language. (It’s a very strange cat-centric household.) He jumped up on one of the tables in the living room and allowed himself to be petted and cajoled into staying. (There is no doubt as to who the superior creature is here.)

**UPDATE** Arthur is in and the Birman went back outside after sitting and howling at the door for 5 minutes straight. (He’s an in/out cat and has so far escaped being eaten by something so I’m hedging my bets.)

— 6 —

Geekdom. In one of the black cat groups on Facebook, someone asked if our cats like boxes. Someone replied, “My cat is called Schrodinger!! OF COURSE SHE LIKES BOXES!!!”

I think my brain just exploded. #sciencegeek #catlover

— 7 —

Prayer request. If you’re following along with the whole “special intention” thing at home, keep praying and add on that I need help praying to forgive someone. Please and thank you. 🙂

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at ConversionDiary.Com.

7 Quick Takes: Sunburns, the State of Affairs in Israel, and Getting Brett Funded

Posted on by

7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Everything is fine. To those who emailed me about the strange comments on my last Quick Takes, everything is fine. Yes, fine. You might want to re-read my comment policy. (Hint.)

Also, thank you to everyone who emailed me and offered to go defend me on the other site. It would not have been appropriate (or needed) but I appreciate it nonetheless.

— 2 —

Get this kid fully funded! You know the precious boy on my sidebar? Yes, Brett.

Brett

He has a prospective mama and papa going to Eastern Europe to meet him. The problem: they need to be fully funded before they go. As I’m sitting here and typing this at 10:56 p.m. PDT on July 10th, they need $590 until his FSP reads $14,000 and they are fully funded. Can you help? Even $5 or $10 will do the trick. Click here to do so.

— 3 —

The O.C. Today, I headed down to Orange County to visit my sister-in-law and my incredibly cute nephew Patrick who is 13.5 months old. We met at the Beach Club and Lagoon by the lake in her town and it was pretty cool — the outer part was sandy like a beach but within a swimming pool. (Unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures.) While she and my father-in-law talked, I took Patrick for a “walk”. He’s at the stage where he’s pulling himself up on furniture and coasting along so I had him standing up with his feet on the ground and my hands holding onto his. He was able to confidently take some steps and when his mom wasn’t praising him, she got to (hopefully) have a decent conversation with her dad. It was fitting, given that I was sorting papers from the last three years into treatment/therapy/IEP binders yesterday and I came across all the PT notes from three years ago when Daniel was learning how to walk.

Daniel and Jon had an incredible time in the lagoon. I think the cutest part was when Daniel started splashing Jon and Jon started splashing him back.

— 4 —

Oooooooh burn! Anyone who has seen pictures of me (or knows me in real life) will attest to the fact that I’m incredibly fair-skinned with freckles. Since I moved back down to the land of endless heat, the place where I part my hair has been getting fried if I spend any measurable amount of time (say, 20 minutes) outside. I was amazed that it didn’t turn red and blister today. It might be because a.) I finally have enough of a tan there that it isn’t burning or b.) I sprayed it well with sunscreen. I’m leaning toward B myself.

— 5 —

Prayer request. Things have been moving along with the special intention y’all have been praying about since the end of January. I can’t talk about it but all I’ll say is that it’s an unexpected place and I’d appreciate it if you’d keep praying.

— 6 —

The sitch in Israel. My friend Hevel of Kosher Kola has been blogging about the situation in Israel… in person. He’s posted a few pictures showing the alert for rocket attacks against Tel Aviv. Say a prayer for his safety and the safety of those on BOTH sides of the conflict who are in danger of being civilian casualties.

— 7 —

Quiet weekend. I have no plans for the weekend other than hearing Jon supply-preach on Sunday. I’m kind of liking not having any plans – it makes things easier down here.

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at ConversionDiary.Com.

7 Quick Takes: Independence Day, GetRather.Com, and The News from Here

Posted on by

7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

A better way. Someone decided to send me Elena’s post on the recent Supreme Court decisions. (To those who are doing this: cut it out. I’ve got better things to do with my time and my energy than block you on here for trying to start a flame war.) Rather than expressing my true feelings on what she has to say (which I will just say are not complimentary to her), I thought I’d tell y’all about a better way that removes the issue entirely: go to GetRather.Com and download the version for your browser of choice. You can put in the terms you want to not see in your Facebook/Twitter feed (for example: Hobby Lobby, Tea Party, Abby Johnson, Matt Walsh, and Obamacare) and the app/add-on will either mute those specific statuses/tweets or replace them with something pleasant like pictures of cats. You’re welcome.

— 2 —

Orphans. Do you see this precious sweetling on my sidebar? Brett (the little boy on my sidebar) needs a mama. If you think you might be his mama, click on his picture with all possible speed. Currently, I’m crocheting a baby blanket to raffle off to raise money for his grant.

— 3 —

Read this. Hevel posted some pretty poignant Quick Takes related to the kidnap and murder of 3 Israeli teenagers by Hamas. I highly recommend reading them.

— 4 —

And while we’re at it… Can I just say to those who have published screeds on how Bowe Bergdahl is un-American because he *might* have deserted (it has not been definitively proven) that y’all suck? I mean, seriously, people are acting like they would have preferred that he shot himself which truthfully, he could have easily done given the level of depression and mental illness he was suffering. I’ve read accounts from both sides of the coin (both “right-leaning” and “left-leaning”) and the behavior described leading up to his disappearance was clearly suicidal behavior.

As tomorrow is Independence Day, I will definitely say that I’m glad to have a commander-in-chief who doesn’t leave anyone behind, regardless of how much crap people will give him for it.

— 5 —

Independence Day plans. There’s a festival and parade in the town where I’m living but it’s supposed to be 97F here so I’ll probably stay indoors until things cool down significantly in the evening. There are a number of civic fireworks displays visible from my in-laws’ porch so I’ll probably watch those. (I live in a tinderbox so setting off my own is soooooo not happening.)

— 6 —

Update on Freya. The day after her return, the little deviant jumped onto my father-in-law’s bed, chased his obese orange tabby patch cat Alyssa off the bed, chased her around the room and under the bed, and finally into the closet. Freya then cuddled up to my father-in-law, offered to help him eat his torta (as he was telling me this, her tail was on the dirty plate), and spent the day kissing up to him. She helped him nap, helped him with setting up some speech-to-text software (which now has commands for “Freya” and “meow”), and tried to supplant Alyssa at every turn. We are hypothesizing that her time away was for “plotting and conniving” rather than the “mental health day” suggested by my mother-in-law.

— 7 —

Show Kelsey some love. Jon’s cousin Kelsey is headed to Lithuania for a year as a missionary. She’ll be working at LCC International University as a residential director. If you’d like to show her some love, here is one of her fundraising updates.

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at ConversionDiary.Com.