Category Archives: Personal Issues

How I Pray

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Yes, I am technically writing this on Saturday and backdating it to Friday. Yes, I stink at doing Lent. Oh well.

As I am trying to figure out what to write about each day, I thought I would talk about some of the prayer resources I use in the event that people need something.

Also… I am an Amazon affiliate, so there will be Amazon affiliate links in this post.

So… here is what I like.

[+] Pray As You Go: This is what I mainly use right now. They give you some beautiful sacred music and a guided reflection based on Scripture. You can listen on the website, download it onto your computer, or get each day’s devotion on iTunes. I’m mostly listening on my laptop at 7 a.m. while I wait for my oatmeal to cool, but I’ve also listened in the car and it was my go-to when I lived in Montana and had an hour-long commute to and from work.

[+] Sacred Space: My best friend Rebecca introduced me to them 21 years ago. It’s guided reflections and they also have a prayerbook you can buy and keep on your e-reader.

[+] Devotional pamphlets: I used to use Our Daily Bread for 20 years, and I stopped using it in 2016 for reasons… which was also when I stopped praying as much. My church distributes Forward Day by Day, which is what we use on the occasions I actually make it to Mary’s Guild on Wednesday mornings. I based the Lenten devotional books around the format of these two. (If you want to download a copy of it, go here.)

[+] The Jesus Prayer: This is how I get through painful medical procedures. It’s simply “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” I also do this a lot while I’m doing things like stripping the sheets off of my bed, cooking something that takes a long time, and on the drive home from Trader Joe’s in Bellingham. (That last one started when Daniel was being difficult on one trip up there, and I found that it calmed me so much that I made it a habit.) I find that things come into my mind to pray about when I do it.

[+] Extemporaneous prayer: Anyone who has ever spent time with me in a work environment has seen me randomly cross myself. It’s usually when I find out about someone who really needs prayer… so I pray for them. 🙂 It is also what I am doing as part of my kneeling prayers during Lent.

[+] Daily Devotions from the Book of Common Prayer: Again, anyone who has spent time with me at the college has seen me do this. I used to do it a lot while sitting in the hallway waiting for my Accounting class to start during my first year there. I had one person freak out because they thought I was in a trance and when I whispered “praying”, they got super apologetic. 🙂 Almost all of my classmates knew I prayed for them, and a number of my students know as well… and it’s actually been something really positive because it has started some interesting conversation and many of them have prayed for me during health crises. I have the BCP app on my phone, so I just use that.

7 Quick Takes: Booted Edition

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Explaining the title. I sprained my foot and then proceeded to be my peripatetic self for two weeks until it got excruciatingly painful to put weight on it. So… I went to Urgent Care last Friday, got an x-ray done, and they put me in a walking boot. I asked if they couldn’t just show me how to tape it up, and the provider looked at me like I was crazy. (I am, but that’s not the point.)

So… I’ve been in the boot for about a week now and it’s helping me to not make it worse. It has also led to my priest calling me “Stumpy” (no, I didn’t kick him), one of my choir members teasing me about fighting him for the last pancake on Tuesday (I didn’t), and my evil twin commenting that I got “booted” for having unpaid parking tickets. Hmph.

My boot.

— 2 —

Dress funnies. I woke up at 9:02 on Tuesday and had to be at the clinic for my appointment at 9:20. I hurriedly tossed on a dress and my fitness leggings, put a sock on my booted foot, shoved my foot into the boot, limped downstairs, put a dress shoe on my non-booted foot, and managed to make it out of the house by 9:10. I arrived at the clinic with coffee at 9:17. 😀 (My former mother-in-law used to joke that I could go from “zero to car” in 4 minutes… which is kind of accurate.)

However, I stunned my parents by wearing a dress on a day other than Sunday, and one of my co-tutors barked at me for wearing a dress on a day when I wasn’t on campus. I am now required to provide 24 hours notice to her if I plan to wear a dress so she can witness this. (I did send her a picture.)

My dress from Tuesday.

— 3 —

Forsythia. My grandmother used to bring forsythia from her garden to church during this time of year before Lent started, so I brought some last Sunday in her memory. Mom picked it and forced it along toward opening. Those who knew Grandma and Grandpa loved it.

Forsythia.

— 4 —

Facing my fears. Before worship yesterday, I asked our musician (who normally sings tenor in the choir) if he needed help with music during Communion. He said that he’d be happy to have me sing with him because it meant that I could sing in English and he could sing simultaneously in Spanish… which is how I ended up cantoring “I Am the Bread of Life” with him and inadvertently facing my fear of singing by myself in public. I now have no excuse not to take my own cantoring part in the Great Litany on Sunday… maybe.

My #ashtag.

— 5 —

Elizabeth Warren. She appeared on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert and the videos are hysterically funny. It’s so good to see a candidate with a sense of humor. I’m sure she wouldn’t boycott the White House Correspondents Dinner like 45 has.

— 6 —

WTAF?!?!?!? This just infuriates me.

— 7 —

Kelly’s Lent. Girlfriend is crazy. Her Lenten list is here.

For more Quick Takes, visit Kelly at This Ain’t The Lyceum.

Kneeling

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Most of my readership is devoutly Catholic, so kneeling in church is normal for y’all. It is, however, not for a lot of Christians, and it can make me a bit self-conscious to be the only one kneeling on occasion.

When I came to faith as a teenager, it was normal in my church, so I honestly didn’t think anything of it. Then, I spent time in a bunch of ELCA and AALC parishes where anything remotely Catholic was weird. (This is not a denomination-wide thing, at least in the ELCA. It’s a matter of congregational culture.) When I was pregnant with Daniel and afterward, I did a lot of sitting due to fatigue and sometimes back pain, so I got out of the habit of kneeling.

In 2014, I went back to the Episcopal Church and it was put on my heart to kneel for the confession of sin. My parish at the time had the choir leading music from the back and we were in chairs, not pews, and our chairs did not give us a place to kneel in front. I would self-consciously take a knee in the style of Colin Kaepernick or I would walk to one of the chairs in the back and kneel there. My self-conscious feelings changed when I was helping with contemporary worship one month when one of the guitarists and his wife also went to one of the chairs in the back and knelt with me.

Another thing that impacted me during this time was watching the fathers of young kids in the congregation (some of whom were my age) go to the kneelers in front of the bank of candles and kneel there with their kids. I’m normally a people watcher, and I will admit that it warmed my heart to see this, especially as I could tell it was having an effect on the kids. It definitely lowered my feelings of self-consciousness.

At my current parish, the people I sit with normally are totally used to it and are totally fine when I tell them that I’m about to drop the kneeler. They’re so used to it, in fact, that they put it down for me. 🙂 I find that it is actually really helpful for my faith to have different prayer positions, and I am really happy to be part of a church who is completely respectful of me doing what works best for me.

7 Quick Takes: Things I Will *NOT* Give Up For Lent Edition

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7 Quick Takes

Lent starts for those of us in the West next Wednesday at midnight. Here are some things that I will *NOT* give up for Lent this year.

— 1 —

Coffee. My Lenten discipline should be penitential for *ME*, not everyone around me. It’s also a safety risk for those who have to interact with me.

— 2 —

YouTube. I need entertainment, OK?

— 3 —

Yarn. Let’s not deprive me of one of my stress releases, y’all.

— 4 —

My iPod. Again, let’s not make me get rid of one of my stress releases. Singing along to it in traffic keeps me from inflicting my road rage on others.

— 5 —

Sleep. I do this enough already!

— 6 —

Swearing. I’d be broke within the first day of having a swear jar for Lent. (I’m pretty sure my students would have a pool going as to which hour this was going to go down.)

— 7 —

Pens. I have a little bit of a pen addiction…

For more Quick Takes, visit Kelly at This Ain’t The Lyceum.

7 Quick Takes: Long Time, No Write Edition

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Just a head’s up that there may/may not be Amazon affiliate links in this post because I am an Amazon affiliate.

Good news regarding the kid. We saw Daniel’s actual G-I specialist instead of just her PA this week for the first time in 18 months, and she was giddy to see him with actual weight on him. Kiddo was 59.96 lbs at weigh-in (we’re going to say 60 lbs because 0.04 lbs is basically the difference of a cup of milk), and he is now 4’7.5″ tall. I’m 5’1″, so kiddo needs to knock it off with getting taller!

— 2 —

Cleanse this weekend. His G-I specialist did feel a bowel blockage, so we “get” to do a cleanse this weekend in the form of senna and lots of Miralax dissolved into apple juice. I’m giddy… NOT.

— 3 —

A song I have had in my head lately. I’m working on my church’s Lenten devotional book and the name is “Agape”, so the following has been stuck in my head.

— 4 —

Update on the perimenopausal dysphoria. I saw my doctor about it a little over 2 weeks ago, and she put me (the girl who can’t get pregnant except involving an angel and the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit along with miraculously regrowing three organs) on birth control because she had never had a patient go into menopause this early and the thing she’d give me for the dysphoria is already a medication I take. It seems to be helping… when I’m not hitting grief wells inside of me because of my writing subjects for the Lenten devotional book and my students aren’t triggering PTSD-related panic attacks. (Yeah, that day was a freaking joy. My therapist had never seen me cry before my appointment that next day.)

— 5 —

Slacker mom Valentines. Are your kids in school for the first time and having to do Valentines for their class? Here’s the slacker mom way: address labels + a template from Avery.Com + appropriate fruit snacks = Valentines for everyone in 10-15 minutes. You’re welcome.

Slacker mom Valentines

— 6 —

Early morning panther selfies. Now that I’m usually up early and praying, I tend to acquire a needy panther who thinks it should be a “stay home and snuggle your panther” day. (He got one today because my morning student canceled.) This leads to some interesting selfies where my eyes aren’t fully open yet.

Early morning panther selfies.

— 7 —

Gifts from my grandfather. My grandpa sends me rainbows from heaven when I really need to know everything will be OK. This week has been no exception.

Rainbows from my grandpa.

For more Quick Takes, visit Kelly at This Ain’t The Lyceum.

New Password for Posts

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I’m feeling a desire to talk about some things in passworded posts, but my life has changed enough that I am not fully comfortable using the old password. Thus, passworded posts from here on out will have a new password. If you want it, get in touch with me and I’ll make a decision on whether you get it or not. This is not in order to create some kind of exclusive club, but it is rather to make sure that only those I trust with the information can have it.

7 Quick Takes: OMG I’m Hosting!!!!!!! Edition

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7 Quick Takes

Our intrepid hostess Kelly of This Ain’t The Lyceum has her hands a bit full, so she asked if I could host this week. My response: SURE!

So, who exactly am I? Well…

— 1 —

I’m a blogger. This July will mark 20 years of blogging. All but maybe 2-3 months of archives are here if you ever get bored one night and want to read them. Warning: I get a little verbose on occasion.

— 2 —

I am the mama of a special kiddo. My son is Daniel and he has a genetic abnormality called 22q duplication (in addition to others) that manifests in autism, ADHD, developmental delays, mild/moderate hearing loss, and a few other things.

I am also the servant of a magnificent panther named Minion.

— 3 —

I am a $tarbux junkie. My local $tarbux baristas know me so well that they start making my drink when I walk in the door if I haven’t mobile-ordered it already and me changing my milk preference is causing a great deal of shock. (They’ve re-made it a few times with apologies and expressed shock that it was supposed to be the way it was mobile-ordered.)

— 4 —

I am a tutor. I currently tutor all the Accounting and OBT classes at Skagit Valley College. I joke that my job is to teach people how not to crash their Microsoft applications and how to love Accounting. (I was sitting next to my priest at coffee hour one time when I said that, and he made the Sign of the Cross on me before saying, “bless you, child.”)

— 5 —

I am a proud Episcopalian. I sing in my church‘s choir, serve as a lector, help with the Facebook and web presences, serve on the Finance Committee, and edit the Advent and Lenten devotional books.

— 6 —

I am a 49’ers fan. I root for the SeaChickens when they aren’t playing the Niners, but I am OVERJOYED that they shredded the Packers and are headed to the Super Bowl.

— 7 —

I am a Giants fan. I gleefully root against the LA Dodgers Losers whenever possible.

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