Thanksgiving

So thanksgiving morning I wake up and decide to check the time... finding my alarm off, I check my cell; 6:20am... funny my alarm should have gone off by now... turns out there's no electricity anywhere...


Just darkness..

So we made breakfast (meaning cold cereal and hot coffee from stove top). Meanwhile, Mark is filleting the Salmon and cutting up the turkey, in case it needs to be cooked on the stovetop as this power outage was unexpected... after offering my help, Mark sends me home after breakfast, as others are coming in... I head home to sleep before I have to be back to help out with Thanksgiving dinner... as I get home the power goes on... I can imagine that Mark is thankful as well as everyone else.

When I wake up I go and help setup for dinner...

Later on, we have a wine/cheese/pate course served in the gallery (130) prior to dinner (200).

(Angelo, Gowri and Legend)




Devon, our kitchen help extraordinaire.




Marc (little Marc) and me

Cold Leftovers for 6pm dinner...

JP2 Music

JP2's life is going to be featured in a new "Trip hop trance" music video...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article2858937.ece (apparently produced by St. Paul Multimedia from the Vatican and created by a British Agnostic.)

Anglican hope

An Anglican Bishop (http://closedcafeteria.blogspot.com/2007/11/episcopal-bishop-joins-catholic-church.html) has joined the Catholic Church... (the first that I've heard of recently, though most likely not the only one who has) Also, the Pope is calling a meeting to discuss the rising influx of Anglicans joining the Catholic Church... All because we've kept to the Truth for so long and so unwaveringly so.
(http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article2926365.ece) Apparently, a traditionalist group of Anglicans has as a whole approached the Pope... reminding me when the Queen (of england) approached JP2 about the Anglican's troubles over a decade ago.

I pray that the Anglicans become the first in a series of Christians who seek and succeed in full reunification.

Winterizing and Baptism

Yesterday I did two interesting things...

One, I went and did my laundry and talked to a guy at the thrift shop about faith (the shop is run by an international rehab ministry). We talked about original sin and baptism, talked about obedience to the elders and just general faith. It was the most uplifting time I've had here yet... and made me miss having the community I had in Louisiana... where things like that were daily.
while look up baptism today in Canon Law I came across something saddening (because of what state a person would be in to receive baptism) and yet really loving and hopeful (because of the power of the sacrament and what it would prepare the person for... the loving arms of Christ).

Can. 871 If aborted fetuses are alive, they are to be baptized insofar as possible.

It's interesting to me that the people "ARE TO BE" and not "should be".

The other interesting thing was winterizing my house... As you can see it was successful...


yet apparently I was distracted... I'll be staring at that screw driver for 6 months now... but it'll be funny.

God bless!

Blizzard

So several days ago... (Friday) I had to wake up early to cover someone's shift... and to my chagrin, I discovered it was snowing... though at that early hour of 6 and a half, the ground was not covered, so I expected it to end... but no. It kept snowing for most of the first half of the day, depositing about an inch of snow which is still here, in the first official snowfall.

And yes, one inch does not constitute a blizzard, but...
As you can tell by my face, the wind and snow was brisk...
That's the red mill... the first floor is the gallery, kitchen and dining hall.


The diagonal white lines are snow...

Mary's and God's Love

When I was visiting Medjugorge,
I heard this story about one of the visionaries

My friend was visiting with the visionary and having a good conversation with a few other friends

when the visonary's child came around

(toddler)

(of 5)

and started acting up and misbehaving

being really annoying and disrespectful

the visionary took no notice of it

until the very worst the child became

at which point she embraced the child

and showered him with kisses

then she asked him "is that better?"

he said no

then he pointed to a few places and said "here"

and she kissed him there

then he went of contentedly

she then said

this is how our Mother treats us

when we misbehave

she showers us with love and graces

(so that we know we are loved)

Hiking up Prospect Rock

the last two days I've had the luxury of being outside... its been a bit warmer (just above freezing)... yesterday I went on a bike ride which resulted in my mountain bike being out of commission due to a broken pedal... and we weren't even off road! (I was climbing a dirt road and right at the top the pedal broke off, stripping the threads off of the crank arm... turns out that that was the last climb and the rest was all down hill, but not knowing that I went to a tree, took 10 mins to tear off a limb and then stuck it into the hole to sub as a pedal... )

And today Sara, Devon and I went hiking up to prospect rock... it was a FAST ascent, with me almost getting dropped a few times... but I hung on... and breathing heavily made it to the top. Where in the 34 degree weather I stripped to my tshirt because I was sweating and overheating...


Climbing... almost out of breath...

Ah... the view at the top...




The view when you sit... sometimes more beautiful than looking far, is looking at what is near at hand..

Me, Sara and Devon on our descent and the end of the hike.

Trip to the shrine...

Michelle came up this past week for a few days, and we visited the St. Joseph shrine in Montreal... it was fun and great... It was also really nice to pray with Michelle by my side instead of on the phone.
It takes 2 hours from Johnson to Montreal... but this time it took 3... while I was on the computer looking up maps, Michelle *ehm* missed the turn off I told her to look out for... so we ended up in Burlington... okay, so maybe we both were a bit spacey that morning.

Canada is a beautiful place... it's like Iowa only North and French and has really good food.

Blessed Brother Andre was the doorkeeper of a monastery in Montreal who had a dream of building a Majestic church for St. Joseph, which became the St. Joseph oratory. Michelle is getting a blessing from Brother... yesh she's a nut.

St. Joseph! There was one statue that Br. Andre put into the church while it was being built but had no roof... saying that "if St. Joseph wants a roof he'll get a roof" almost exactly a year later the roof was completed... that particular statue is also in the Oratory near Br. Andre's heart... and that statue is quite weathered.

:-)

Who is that wide mouthed-dragon with my girlfriend?
Michelle wanted to take a few photos of me...
My favourite. :-)
So I invite you all to a brief montage of my life with Michelle starting with Michelle in her purse.

Followed by Michelle in Purse.

And Michelle in purse again...
And Michelle looking for her dinner, in purse...

And Michelle shaking hands with the minuscule purse goblin.

halloween party

Reid and I had a HBHW party that's Halloween, Birthdays, House Warming party...

So I decorated...



notice the rows of wine glasses in the background... we had maybe 5-6 times as many glasses... I was given them by the women at my church after the end of the rummage sale (they would have been trashed otherwise).



Le coup de grâce.

It was a fun night.