oh, bother…a star is born!

My fluff-stuff this week is a memory-go-round replaying for me.  Sweet thoughts spinning around of precious moments spent together in our family of 5. At the time the tale began our children were little and growing into professional ‘pester-ers’ of one another! They were probably each 9, 7 1/2, and 5 1/2 years old at the time, but they easily could have been giving lessons to other aspiring pester-jesters & received quite a performance fee with the skills they would have shared with their peers! (Luckily, their booking-agent came up with a better skill-set for them to potentially share with the world!) Their performances often seemed to begin just about an hour or so before bedtime.  If we were lucky the performance bear-ly made it past the first act; however, in growing frequency, they seemed to work the act all the way through to an encore!   My cuppy-cake & I quickly became very oh-botherly-bothered! oh-bother We grew weary ending the night on such a deflated note…so, about that time is when “Our 3 Most Favorite Things” became the new show to arrive in town, (or at least in our home!)  Let me set the scene:  Gathering the kids together in (one of) their bedrooms for nightly prayer we would first say together the Guardian Angel Prayer:

Angel of God, my guardian dear.  To whom God’s love, commits me here.  Every day, be at my side.  To light, to guard, to rule and guide.  Amen.

Immediately following we would then each take a turn to share with one another what Our 3 Most Favorite Things of the Day were. Opening Night was a smash hit! And for many seasons following!  Even on the rare nights, if any pester-jestering resurfaced, it only took the mere mention of canceling the show, or escorting said heckler from the room and this deterred any continued/repeat behavior.  Our children looked not only forward to sharing their own 3 Most Favorite Things of the Day; but just as much, if not more so, in listening to what each other would share were theirs!  Of course the answers were rarely ever “grand,” but they were amazing! (If only to us.) Like: “Wearing my Steeler shirt to school today.” Or, “Trading my apple for a cupcake at lunch.” Or, “Letting the lizard out of it’s cage at pre-school. Maybe tomorrow we will find him!”  (Silly, ol’ Jare-Bear.) The memory-go-round for all of this began when I saw a blogging event posted by fellow blogger Nerd in the Brain.  A fun blog, I instantly loved her blog event which she created titled: three-things-thursday-spreading-happiness1 All of this has been like a re-run-re-union.  Like the Brady Bunch reunion episode, or Gilligan leaves the Island. Thursdays henceforth, (at least this one,) shall  be for-me a time to re-examine all God has given me to be grateful for. I’m quite sure I can think together 3 blessings to give praise for…even in this head of fluff and stuff!

Photo courtesy of Winnie the Pooh Friendship Gallery
Photo courtesy of Winnie the Pooh Friendship Gallery

3hugs&blessings i give today for:

my friend Tina (who is not a llama,) air-popped popcorn shared with my cuppy-cake, & the potential new baby grand-daughter  we may welcome into our family this summer!

And it’s A Year of…Mercy!

Photo courtesy Vatican Radio
Photo courtesy Vatican Radio

It’s Wednseday!

And it’s my day to reflect on The Divine Mercy of God!

And I am…

Jumping with Joy!

Papa made the best announcement recently & my heart is still over the moon giddy!  It’s been so thumpity-thumping, over-joyed pumping, that my rib-cage feels bruised.  (Well not really, but that’s a pretty good word-exaggeration to give you an indicator of just how HAPPY I am!) Pope Francis (Papa) announced on Friday, March 13, 2015 that next year will be an extraordinary jubilee year dedicated to mercy!   

Pope Francis will make the formal announcement on April 12th which is Divine Mercy Sunday!!

“Dear brothers and sisters, I have thought about how the Church can make clear its mission of being a witness of mercy,” Catholic News Agency (CNA) reported. “It’s a journey that starts with a spiritual conversion. For this reason I have decided to declare an Extraordinary Jubilee that has the mercy of God at its center. It will be a Holy Year of Mercy.”

Luke 6:36, “Be merciful as your Father is merciful,” will be the verse for the year!

“I am convinced that the whole Church will be able to find in this Jubilee the joy of rediscovering and making fruitful the mercy of God, with which we are all called to give consolation to every man and every woman of our time,” CNA quotes the pontiff, adding that he then entrusted the Holy Year to Mary, Mother of Mercy.  You can read even more at the Catholic Beat.

As Pope Frances wrote in Evangelii Gaudium: “The Church must be a place of mercy freely given, where everyone can feel welcomed, loved, forgiven and encouraged to live the good life of the Gospel.”

I have been dancing the Divine Mercy Dance, body and soul, (another great visual) ever-since learning of this!

And I can just imagine how smile-face-happy St. Faustina would be!

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Smilin’ St. Faustina (Helen) Kowalska!

“Oh most Holy Tinity! As many times as I breathe, as many times as my heart beats, as many times as my blood pulsates through my body, so many thousand times do I want to glorify Your Mercy!”  -St. Faustina

St. Faustina also wrote in her Diary:

“Today, my soul is preparing for the coming of the Lord, who can do all things, who can make me perfect and holy. I am preparing very carefully for His reception, but there arose the difficulty as to how to present this to Him?  I rejected it (this difficulty) at once.  I will present it as my heart dictates.”  – entry, 1825

May we each begin today to prepare our own hearts for the coming of this beautiful year in the Church, a Holy Year of Mercy! 

I know Helen already is!

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Our Helen is smiling too!

hugs n’ blessings!