Bingo With Grandma

I went to visit my grandma at the beginning of this week, or Mammaw as I call her. She is the only grandparent I have left, and this is the first time that I’ve gone by myself to visit – usually I tag along with my Mom and Dad. Mammaw will be 87 years old next week and she is still kickin’ it. Mammaw lives in a one bedroom apartment, has never driven a day in her life, and the highlight of her week is playing Bingo on Monday nights at the Knights of Columbus hall. She takes cabs to the grocery store, to the doctor, and yes, to Bingo. She loves puzzles and Sudoku, Drew Carrey on the Price is Right, tennis, football, and I learned this week that she is a huge Seinfeld fan! Mammaw loved my iPhone and kept telling everyone they should check out this little thing that tells me how to get around everywhere. I’m amazed at how she knows so much about what is going on in the world!

I think a lot of people don’t appreciate what we can learn from our grannies. We are so focused on moving forward and keeping up with the times that we forget about what people have experienced in the past and how that is important. People who have lived 87 years have seen a lot, know and understand a lot about life, and have a lot to share with us. I learned many things from Mammaw this past week.

In this age where so many people think they deserve things to be given to them, it is important to work for everything we want. Mammaw grew up in an orphanage and was working by the age of 16. She never went to high school. Today we would call that cruel. But Mammaw just knew that she wanted something beyond those orphanage walls, and if she didn’t work for it no one was going to hand it to her. (She also never dealt with credit cards or debt or anything like that either – you want it? You sell something you don’t want for the money or you work to make it happen!)

In this age where the feminists look down on women who stay home with their kids, I learned the value of being a SAHM (stay-at-home-mom for those of you who don’t know the mommy acronyms!). Mammaw jokes about how she worked for 25 years with no pay, no days off, and no vacations! How true that is! What a wonderful, tough job to stay home and raise kids! I feel blessed that my mom was able to work at home with us, and I hope I will be able to offer that gift to our children one day.

In this age where we want to take the easy road in relationships and dealing with family, I learned the importance of working through hard times and sticking with a hard situation to aim for the bigger picture. Mammaw had 4 children at home, all under school. Today 4 kids is a HUGE family – and for them all to be so close in age!! Mammaw knew that she wanted to be there for those kids and wanted to see them all go to college, so she worked through everything else that came along to make that happen. (And they did all go to college!)

It is not always easy to pick up the phone and call your grandparent, or even an older aunt or uncle. Sometimes they have complaints about their health or the situation they are in. But they have so much to share with us, so much wisdom that we can learned from. And they need our love too. While we are running from one event to the next, one dinner party to the next meeting, we forget that there are people in this world who are lonely. Some of our grandparents don’t have much else except the families they seen grow up and change. Pick up the phone and offer some love, you might get some great wisdom in return.

Back on the Blogging Wagon

Also named: New Year’s Resolutions

I’m not one to usually make New Year’s Resolutions. However, I have done 2 things today that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time, so I’m thinking maybe that is progress enough to feel confident to make a few resolutions. Let me start with what I’ve done today. First, I did some spiritual reading along with morning prayer this morning. I paid a whopping 99 cents for an app on my iPhone called iBreviary. It has the Divine Office (or Liturgy of the Hours) loaded on the for each day, so I decided to give it a whirl. Second, I finally peeled off 2 stickers inside my car that have been there since last summer. One was just the sticky from an old registration sticker, and the other was my 07-08 UD parking sticker (yes, it has been piled up with the 08-09 since August…).

Anywho, here’s a few things I’m thinking about sticking with this year:

1. I want to keep up with this blog! I seriously want to write 1-2x a week on here. I can’t believe it’s been since October since I’ve posted anything. I feel like such a slacker. I seriously got so wrapped up in writing for school that I didn’t think I had any more words. Really, I just didn’t make it a priority. Is anyone even still reading this thing? I promise, I will give you more, and more interesting, material!
2. I want to go get my allergy shot 2x a week. Random, I know. But, I have to wait 20 minutes each time I go, so I feel like it is such a chore! I was lucky to make it in 1x/week last fall. I want to do what I’m supposed to do to try to get rid of these allergy problems – and that means a 2x/week commitment!
3. I want to do more spiritual practices. I want to read more spiritual books. I want to go on a silent retreat at Montserrat. I want to do morning and evening prayer. The reading stuff may go out the window as soon as school starts back in two weeks, but maybe I can get into a routine between now and then. Plus, it will give me many more interesting things to share with you here!
4. I want pick out pictures and order my wedding album. It is already paid for as part of the package we got, but for many reasons I won’t list here we just haven’t done it. This seriously needs to be done before the end of this month!!
5. I want to organize my time better. That includes me getting up earlier in the morning – a struggle I have had all my life and will continue to have everyday. (this is something I did NOT do today...arg!)
   

Ok, so 5 resolutions. Not too bad. Do you have any to share? Any ideas to help me with any of mine?

Thanks for reading! Looking forward to writing more in 2009. :)

A New Widget

I added a new widget to my blog: Julie's Shared Blog Reads. It's on the right hand side in case you haven't seen it.

I do read quite a few blogs; on some of those blogs I read almost every post that is made. I subscribe to them through google reader, so I can just pull up that application and see all the new posts for my favorite blogs.

I can also share posts that I find interesting. Previously, only people who were also subscribed to google reader could see those posts I was sharing. Now it is available for the whole world to see!

So, keep an eye on that widget. I haven't found as much time recently to read blogs as I used to be able to (I wouldn't recommend taking 8 hours of grad school in one semester...). However, right now I do a bit more sharing of posts than writing my own...so I hope you will come back often to check that out and maybe you'll find some other blogs you like as well!

Peace and happiness to you all. :)

The Maze, Defined

Hello world,

After several months of thinking about this and brainstorming ideas, I’m finally writing my first blog post.

I don’t really think of myself as a writer (I am an accountant after all…well, for 8 more days…), but I’ve started writing more and more with the Masters in Theological Studies that I’m working on. Plus, I read all these other blogs and listen to podcasts, and I have started feeling like I need an outlet to share what I learn with other people. Then I was finally convinced to give this a shot when I had 2 people in one week tell me I should write a book! (Side note: seriously?? A whole book?? You people are crazy.)

So, when I was trying to come up with a name for this blog, I spent quite a bit of time reflecting on my life and what my approach to life has been. I realized that my life has been a series of turning corners, or making changes… the family moves as I was growing up, going to college, several job changes, getting married, deciding to go into ministry, and many others. At each corner, I never completely knew what I was going to find around the turn.

Sometimes the turn would lead me down a long, successful path, other times the turn led to a dead end. Occasionally, I would think about making a turn and decide to continue going straight ahead, and other times I would hope for a turn to appear yet it would never show up. Sometimes I wasn’t able to control the corner I had to turn – the family moves, being laid off from a job; however, usually I was making the decision about turning left or turning right. I would do research, consult with family and friends, think about it and weigh the options before deciding.

And always, always, there was a LOT of praying involved.

All of this process, both the praying AND the research and consultation, was rooted in my faith in God. I always know that He has a plan for me, but I’m the one on the journey trying to live out that plan the best I can. I’m the one taking the step around the corner to see what happens, seeing if that step I take falls on firm ground or unstable ground.

And God is my flashlight, the God that I know through my Catholic faith. Sometimes He is immediately warning me about a dead end around a turn, sometimes illuminating a turn or a path that I didn’t know existed, and sometimes simply telling me to take a few more steps forward to something that will help me see better around the corner.

Is God your flashlight as well? What are the batteries – people, research, experience – that power your flashlight as you are trying to turn a corner in your life? How do you let God speak to you and show you the light that you need to make decisions?

Thanks for reading. I’ll try to update this often, so I hope you check back! Some days I may reflect on something, other days I may just post some links to interesting articles/blogs/podcasts that I come across. Hope you enjoy!