A few pictures of my parish church

Our parish church was painted recently. But before the painting took place, several pictures of the inside were taken during the mission that was held around Memorial Day. Over the next few posts, I would like to share a few with you.





Two views of the ceiling of the church. The ceiling was recently cleaned during the painting of the curch. The walls of the sacristy are now a creamy white with a tint of green.



This is the stained glass window in the choir loft. This is illuminated at night and can be seen from the street.



This is the window that depicts Our Lady of Czestochowa. Our parish was begun as a mission parish that ministered to the Polish immigrants almost 100 years ago. While a good number of our parishioners are of Polish descent, we are now a parish that represents a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds.

I will post more photos later.

The right choice

Blogging has been put on the back burner for a week or so. During this time we spent two days at the University that my son will be attending in the fall for freshmen orientation. It was a wonderful experience. I must say that I feel that my son has definitely made the right choice for his college education.

The college selection process is so much different than when I was was in his shoes some almost thirty years ago. The competition is so much tougher and so much is expected of these young men and women that I can see where they can become so stressed.

First comes the choice of high school classes that they must make. Between honors classes, advanced placement classes and a wide variety of elective courses that they must choose from. When I was in high school, I was in honors math which meant that my math class was the same ones that the class ahead of me was taking and it was certainly not of college level. We had no such thing as AP courses for which we could possibly earn college credit.

The SAT test was only math and verbal and scoring over a thousand meant that you could attend almost any school you wanted, except for maybe the Ivy league schools. Plus, there were virtually no SAT prep courses - most of us took the test with little to no preparation except to make sure that we had about a half a dozen no. 2 pencils with sharpened points.

Scholarships were few and far between and I don't remember any one who was awarded one. While I was probably about as good a student as my son, I was offered no scholarships, while my son was offered almost $150,000 in academic scholarships.

Orientation was only for students when I went to school. I remember being dropped off at school one day and picked up the next and my parents were not involved in orientation at all. But I must say that I think that having the parents more involved is definitely better. Of course, times have changed and there are so many more issues that kids must deal with and I think that they really need the support of their parents. The competition is so much more fierce, the lure of drugs and alcohol is much stronger and the cost of the education is so much higher that I think that parents need to be more aware of what is going on at the campus.

I must say that the school that my son will be attending provided both parents and students with a great overview of the school both academically and socially and reinforced that the choice made was indeed the best for our son.

A thief in my garden!

I have a thief in my vegetable garden. And I know who it is. It is my dog Maxie, the pea pod thief.

Maxie is a big fan of most vegetables and one of her favorites is sugar snap peas. She has discovered that when the vines get too tall for the trellis, they fall over and this is her cue to help herself to all the peas on the vines. She has even figured out how to distinguish between the vines and the peas, as she spits the vines and leaves out and eats only the peas. When she is out in the back yard and cannot be seen, just look behind the row of arborvitae where the vegetable garden is hidden from the pool area and there you will find Maxie, munching on peas!

Not much to blog about

It's been a week since I've blogged, but mostly since I haven't had much to say. It's been relatively quiet at our house. About the most exciting thing going on has been putting the completed laundry room back together. Other than that, I have been drowning in a sea of ironing which I have been tackling a few pieces at a time.

I'm it!

Barb, my riverfront friend, has tagged me with a "New and improved 4 x 2 meme. "

Here are the rules: Share four things that were new to you in the past four years. Four things you learned or experienced or explored for the first time in the past four years. Then share four things you want to try new in the next four years.

Four New Things in the Past Four Years:

1) My son started and graduated from high school. He is my only child, this was big event in our lives.

2) Menopause - it said new, not necessarily good things!

3) I had my first massage and boy am I hooked. Although getting one is a real treat, I enjoy them when I can indulge. A good massage is like heaven on earth.

4) I got hooked on the show 24. A friend introduced me to it by loaning me the first two seasons on DVD and now I only watch it on DVD, so I have to be patient and wait for each season to be complete and for it to be released on DVD. Patience is not one of my better traits.


Four Things in the Next Four Years:

1) I hope to get into better shape with better eating habits and working out with a personal trainer.

2) I would like to beat my tennis partner just once - I know this is a stretch, but one can hope and one must have a goal!

3) I would like to learn to speak and understand Spanish. I took one year in high school and two semesters in college, but I can only remember a few phrases.

4) I would like to ski out west. I am not a good skier, but we haven't had such great winters for skiing in the east, so I would like to go west to learn to ski better!

I now tag the following souls:

Fr. Daren, my favorite blogging priest, in spite of the fact that he likes Dr.Pepper!
Jeffrey Smith, with whom I trade comments with on Fr. Daren's blog.
Thom, whose defense of Mt.Dew is admirable.

Graduation Day

Last night was graduation night for our son. It was a wonderful evening and we are so proud of him.

One of my two brothers, who is the Godfather, and his daughter traveled from Texas to be with us along with my parents. Our good friends, Sister R and Sister C, who spent many years at our parish, joined us for lunch, but unfortunately, Sister R became ill and they could not join us for the graduation.

The weather cooperated and the thunderstorms held off until we returned home. The ceremony was beautiful and we were honored to have our Bishop in attendance. The class was the smallest in the school's history as there was a chance of the school closing right before he entered. But 172 students and their trusting parents took the chance and registered and with the help of the Bishop, the school has survived and is flourishing.