Only one more month

Wow, I can' believe that it is the end of July already. It just hit me today that in 30 days, my son will be eighteen and three days after his birthday he goes off to college. It seems like only yesterday I was beating the heat while pregnant and awaiting his birth. And suddenly, he is all grown up and ready to fly away from the nest. Where has the time gone?

At the beginning of the summer, his birthday and college seemed so far off. Especially since his graduation was June 1st, very early for graduation in this part of the country. I looked at the summer and thought about the three months that would have to pass until he went to school. And now it is only one month.

I have been doing my best to prepare for his leaving. Emotionally, I think I am ready. Don't get me wrong, I will miss him. He's my favorite person to watch classic comedy movies with - movies like "My Cousin Vinny" and "Office Space" and anything Monty Python. He But he is a mature young man and is very ready to move on with his life. And physically, let's just say I have been enjoying shopping for things for his dorm room. I may be denied the annual trip to buy notebooks and pens and pencils and crayons and all things "Back to School," but I made up for it by buying sheets and pillows and comforters and towels. I think we will make one shopping trip to the outlets to buy some clothes as this is the first time he will not be wearing a uniform. Of course, I am beginning to think we will need a truck to move every thing, but thankfully, our good friends live only 15 minutes from campus and have agreed to hold out of season things for him.

His dad on the other hand, well, I think our son leaving home will be a little more difficult on him. They share a love of old cars and watching the Discovery and History channels together. On Saturday's, when our son isn't working, they enjoy running errands together and stopping some place for lunch. I know dad will shed a few tears as we pull away from campus.

So, I will enjoy the rest of the summer and cherish every minute I spend with my son. Even when we argue!

The Jersey Girls

Esther has published a post about the Jersey Girls that blog. And Esther lives in Hawaii, although she lived in NJ for some years.

I must admit that I am not a native Jersey girl. I was born in Pennsylvania, near Valley Forge, and live there until I was twenty five. After two years of commuting from the western suburbs of Philadelphia to Southern NJ to work, I decided it was time to move out of my parents home and be on my own. What made the decision even easier was that the Schuylkill Expressway (or as we call it the Surekill Distressway) was being repaired and resurfaced and the commute became a nightmare.

Shortly after I moved to NJ, about 6 months after I moved, I met this great guy and we started to date. The only challenge was that he was from North Jersey. And if you know any thing about NJ, you know that the northern and southern parts of the state are like two different countries - kind of like the Hatfields and McCoys. Fortunately, this great guy was willing to marry me and relocate to that foreign country to the south - Southern New Jersey.

Any way, back to the topic. I propose that we Jersey Girls get together some time for coffee and chat. I have already met Barb and for two people who didn't know each other, we managed to spend two hours chatting at a local diner. So how about it Jersey Girls - are we up for some coffee talk?

I'm outta my mind

Your Superpower Should Be Mind Reading

You are brilliant, insightful, and intuitive. You understand people better than they would like to be understood. Highly sensitive, you are good at putting together seemingly irrelevant details. You figure out what's going on before anyone knows that anything is going on! Why you would be a good superhero: You don't care what people think, and you'd do whatever needed to be done Your biggest problem as a superhero: Feeling even more isolated than you do now

What Should Your Superpower Be?

I feel like I have some kind of theme going on here. Between the smarty pants rating I got on the quiz and this mind reading superpower, I guess it just confirms my nerd status.

Make that a plain old nerd (see previous post)

You Are a Plain Ole Cup of Joe

But don't think plain - instead think, uncomplicated You're a low maintenance kind of girl... who can hang with the guys Down to earth, easy going, and fun! Yup, that's you: the friend everyone invites. And your dependable too. Both for a laugh and a sympathetic ear.

What Kind of Coffee Girl Are You?

Okay, so I am not the flashy, make a million designing computers kind of nerd. Just a plain old coffee drinking girl. But I like my java with flavored creamer - Toffee Nut is the best.

Apparently I'm a nerd

I am smarter than 99.30% of the rest of the world.
Find out how smart you are.

I saw the link to this quiz at SFO Mom and decided to take it. I was a decent student in school, but I guess I paid attention better than I thought.

Woo-hoo! I made the paper

My diocese has been conducting a study of the parishes in the area of county that I live in that will result in the consolidation of several parishes. This was already done in another area of the diocese a few years ago and I am sure that this will continue until the entire diocese has been reviewed.

One of the reasons that the consolidation is being done is that in about 25 years, our diocese is projected to have only about 90 priests. Right now there are about 140 parishes (give or take 10 or so)in the diocese. It doesn't take a math major to figure out that the number of parishes needs to be reduced.

The recommendations of the study group (that were made up of parishioners and pastors of the churches in our area) were presented to the bishop on Thursday evening and the story made the paper on Friday morning. Yesterday afternoon, I received a call from a reporter from the paper who was doing a story on how parishioners felt about the recommendations and we talked about the impact on my parish and how I felt about it. Well, this morning's top story (don't forget that Saturday is a slow news day) was this story and I was quoted several times in the article.

So, as Barb from SFO Mom kindly called it in an e-mail I received from her this morning, I've had my 15 minutes of fame and life goes on here.

It's been a busy two weeks!

It's been almost two weeks since I have taken time to blog. It's been a busy two weeks too!

We hosted a swim party for my husband's family on the 14th. And preparing for them is no small task. There are 11 children in his family - and 10 of them came to the party.

This year I decided to try something different and we ordered a roasted pig so it made things a little easier. I served sauerkraut, potato filling and homemade applesauce with the pig. And we added some hot dogs and hamburgers for those not fond of pork. It was delicious.

Monday morning, my husband and I along with three friends headed a little south for a mini-vacation. We visited the National Aquarium in Baltimore, the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, and in Washington DC we went to the International Spy Museum, the Air and Space and Natural History Museums at the Smithsonian and then in Chantilly VA, we went to the other Air and Space Museum which is also part of the Smithsonian. We had a lot of fun and saw lots. But of course, you could spend a week in DC and not see all that can be seen.

Now it is time to catch up the laundry and some other things around the house.

Five things I love about Jesus

Good Fr. Daren has tagged me for a meme of five things I love about Jesus.

Here are the Rules:

Those tagged will share 5 things they "love" about Jesus.
Those tagged will tag 5 other bloggers.
Those tagged will provide a link in the comments section here with their name so that others can read them.

1) His love for children.

2) His forgiveness of my sins.

3) He is always with me, no matter what.

4) His love for his mother.

5) His love for his Apostles.

And now I tag Barb, Michele, Margaret,Amy,and Cheryl.

Our 4th

We spent a quiet 4th of July at my house. While others were out watching parades or fireworks, my family spent a day at home - well except that our son had to work for part of the day. We had some friends over for tennis, swimming, dinner and some movies and just chilled. It was a great way for us to spend the day as in the past, it usually meant running around to cram as much in as possible. While I missed seeing my parents, I did enjoy not having to go somewhere - especially with the holiday falling in the middle of the week.

Check out Me

Here's the self portrait I created. The hair is close, the body type is definitley not! But I do enjoy biking.

More Windows

Here are a few more pictures of the windows at my church: