I'm a Catholic homeschooling mama of seven kids. Four are adults now, and living at various stages of life out of the house. Two of my adult daughters are getting married this year. Here's where I'll be hanging out my laundry, gaining perspective, and, down the road, have something to remember all the wooshing days.

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Chesterton said...

Marriage is an adventure,
like going to war.

G.K. Chesterton

Monday, March 30, 2015

Winnie the Pooh on love...

If you live to be 100,
I hope I live to be 100 minus one day
So I never have to live without you.

Winnie the Pooh via A. A. Milne

Saturday, March 28, 2015

Mawage

"Mawage is wot bwings us togevah today."

The Princess Bride


Showered with loveliness.  

The Brides...








Shower Day

Today is bridal shower day.  Oldest sister Breann hosts a bridal shower for her two sisters, Lucy and Mary, today at our house.  Friends and relatives will be joining us this afternoon to shower their love and attention on the brides!

I'll post some photos at the end of the day...

Apparently, although "showers" have a somewhat obscure history, they grew out of the idea of a dowry, that a bride has something to bring into the marriage.  Sometime in the 1890's, a hostess holding a pre wedding party for a bride, filled a parasol with tiny gifts, held it upside over the bride's head, turned it over and literally showered her with gifts!

The idea caught on, the gifts got bigger, the name stuck.  

Thursday, March 26, 2015

What Fulton said...

"Purity is a vision, a seeing of the soul in a body, 

a Holy Purpose in the flesh."  Fulton Sheen

Chastity is difficult, especially when you are in love.  Desire is both natural and good, in its proper context.  Perhaps those who pursue chastity, live chastity and succeed in being chaste, see the Holy Purpose in the flesh more clearly.

Perhaps desiring chastity allows one to see the soul of another more vividly.




A Twist in the Plot

Not only do the mammals family of Landrys have two daughters getting married this year, but our dear friends have a son getting married this year as well.

So us westcoasters are travelling (by plane) across the country, that's 4884 kilometers (3035 miles for my US readership)  in the middle of April,  we do emceeing and flowers (I am a florist before I had a  life filled with children)...then we come back April 19 with only days to spare before our own daughter's wedding May 2.

Yup.  Then our festivitives begin.  Fortunately, Polly's wedding is only an hour away, and the reception is merely five minutes from our home.

A short summer reprieve for the summer months, and then we DRIVE back across the country - STILL 4884  kilometers...to the wedding in Ottawa of our other daughter in September.

So, just doing some quick math here, but we are darn close to 20,000 km, one way or another, to go to significant weddings in our lives.

Just to put things in perspective, that's farther than going to Sydney, Australia and back.

I haven't the time.

Rosebud's joke of the day.  "What is black and white and dangerous?"

"A poisonous oreo cookie."

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

What love is...

Love is patient; love is kind
love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. 

It does not insist on its own way
it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth

It bears all things, 
believes all things, 
hopes all things, 

endures all things.

1 Corinthians 13: 4-7

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Fulton Sheen said...

The basic error of mankind has been to assume that only two are needed for love: you and me, or society and me, or humanity and me. Really it takes three: self, other selves, and God; you, and me, and God.

 Love of self without love of God is selfishness; love of neighbor without love of God embraces only those who are pleasing to us, not those who are hateful. One cannot tie two sticks together without something outside the sticks; one cannot bind the nations of the world together except by the recognition of a Law and a Person outside the nations themselves. Duality in love is extinction through the exhaustion of self giving.

Love is triune or it dies.

Three to Get Married, Fulton Sheen

Reminiscing

Our wedding song.

When I'm feeling blue, all I have to do
Is take a look at you, then I'm not so blue
When you're close to me, I can feel your heart beat
I can hear you breathing near my ear
Wouldn't you agree, baby you and me got a groovy kind of love.

Monday, March 23, 2015

Forty Days

Polly's wedding is forty days away.  People keep asking me if I'm all stressed out.
Busy, yes.  Not as busy as Polly, though!
But not stressed out.

If I thought she was marrying somebody who didn't adore her, couldn't take care of her, wouldn't sacrifice himself for her...I would be stressed out.

But that is not the case.  If the car breaks down, if the power goes out, if my nylons get a run in them on the day of the wedding - well.  She's marrying a man who is good and who loves God.

In the order of a good celebration to start off marriage, of course we want everything to be lovely.

In the order of salvation, dinner, decorations, nylons, the perfect outfit.
Pale in comparison.

I'm a little stressed out about mascara.  And how it runs down my face when I cry.

Friday, March 13, 2015

Welcome to my new blog!

Two of my daughters are getting married this year.  One in May and one in September.  This is where I'll process, in print, my own thoughts.  And my own growth.  And thoughts on my role in preparing them for their marriage(s).  Of course they each have their journey, far more significant than mine as they are making one of life's most important decisions.  Their journeys are their own.

But this little journey is mine, however much or little the role of mama-of-the-brides may be.  I'd like to wax sentimental about love and marriage.  It's part of my own growth as a mother, and I'd like to remember it.

So I'm carving out time to do that here.