Happy Star Wars Day!

All my Catholic friends are posting about May and Mary.  Thank you (all of you who do that!) We will be donning the blue tablecloth and crowning our Blessed Mother.

However, many people do not know it is Star Wars Day.  Get it?  May the Fourth?   "May the Force be with you."

The phrase dates back to at least 1979, on the day Margaret Thatcher was elected Britain's first woman prime minster. Her party took out a newspaper ad in the London Evening News that said "May the Fourth be with you, Maggie. Congratulations."
 
Typical festivities consist of inviting fellow Star Wars-obsessed friends to stay over, and then watching the series in succession. Lots of snacks, bring lightsabers and Star Wars-themed toys. Lightsaber fights in the early morning hours optional.

We'll be having drinking blue milk and eating Princess Leia Buns for breakfast.  Lunch will consist of Han-burgers and Tusken Raider Tators. We'll snack on Yoda Caramel Corn (yes, it's green.)  Dinner will be Jango Fett-ucine with Jar-jar salad (made with ingredients that come from a jar like marinated mushrooms, artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers) with Carbonite Jell-o for dessert (and yes, I'm putting an action figure in the Jell-o) or Wookie Cookies.  Tough call, need to appeal to the masses, may just make both!

Have a space-cial day!

For love, if real, has no end

Even though there were tornado warnings in the area on Sunday, there were probably 700 people that came to pay their respects to my sister and her children.  On Monday, that number was probably 500.  The entire church was full with folding chairs everywhere and an extra 100 or so outside in the vestibule (where the 700 stood to wait to talk to my sister.)

While I find comfort in the Requiem Mass, there was a "memorial service" to celebrate my brother-in-law's life.  There were a few Bible verses read, some preaching from the two pastors at their church, beautiful music, recollections by family and friends (including my husband).  It was a lovely way to remember him but for me, it still feels unfinished.

My take away is that God is Love and whether there was a "memorial service" or a Requiem Mass, the end result is the same.  What my sister needed was the memorial service to say goodbye as did her kids.  Her five kids and their exchange students all went up and read a letter they had written to their dad.  They were followed by my sister.  She didn't cry.  She is a rock.  She thanked everyone for everything...for coming to the service, the flowers, the food (that they have needed to move over to their neighbors because they are out of room) but most of all for the outpouring of love.  She finished off with a song (that she spoke of, not sang) that we sang together at funerals. She and I were often called to sing at our small town parish for weekend Mass or other services. 

Like a Seal on Your Heart by Carey Landry

Based on the Song of Songs 8:6-7

Set me like a  seal on your heart

Like a seal on your arm

Set me like a  seal on your heart

How right it is to love you

1)For love is stronger that death

Stronger even than Hell.

The flash of it is a flash of fire

A flame of the Lord Himself.

2)Come, then, my love,
Come, my beloved.

No flood can quench our love,

For love, if real, has no end.

In Loving Memory

I don't have time to post a photo that could do him justice.  A picture would not be able to show how beautiful and amazing he was.

I'm sorry my blog has been rather sad lately.  It's not about to end right now.

At 7:11 am Wednesday, I received a call from my older (only) sister.  She was calling to tell me her 45 year old husband died at 2:45am.  John has had Type 1 Diabetes for over 30 years.  He's managed it magnificently with diet, exercise and diligence.  My sister has always helped make sure all that was possible, supporting him in any way she could.  So while he had an illness, it had never had the best of him.

John was a fabulous individual with the most incredible sense of humor.  He and my sister were parents to five spectacular kids - a 17 year old daughter and four (yes, quadruplets) 14 year olds, two boys and two girls.  I think that alone would qualify you for sainthood - raising quadruplets with a girl three years older.

I could gush about how John would drop everything if you needed help, or how he would drop a joke, just when it was needed or even how he could bake a pie better than anyone I know.  That would not, could not tell you even a little bit about him.   He was an amazing man...a marathon runner, church elder, gardener extraordinaire, a wonderful supporting husband and father.  And still that doesn't touch the surface.

My blog will probably be quiet for quite a while as I help my sister through this, as much as she will let me.  Please pray for the repose of John's soul and for my sister and her family.

UPDATED WITH PHOTO:  John loved babies.  Here he is, loving my two youngest boys.

We used to kid John that his lack of hair only made him look younger, not older.

Prayer Request

Dear Prayer Warriors (I know you are out there),

Please pray for our family friend, Nancy.  Long story, made short:  Since September, this beautiful, 50 year old mom of three has been fighting the fight of her life.  She has an amazing sense of humor, trust in God and strength.  Please pray for a miracle.  Here's what's happened:

• September - Ovarian Mass the size of a cantaloupe removed, cancerous
• November - Lung Mass found, testing started including biopsies of lungs, lymph nodes and bone marrow
• December - One lung removed, non-smokers lung cancer confirmed
• January - Hip pain where bone marrow biopsy had been done, unable to sleep
• February - Chemo started, hip pain continued, so MRI done to investigate problem
• March - Diagnosed with Stage IV non-smokers Lung Cancer, found more cancer sprouts in remaining lung (thanks to MRI done in Feb.)  Added two more drugs to Chemo Round 3 of 6.

Obviously, she's one tough lady.  Please lift her up in prayers. She says she's not going down without a fight.

The Truth Comes Out About Planned Parenthood

They claim they provide health services to women, but here's the legal truth (read the full article here):

What is that ideology, exactly? To find out, you have to dig through Planned Parenthood’s tax forms because the group certainly isn’t going to tell you. According to its most recent tax filing, the purpose of Planned Parenthood Federation of America is to provide leadership in “[a]chieving, through informed individual choice, a U.S. population of stable size in an optimum environment; in stimulating and sponsoring relevant biomedical, socio-economic, and demographic research.”
So it is, in reality, a population-control organization. Funny, this was never mentioned in the gauzy $200,000 advertising campaign launched last week. It also doesn’t make it into the “About Us” section of the group’s website, which repeatedly claims its mission is to protect women’s health, when in fact the real mission is to keep the birth rate at whatever level the leaders believe it should be.
To hear Planned Parenthood and their supporters, they exist only to provide Pap smears or breast exams or prenatal services. In fact, President Cecile Richards has gone so far as to erroneously imply that they provide mammograms. (A spokesperson for the group confirmed to me that this is untrue.)
Planned Parenthood officials are allowed to believe whatever they want and to pursue whatever goals they choose. But their dishonesty in how they present their organization to the public, along with ignoring basic statistics about their area of expertise, makes you wonder what else they are hiding. It’s also hard to deny that they are at core a blindly ideological organization, not a run-of-the-mill charitable nonprofit.

 Of course I'm not at all surprised by this.  This organization is responsible for the death of millions of babies.  They need their funding cut for that alone.  This just put the icing on the cake.  We should not ever be funding an organization that's mission is population control.  I'm just saying..

Wheat Free, Egg Free, Dairy Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

This is for Bearing.

Wheat Free, Egg Free, Dairy Free Chocolate Chip Cookies
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix:
1/2 c. water
1/4 c. flax seed meal

Cream:
1/2 c. dairy free margarine (We use Earth Balance Buttery Spread)
3/4 c. brown sugar

Add:
Flax seed blob from above
1 tsp vanilla

Mix until emulsified.

In a food processor or blender, combine:
2 c. rolled oats
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
3-4 Tbsp. Brewer's yeast

Process until fine and powdery.

Add:
1 c. semisweet dairy free chips
2 c. rolled oats

Add to flax/butter/sugar mixture.  Mix until combined.  Use large scoop to portion and flatten.  Bake 7-9 minutes or until the bottoms brown.  Leave on cookie sheet to cool.

False Alarm, Sort of...

As many of you know, my three year old is tiny.  He was born tiny due to insufficiency of the placenta.  The technical term for it is Small for Gestational Age (SGA).  It's caused by IntraUterine Growth Restriction (IUGR).  It's called IUGR if they catch it before the baby is born (which they didn't in his case.)

Here's some background.  He was only 19.5" when he was born, so he was small, but not too small.  Most of my kids are 21-22".  He hasn't grown much height wise, but we also suspected he had allergies.  At his three year well-child visit, the doctor turned on the lights and sirens because he had stopped growing!  That's when the allergy testing started followed closely by his no egg, no dairy, no wheat diet.

So, I've been measuring the little guy regularly lately.  I finally decided to plot the measurements on a curve along with measurements I've kept in his medical file from appointments past in Excel.  Apparently the growth charts at the doctor's office are only graphed according to well-child visits.  They don't include any other appointments.  He had a pre-operative appointment three and a half months before his three year well-child (the one where they set off the alarms on his growth) and part of that exam included a height check.  Low-and-behold, his height at that visit was .7" TALLER than his three year well-child visit height.  He didn't stop growing, he was measured incorrectly or the number was transcribed incorrectly.  So, while we know he is small, there was really no cause for the amount of alarm that was raised.

I will politely point that out to the doctor at his four year well-child visit in two months.  I will continue on with the no wheat, no dairy and no egg diet, but will be a little less worried that his diet was to blame for the blip.  In fact, since removing coconut from his diet entirely, he eczema is almost non-existent except for a small patch on below his buttock on his right thigh.  He's not wheezing nearly as much (he does on occasion.)  He's growing at a slow, but steady pace.

So we can stand down the red alert and remain at yellow alert for another two months.  Whew!