Not much

So, apparently life ended at First Communion around these parts. I checked the date of my last post and realised that it was over one week ago and I haven't taken a picture or written a word. However, I have thought many times of reaching for the camera and I have plenty of opening lines for brilliant posts. Despite my intentions, the camera is always a little out of reach and my thought process is limited to a long list of pithy and thought-provoking opening lines with absolutely nothing to back them up.

As an aside, I also keep a running list of opening lines for fictional books in my head. Lines like:
"It was only when she found small rubberized numbers with their corresponding letters scattered throughout her bed that she realised her cell phone was no longer functional."
Seriously.
That line is actually based on a real-life experience ... of mine.

And then I think of writing something that approaches rational and long-reasoned-out thought and I run across ladies like this and this and realise that there are a lot of women with a heck of a lot more goods upstairs than I. Shame on you, uncultivated mind. Will there ever be time to read enough to say more than soundbites?

Plus, I'm really tired.

I heard Mother Angelica say today that she is looking forward to heaven so that she no longer needs to feel exhausted. In her words, "I think that I was born tired. I wake up tired. I'm more tired by lunch and even more tired by bed. I'd like to know what it's like to feel really good."
Now, I think that I often do feel really good; but, lately, I have been losing too much sleep with a variety of engagements, visitors and normal-life stuff that have left me exhausted.
Yawn.

Also, it just keeps raining and raining and raining. And, when it's sunny the unmentioned biblical plague (read blackflies) emerges and, if not brave enough to endure the loss of blood, we stay inside. It sucks and I'm complaining: I do that sort of thing.

In other news, Jacob and Hannah might be running a 5k this weekend in the National Capital Race Weekend. Dave will run with them so that they don't get lost in the 10,000-strong crowd. Jacob suggested that he and Hannah would just stick together; but, somehow, that leaves me with a really bad feeling that by the end of the race we will no longer have 5 children.
Dave will have to run about 15 minutes slower than he normally does in order to pace them but that's what fatherhood is about - slowing down. I would love to run with them but I have been plagued with plantar fascitis and unable to run for a few months now.
Instead, I have been biking and have come to like this form of exercise but I would still love to throw on my shoes and head out for a good jog.

Offer it up, Afelskie. Yeah, I'm trying.

p.s. In really awesome news: I told Jacob the other day about what it means to offer something up. You know, do something that causes you pain or distress without complaint as a spiritual sacrifice. As a result, he downed a glass of odd-tasting milk in a really grotty restaurant outside of Algonquin Park. I know not his intention but I am expecting to win the lottery soon.
I also arrived home from the grocery store last night to find him praying the Rosary. Literally pacing back and forth with the beads in hand. He looked so much like his Grandpa Nick. These are the moments that make me realise that our efforts are producing some fruit; or, perhaps, our kids' piety so excels our own that they are making spiritual strides in spite of their parents. Either way it all works out.
p.p.s. I just looked up and Joe is painting his face. I didn't even know that he and Ben had paints.