Advent

It's been over a year since I've been to this blog, I had even forgotten how to log in!
So why now?  I don't have a camera to make this blog incredible with beautiful, heart-stopping pictures, I don't have anything to say that others haven't said in ways that take my breath away.
I think I'm just here for me, to say what is on my heart and have a place to go back and review.
My blog is called My Unfurling because I long for the day when my hands are not clenched in fists but relaxed in peace and trust.  It's a habit that I have done all my life but had only noticed the last few years.  I think the clenched fist is a symbol of needing to protect myself. In the last few years I opened up to a few new people, people who I thought would love and support me as I would and still will for them, and then they hurt me.I mean really hurt me, not the kind of hurt like a high school hurt but a deep in my soul hurt. The kind of hurt that makes me want to bang on their closed doors to me and plead with them to help me make sense of it.  I didn't change. The cholerics of the world must see me as an open target! But my fist is not closed,or my heart.  I will stay open because it is only through loving that you can put yourself in a place to be hurt.

So this Advent my goal is fasting, prayer and meditation.  I want to give the best I can, the best I am, the unfurled me to the Christ child everyday.

Happy Birthday to Our Lady

It is our Lady's birthday! What a gift, a treasure God gave us in His Mother.

"We never give more honour to Jesus than when we honour his Mother, and we honour her simply and solely to honour him all the more perfectly. We go to her only as a way leading to the goal we seek - Jesus, her Son."
--Saint Louis Marie de Montfort

What more can I say?  Happy Birthday to my Holy Mother Mary,my heart is full of love for you.

Still here

It has been a long, hard, hot summer. Our big established trees are showing great distress and my heart will be so sad if we lose them. We've watered as much as we can afford but we will see if it was enough.

My fist has been clenched tight these months just trying to get through this summer. Hanging clothes to save money and watching our garden dry up, the same one that was going to provide fresh canned tomatoes all winter and fresh frozen green beans, Gone! The grasshoppers enjoyed them and mighty grasshoppers they were. They reminded me of the grasshoppers mentioned in
The Little House on the Prairie books.

Perhaps when a little cool weather comes I will be refreshed and my soul will be ready to teach these souls entrusted to me.
But now I am hot and worn, worn slick like a stone that as been rubbed smooth by constant water pouring over it.


I am clinging on to God right now, trying to gear up for our 18th year of homeschooling. You would think after all these years it would be easier but you cannot rest on the fact that the others are off and doing well. You still have to finish raising these left at home and still be there emotionally for those off on their own.

Soon a cool breeze will refresh us and I will be energized to sow hundreds of wonderful acorns of faith, knowledge and thought.

When the oak is felled the whole forest echoes with it fall, but a hundred acorns are sown in silence by an unnoticed breeze.
Thomas Carlyle

A Time of Rejoicing

We have returned home and so much has filled these last few weeks that I could burst. Burst with love, pride and even frustration!


My son number 4,the gregarious one, was confirmed on the 11th of last month and the next morning we all left to drive 20 hours to Washington DC to be with our oldest son,his wife and our grandchildren as he graduated with his Masters in English. Our next to the oldest son had just arrived home the day before his brother's confirmation, dropping his belongings at the door, not even unpacking as we flew out on our trip.

To look at these souls that God has given to me and see such greatness in them is humbling.

My newly confirmed son had lead us all in the novenas to prepare him,and us. for this magnificent sacrament with confidence and strength and,of course, a great deal of teasing!

My newly arrived home son with love and humility supported his family by putting aside his fatigue from finals and joyfully added his heart to our trip. Seeing him with his godson and nephew,Luke, is a sight to behold!

My 3rd born son, sick almost the entire time with allergies and a head cold,never complaining and lovingly carrying his niece or nephew around with him all through DC as we flew from sight to sight to see so many things!

My daughter, squished into the smallest of spaces in the van (oh, the joys of being the youngest) and sleeping on the floor in her nieces room, never once complaining. Her care and love towards her niece and nephew was unflagging!

My oldest son, earning his Masters and providing for a family, it makes me weak when I think of how hard he has worked to accomplish this. He has decided to stay and finish his doctoral degree, which is a good decision but a hard one as well. Hard on a mother's heart who wants her son and family close.

My daughter-in-law, what a joy she is for my son, grandchildren and us! Making the tiniest of apartments a darling home and being the one to open it up for some of us to stay there to save on hotel rooms! Watching my grandchildren play, learn and flourish under her and my son's care makes me wish I could go back and be as good a parent as they are.


With all good things come frustrations and so did our trip. My husband's new, fancy camera was stolen. Trying to figure out flights for number 2 son to get back for his girlfriend's 21st birthday was trying only for him to arrive home to have to care for our sick dog who needed a lot of expensive treatment(good thing he was a free dog!) Hot water heater breaking before we left!

But good reader, take notice of how small that paragraph of frustrations is!

I heard once that a problem is not a problem if money can fix it.

True, for the experience of all of us in a van for 40 hours with minimal bickering and being together, all of us,for 13 days was truly a time of rejoicing.

I Continue to Count

It has been quite a few weeks since my last post. I needed to be quiet for Passion and Holy Week and then got so busy these last weeks of the Easter season that I just didn't find time to "feed the blog"!!

Many things grabbing my attention and keeping me preoccupied and also the nagging voice that says "What do you think you are doing? Why in the world do you think you need to have a blog?" So my doubts and self-consciousness have also kept me away. So I will continue for a while more and see if this blog is really for me!

Finishing our home school year with my 3 youngest as my oldest has finished his Master's and my second oldest has successfully finished his 3rd year of college has brought all the doubts of whether or not this was a "Good" year or did I do enough and especially the guilt of all the things I was so eager to do in the fall that fell away. Not for the older two, of course, but the other 3 three who are still mine to form and then release into the world. I know I am not alone with these thoughts as I see other homeschooling moms blog their concerns but they are still mine and they must be put to rest or my summer will be "eaten by the locusts" the locusts of guilt!


I know that God will provide where I have failed. I need to bask in the good,such as my junior son's ACT scores high enough to be eligible for some scholarship money instead of focusing on the lower scores of the test feeling as though I've let that child down in his studies in those
areas!

I have home schooled for 17 years now, and have watched God fill in the blanks. Now I must rest in Him so that I may be refreshed for next year and spend time this summer in prayerful observation as to what my children need from me to build their character and their minds but mostly to form their conscience.

I continue to list but no longer to number my gifts

* The joyful time of Easter
* My husband so talented and hard working that he can install a hot water heater and fix our air conditioner in the span of 3 days!
* A restful Mother's Day and calls from my older sons to tell me they love me!
* Cleaning out a little space in the garage and attic!
* My friends who I really need to spend some time with to refresh my soul
* White roses in my Mother' Day corsage to honor my mother who has been gone since I was 20
* My son's upcoming Confirmation and praying along with him as he leads the novena to The Holy Spirit and the novena to St. Patrick.
*Praying for him and two of my god-daughters who too will make their confirmation on the same day.
* My dirty house! Which is why I will close this post now!

Joining Ann

Jesus Hid Himself

...but Jesus hid Himself, and went out of the temple.

366. My Lord,willing to suffer for me
367. Passion week starting out with suffering for my boys,from rugby injuries
368. My boys are not seriously hurt
369. My daughter helping our neighbor with her garden
370. Homemade bread to share with them too

Jesus hid himself for it was not yet His time to give His life for us. That would be coming soon. I am reminded of His hiding by draping my sacred images and I am saddened. I look to the crucifix daily as I pray,I look to the face of Our Lady for help and consolation when I am worn smooth from the noise and concerns and I am left lonely as I look and I see purple. I am lonely for the face of my Lord and His Mother and the saints in my home.

371. Missing the face of my Lord
372. Anticipation of a canning class and good food from the garden
373. Laughing at the gas prices! What else can I do?
374. Hearing my soul sister say she is proud of my sons
375. Surgeons who will skillfully repair my mother-in-laws wrist

My heart sinks further in my chest when I think of how often He must search for my face,a face that is turned down towards myself and my little crosses. He searches for me to catch me up into His Friendship and my eyes are closed and I do not see. How many times do I only look to Him occasionally? Or halfheartedly?

376. Medicines to ease pain and prevent infection
377. A sweet husband doing so much more for his family than he knows
378. The smell of freshly mowed grass
379. Sunshine but a little cooler
380. The Friendship of Christ

Can you not spend one hour, my Lord asks of me and I yearn to say "Yes" and to be as overzealous as St. Peter and say "Not just one hour but all of them!" And I know that I struggle to stay faithful for even a short time. Today, I will strive to stay in the presence of God, turning my face to His.

Joining Jenny

20{4}40

Giving thanks....

351. My husband spending the morning at a farm to help out
352. A good week of schooling
353. Pictures taken by my daughter
354. Making cheese
355. Stations of the Cross
356. Joking around with my kids
357. Ice cold tea
358. Resting
359. New glasses
360. Making plans for Easter dinner
361. That the ACT test is over for my son and he feels good about it
362. Saturday
363. Dogwood tree blossoms that remind me of our Lord's Wounds
364. Flowering "weeds" in vases
365. Draping the sacred images and crucifixes for Passion week

Joining Jenny