Seven Quick Takes Vol. 8

1

I’m really not in the mood to write this.  Today was not a good day in the 6^th grade.  There were many tears shed.  The child is completely overwhelmed by the consequences of his lack of organization.  I wish there was something more I could do.  But these are lessons he must learn.  And he is choosing to learn them the hard way.  I wish his 5^th grade teachers did more to prepare him.  This transition is ugly.

2

Well, the highlight of my week was meeting Lisa Hendy.  She is the creator of www.catholicmom.com and author of two great books: The Handbook for Catholic Moms and A Book of Saints for Catholic Moms.  We have been emailing back in forth for a couple years now.  She is probably one of the few people that have read all of my columns.  I feel like she probably knows me better than some of the people I see on a daily basis.  And until Saturday, we had never met face to face.  She is incredibly sweet.  We started chatting like we were old friends.  She even introduced me to the attendees in her session as one of her talented contributors (which left my ego rather inflated).  It was really great to finally meet her.  I hope our paths cross again soon!

3

I have a question for all of you.  I assume that many of you are Catholic parents.  Just in case this is your first time reading my blog, I am a youth minister.  We have a little over 200 middle school students enrolled in our Wednesday night faith formation youth group.  So, it is a big program that requires a number of volunteers in order to be successful.  I need more volunteers.  I need more faith filled people to mentor these youth.  I need more adults head over heals in love with the Lord to share their faith with these impressionable young people.  The first pool of adults I want to target is the parents of these youth.  So, what does it take?  How do I pull in these parents?  What would make you WANT to be involved in this program?  FYI- Adults do not lead groups on their own; they are given detailed lessons in advance that require little if any prep; they do not have to lead their child’s group-the choice is theirs.

4

My friend and I have discovered a WONDERFUL system: trading babysitting.  I take her kids so she and hubby can go on a date and she takes mine so we can go out.  For a family of four trying to make it on a teacher’s salary, this is a great system.  It is fun for the parents who get the outing time and the kids who get to play at someone else’s house.  I can not believe I didn’t think of it before!  I highly recommend it.

5

This one should probably be in the #1 spot on my list.  But since my brain is still reeling from all the 6^th grade math, science and social studies homework on the night before the 6 weeks ends, I forgot about it until now.  My husband’s band, Wakeland High School is going to the state marching band contest.  To say I am super excited for him is an understatement.  This will be his second time (and consecutive) at the state contest.  He is hoping they will place well.  They compete on Tuesday.  I have to say that I am super excited for him AND I am super excited for what this means.  That is right folks.  Marching band season is coming to an end!  It has been a long, tough, long, stressful, long and really long season.  He has worked every weekend since the beginning of September.  The number of hours he has clocked is astronomical- averaging 60-80 hours a week.  The personal sacrifice he and our family have made is exceptional.  It is nice to see him have this success.  I’ll keep you posted.

6

Well, I guess I can’t avoid it any longer.  I might as well acknowledge the elephant in the room.  We lost the World Series.  The Rangers didn’t bring home the title.  We missed out for a second year in a row.  Game 7 was horrifying.  They had a good few innings in the beginning but then they choked.  The Cards played better baseball.  It pains me to say it, but they deserved to win.  Our guys looked terrible.  And the whole time the game was playing out, all I could think about was the fact that we were only one strike away from the title in game 6- TWICE!!!!  And they blew it- TWICE!!!!  Ok, I’m starting to get all worked up again.  Time to move on.  But on a good note, I did learn from my game 6 martini mistakes.  I didn’t partake in game 7 which proved to be a good choice given the outcome.

7

I have a confession to make.  My confession is that I haven’t been to confession in a while.  It has been a few months which is unusual for me.  I was going once a month.  But I have two problems: time and circumstance.  Since I have taken this youth ministry position at the church, my time is greatly limited.  I already have a full time job with my home day care and adding the part time church gig with all the family stuff leaves me short on time.  Our youth nights are during one of the weekly confession times at our parish.  The other time is on Saturdays and my husband has worked every Saturday since mid-summer.  I finally came to the conclusion that I am going to have to make an appointment with our Priest.  And then there is the Priest issue.  Now that I am working at the church, do I still go to our pastor for confession?  Is that professional?  Maybe I should just go somewhere else.  But then, due to some trust issues I am working to overcome with people in ministry(I know how ironic that is considering my new job), I have been making a real effort to go to our pastor for confession.  It would be easier for me to go to a Priest I will never see again.  I have been working to build that trust with him so I am not sure I want to give up on that just because I am working at the church.  What to do?  What to do?

Visit more 7 Quick Takes at www.conversiondiary.com.  Thanks Jennifer!