Elena 
Outside my window…
A winter view of the Cuyahoga River in January!
I am thinking…
I’m thinking that I had a great 7-quick takes post to put on on Saturday and I did something absentmindedly and unknowingly and erased the entire thing! So instead of starting over, I decided to just let it go and concentrate on this post instead. Frankly, it was kind of freeing!!
However, I am also thinking about something that happened last weekend. I am very careful about how I share things on Facebook. I usually block acquaintances and friends with a different political perspective from seeing some shares because I do not want to offend them. I send the really controversial stuff over to my page for My Domestic Church and people can decide for themselves whether they want to read it or not.
But last week I got a message from a cousin that she was offended by one of my “posts”. After some investigating, I discovered it wasn’t a post at all, it was one of my likes!! So I apologized and quickly researched how to make my likes private. I think I solved that problem, but comments on public posts on other people’s facebook pages are still able to show up on the newsfeed of my other friends! So I’m checking all of that much more carefully now before commenting or liking anything!
But holy cow, have I Un-Followed a lot of folks this week – not unfriended, but just unfollowed so that I’m not seeing a lot of political stuff in my newsfeed.
I am thankful…
that I had a chance to be part of a wonderful funeral celebration on Saturday. This was the funeral for a gentleman who sang with Mr. Pete in our Peace Together Choir. As Mr. Pete was getting ready he asked for a tie, and I almost got him the Mr. Potatoe Head tie, because this fellow would have loved it! He was the kind of man who would dress up as literary characters when he was teaching a certain piece of literature to his English students. They also said that he would haunt the biology class dressed as Gregor Mendel when they were studying genetics. He was just a wonderful, wonderful man and he will be greatly missed.
They did read this at the funeral:
1 But the souls of the upright are in the hands of God, and no torment can touch them.
2 To the unenlightened, they appeared to die, their departure was regarded as disaster,
3 their leaving us like annihilation; but they are at peace.
Very fitting for this gentleman, but also very comforting to me as I think about my mother, uncle and grandparents.
I am pondering…
About 10 years ago there was a big discussion in the blogosphere about the consequences of deliberately choosing to have one child and I got into trouble for writing this:
A few years before she died, I was holding my fourth son at the family reunion, and my 80+ something Aunt Opal came over to hold and admire him. Her only son had been killed in a freak truck accident while repairing his rig on the side of the road. She held my baby boy and with tears down her face told me that her biggest regret in life, was that she did not have more children. She was sorry that she let the pain and difficulty of pregnancy and childbirth hold her back from having a bigger family. In hhindsight that time of childbearing is brief, but the soul of another child is infinite.
I was reminded of that when I watched these two interviews of Mary Tyler Moore this week.
Mary Tyler Moore was like the big sister I never had. I looked forward to the Mary Tyler Moore show every week, and the 1970s version of myself wanted to be her! So I was very sad to hear of her passing this week.
Mary’s biggest regret in life was that she only had one child and she missed grandchildren in her life. I found that in two of her interviews:
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around 2 minutes
But mostly, when I think of Mary Tyler Moore, I will remember this.
I am hearing…
My computer and quiet downstairs.
In the kitchen…
Big challenges this week as half the family is gone at times but on different days!! Bought another turkey though.
I am wearing…
Black velvet pants and a black thermal top with my gray hooded jacket. Wore that to Saturday’s funeral and a variation of it to church on Sunday.
I am going…
- to walk or work out every day with Pfilates
- add some additional novenas next year with the help of PrayMoreNovenas.com
- to cut my carbs via the Wheat Belly Total Health: The Ultimate Grain-Free Health and Weight-Loss Life Plan
recommendations.
- More flute practice to keep in shape and get ready for Lent.
Celebrating one of my children’s birthday – This was a simple sharing of cake and ice cream to commemorate the 24th anniversary of Sam’s birth!
Good book, but really, really strong liberal bias.
I am teaching the class for co-op next semester.
From the Learning Rooms…
Maryrose:
Prairie Primer – Social Studies – studying the invasion of grass hoppers in Minnesota during the 1870s and also discussing Fire
Saxon Math Grade 6
Exploring Creation with Botany
Drama – at co-op A Flintlock in this year’s production of Peter Pan!
Isadora: Senior year!
Parish Choir St. Sebastians
Saturday Soccer League
She’ll be working at a music convention later this week!
Iz
A quote to share…
“Scattered wits take a long time in picking up.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
“Take chances, make mistakes. That’s how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave.”
_ Mary Tyler Moore
A picture to share…
The expressive faces of my granddaughter!
Thankful for my 3guys…but sometimes I think about adoption.
I hate being an only child. And even amongst families with two children, I know many who lost one (like my father who lost his twin sister when they were in their 40s) so that the second child ends up being an only child. I know there are no guarantees in life but I have met many who regret NOT having more but no one who has regretted having more. As for facebook…seriously? Offended because you liked a post??
How I enjoyed your post! You made me miss my days of homeschooling….all 13 years of it! LOL That was something that I never thought would happen. 🙂