Elena 
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1.
It’s hard to believe, but in just a few weeks, we will be entering the season of Advent!
A Gentle Advent is an online course with PDFs and videos to keep your children focused on Advent and prepare for Christmas. I am happy to be one of their new affiliates.
Do you want to make Advent a truly lovely experience this year?
Let A Gentle Advent guide your family on a beautiful exploration of the season.
2.
I was reminded of St. Theresa of Avila earlier this week.
As the hagiographic accounts relate, as St. Teresa (1515–1582) also called St. Teresa of Jesus, made her way to her convent during a fierce rainstorm, she slipped down an embankment and fell squarely into the mud. The irrepressible nun looked up to heaven and admonished her Maker, “If this is how You treat Your friends, no wonder why You have so few of them!”
Rosie and I were on the way to church this week – me for choir practice and she for a dance rehearsal for a program the musical ministry is doing for the holidays. I was driving through a residential area not far from my home in “the hood” when we passed a group of kids playing on the side of the street.
Suddenly “BOOM!” I heard and felt a large crash and for an instant I wondered if we had been shot. But in the next instant I knew exactly what happened. Those kids had thrown something at the van and cracked my windshield.
I immediately pulled over and called the police to report the incident. They said that they would dispatch someone as quickly as possible, but if I felt unsafe, I should just leave and make a report in the morning. As i was doing this, three little boys about 11 and 12 years old came up and looked at the windshield in shock. They immediately tried to tell me that the guys who did it were running away, but I’m pretty sure they were the perpetrators and were kind of surprised at the damage they had caused. I started lecturing them calmly about how much this was going to cost to fix and how disappointed I was in them when all of us heard a real gunshot and dispersed. I called 911 back to tell them I wasn’t sticking around and I left.
The next morning, I took my dog for a walk looking for the rock that hit my car. Found it.
3.
The police came out yesterday to take a report. He came to the front door when I was in the basement so I didn’t hear him knocking. When I came upstairs he was in the backyard looking at the TARDIS
The policeman was fascinated with it and we spent the first five minutes of the encounter talking about Mr. Pete building it and about Dr. Who.
Eventually he did take my report, so at least it’s on file.
So last night, I had to drive to church again and I drove down the same street, but when I came to the same boys playing on the side of the road, I rolled down my window and said, “I’m watching you!”
One of the boys yelled, “IT’s THAT LADY!!”
Too funny – except for the part about replacing the windshield for $250. Then it’s more like theft.
4.
So Mr. Pete and I have been eagerly anticipating the end of the busy season – he has been inundated with work because of the marching band season and now is in the midst of getting horns ready for concert season. His 80 hour work weeks are winding down to around 60 hours. That should be dying down shortly just before Christmas. Cross country season is over and so is soccer season. We have a list of other things we wanted to accomplish including getting our cars in good repair, working on the flip house, working around the house, and some other things. Now that we have time, I was looking forward to working on those things.
But a funny thing happened. My parish is going to do a Fa La La La Lollies this winter. It’s a Christmas entertainment and spoof program instead of the usual deeply religious challenging musical program we have done for years. One group is going to do the Silent Monks routine and when they were recruiting for that, Mr. Pete signed up along with Rosie.
No problem. The rehearsals are once a week and that doesn’t take much time.
But one day last week I noticed Mr. Pete checking out fabric online and running around with a notebook and a pen. I couldn’t quite figure out what he was doing and then it hit me!!
“Pete, you didn’t!”
He looked at me sheepishly. “Do what?”
“You know! You volunteered to make those monk outfits didn’t you!”
“You don’t have to help me,” he grinned.
There it was.
So for the next several weekends we won’t be working on the flip house, we won’t be fixing the car unless we absolutely have to, and we won’t be working on the punch list for our own home. We are going to be cutting and sewing 12 monk habits.
I. could. scream.
5.
Funny weather we’ve been having. On the way to co-op this week, I started off in my winter coat and gloves. But about halfway there I started burning up. I quickly and carefully took off my gloves and kind of threw them between the seats.
But when I was halfway there, I noticed my class ring that I always wear on my little finger (because I only weighed 115 pounds my senior year of high school and it won’t fit on my ring finger) wasn’t there. I thought maybe it came off with the glove.
But when I checked my glove there was no ring. So when we got to co-op I started to check the entire front of the car. I carefully put things into a garbage bag and used my fingers to carefully pick up every little bit of fuzz, food, peanuts, paper, and whatever else had fallen to the ground in the van over the summer. I realized I couldn’t vacuum because I might accidentally suck up my ring! After about 30 minutes, my van was cleaner, but I didn’t have my ring.
Maybe it fell off of my hand in the driveway? or maybe it fell in the sink when I was washing dishes?
I started thinking about how much I was going to miss it, and that I would have to learn to live without it. I was a little sad about it because my grandparents bought me that ring and it’s a nice remembrance of them. The rest of the co-op day, I was in a little bit of a funk.
Co-op day is so busy for us anyway. I drive right from there to art class and then I have to make dinner and get ready for music rehearsal. That was also the same night my windshield got smashed in.
But as I was getting ready to go to bed at the end of the day I noticed my ring was right where I had left it – on my makeup tray! Apparently I had forgotten to put it on in the morning. It was a nice way to end a troublesome day.
6.
I mentioned that the girls and I were enjoying the romance of Victoria on Amazon Prime .
When we finished that, Izzy and I found a new/old romance to share – Beauty and the Beast from 1987.
I absolutely loved that series when it aired on CBS. I was a young married woman and I remember snuggling up to Mr. Pete on Friday night to watch Vincent and Catherine try to manage their love that could never be.
It’s nice to re-explore this old show with my 18-year-old daughter – who laughs at the fashions and some of the silly plots, but agrees with me that Ron Pearlman’s Vincent was a very charming character! (when he wasn’t ferociously ripping his adversaries apart – literally!)
7.
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