Monday Morning Musings March 15th, 2010

Right now...I feel like I have come back from having been shipwrecked!  The past week feels like it was a month.  Today, for the first time since Tuesday night, I can swallow without pain.  Yesterday was the first time in as long without a fever.  Gemma is just about back to healthy and is making up for lost sleep time by sleeping like an angel and waking only once per night and taking a 3 hour nap late morning for the last 3 days.  Her appetite is back as well.  Are we all okay?  Well, no...Una isn't feeling great, but I began giving her doses of the colloidal silver and echinacea and extra vitamin C at the first indication of something, and I think we will keep it from getting any worse. 

This past weekend...I had to miss Mass again on account of my illness and Una having a temperature.  No priest to bring communion this time!  Bret took the two older boys to the vigil Mass on Saturday, and yesterday I read the readings and did my devotions and scripture reading.

My new niece had to make a trip back to the hospital for a little time under the blue lights; however, things are looking good now and she is a week old today, so jaundice shouldn't present any more problems.

I am learning to milk the cow using the surge belly-milker in preparation for Bret's going away this coming weekend.  He will be off to his very first overnight retreat, and even though I am a bit nervous about doing everything around here for 3 days and 2 nights, I am really eager for him to go, as I know it will be good for him.

It has been so wet here that the kids have been stuck indoors, but it is amazing to see how quickly the pasture is getting green!  A few birds are singing in the early morning, and spring is, indeed, around the corner.

Some plans for this week:  We have been in survival-mode for a couple of weeks now, and this past week I was able to do nothing at all as far as school was concerned.  This week there will be an easing back into the routine, and hopefully get a little time outdoors, weather permitting.  I also hope to get up to my sister's place once we are all healthy so that I can finally see Mariana in person!

If I can find some time for myself, I want to...continue my knitting projects.  I am really the type of person who doggedly works on one knitting project at a time, but the sweater for my niece will take a while, and so I have a couple of smaller projects on the needles as well--a cotton bib for Gemma and a hat for Gabriel, who does not yet own a hat made by me especially for him.  I am also thinking about things I can make myself for the kids Easter baskets...

Special prayer intentions:  For our family's health, so that Bret can go off to the retreat without a care; for the strength to take care of the whole gang while he is away.  I'm praying that I can get everyone back on track with school without too many arguments!  We are praying the St. Joseph Novena for our spiritual and temporal needs as well.

Something that makes me smile:  watching a blue heron glide down over the pond; listening to songbirds at dawn; Sebastian going out with Bret to work on a woodworking project together; not feeling ill!!!

I hope you all had a good weekend, and I wish you a brilliant week ahead.