"schiaffi e dolci"...I believe that is what Padre Pio once said, referring to the way in which God trains us towards holiness, much in the way parents use punishment and reward. This Lent has been punishing--today was another really exhausting, challenging one--but it hasn't been without "sweets".
I overcame my dislike of the cold this morning and went out with Gemma and Dominic before breakfast to take pictures of them playing in the snow. We haven't had a decent snowfall all winter, but here we are, only weeks from the official start of spring, and we finally have enough to pack a few snowballs together.
Having been out of the house all day yesterday, I had quite a list of things to get done today. I took a shower after coming in from playing and taking pictures of the kids. After breakfast and bathing the two littles, I did laundry, cleaned the coffee maker and the tea kettle, took out our vitamins for the week (we take a lot of vitamins around here), made a half gallon of Bret's Pu-Ehr Tea (good for high cholesterol) and was about to vacuum my bedroom when I noticed that the vacuum wasn't working. I could see what was wrong, but couldn't fix it, and Bret was out picking up feed and hay. I grabbed our second vacuum, a lightweight stick vacuum that the kids use, and that wasn't drawing up the dirt either. So I abandoned the bedroom. I finished a batch of butter and baked a cake for tomorrow's dessert. I was taking a break and leaving a comment on someone's blog, when my backspace key died. This was a Big Deal for me, as I am not a brilliant typist, my method being something like, "three spaces forward, one space back." I wore out the backspace. It wasn't a sticky key; it felt as if there was nothing beneath it. I figured that perhaps it was a blessing in disguise: I would write a lot less and go into fewer dull details, as in this paragraph, per example.
And I cooked my brand new water kefir grains. Just as they were beginning to ferment, I cooked them. I had them in the oven with the light on to keep them warm (our house is at about 66 degrees in winter), and when I was preheating the oven for the cake, I forgot that they were in there. I still feel a bit sick over it, as I had been waiting a long time to order them.
But God is good and without my doing anything about it, my backspace key started working again. And I had mentioned to Una that I felt in the mood to watch an episode or two of the old Mission Impossible, and without knowing what was next on our Netflix queue, that is exactly what arrived today. And no one is sick, so I'll get to go to Mass and confession tomorrow. All good things.
