What do your Demons look like?

Because we all have them..... that attachment to sin.  That conscious choice to choose wrong from right... Mine come in many forms.... I've blogged before about the ugly green monster- the jealousy I struggle with. Gossip is another one.  Little did I know that even discussing another person period is apparently considered gossip.  No wonder my friends don't talk to me much anymore!! But my 40 days during Lent, I did a pretty good job of letting go of that vice....not that I won't fall off many more times...but I am, as I have stated before, a work in progress.

But we all have those things that drag us down.  Pull us under.  Allow us to sit and stew in our juices of whatever....envy, sloth, despair, etc.  I have allowed it to almost make me feel obsolete in many ways.  Over one silly comment someone made years ago- but I still hear that comment in my head as though it's said freshly, every single day.

That is how the enemy works.....tearing us down, one comment after another...

I allow that demon to bring me down, make me feel inferior.  Make me feel that I can not measure up up to even the smallest of standards in my faith or with others of my faith....It's really a horrible place to be, I find myself retreating to my home and staying there for longer and longer periods even when I know I need to be out.  I find that the more I think about it, the more it surrounds every thought and moment of my day...It's almost as if there is a power holding me down, physically at times!

But this week is Easter.  And I'm trying with all my heart to tell those demons to get lost....to really embrace what it means for Christ to have conquered death...it's so hard, though.  The daily grime of life and the influences of society and culture can really lead us down very dark and disparaging roads...

I am reminded of a piece of art in the Vatican Museum.  I was privileged to be able to afford a trip to Rome three years ago and the Vatican Museum is just FULL of amazing artwork.  Art is how we communicate.  Before the bible was translated and even put together, beautiful art work hung and lived on the walls in the churches.  But before I get off on another squirrel tangent, there is a piece of art that is on the ceiling in the museum.  I'll try to find a picture of it to put on here...

This is the ceiling at the museum.

You really have to sit down and look up to get a great view of this painting right smack dab in the middle of the ceiling.  Which we did.  For a while.  

This is a close up of the painting

I've read various accounts of the meaning behind the portrait and how it was shameful that an emperor would commission Christians to destroy Roman statues, etc, but seriously, I'm fairly certain the meaning behind this picture is completely lost on people who view it as a travesty to destroy Roman statues....Roman statues- seriously- the Roman Empire?  Anyone remember anything about the Roman Empire?  Hello fellow Christians!  They persecuted Christians.... this picture (painted by Raphael -who is subsequently buried in the Pantheon in Rome)is a fresco (which frescos are a type of painting done on the walls and flash photography and light can actually (and have) damage the pictures-which is why in the Sistine Chapel you are not allowed to take pictures of the paintings (oddly enough, people are still disrespectful)...but this picture symbolizes the Christian faith- outliving the Roman Empire- that Christ, on the Cross, defeated not only sin and death, but proved that His Kingdom would outlive earthly Empires!  The Roman Empire being the first! 

So this giant piece of artwork.  It reminds me  of what it's all about.  What Christ truly did for all of us.  Me included.  It's so hard at times to really believe He would do that for someone like me- even reading one of my favorite stories, the Prodigal Son, and seeing what a mess that son made of his life, and knowing God took him back- with open arms- I still struggle with accepting that He could do the same for me and I don't think I've done NEAR what the prodigal son did...I'm more like the selfish older brother..... 'why does HE get the fatten calf?  Am I not constantly trying to do the right thing?  Wah, wah, wah, wah.'   

Yea.  That's me....

So these demons that speak softly to my mind about how messed up I am and how messed up I'm making my kids and why even bother and blah blah blah, you don't measure up to anyone, why not just give up.......keep harassing me.... 

I just don't understand why.  I do understand that the harder we try to live good lives of holiness and pass on our faith to our children, the harder the evil one wants to discourage us.  I get very tired of people who try to discredit evil.  I watched a movie about Padre Pio a few weeks ago, he's always been one of my favorite saints, but that movie?  It assured me that the devil is real, he sends evil to everyone and those who live lives of complacency?  Perhaps are just not as bothered by them because they could care less about religion, faith, and eternity with God.  It's not important to them, so in a sense, they're already in the corner with evil.  

But why is there this darkness?  I pray.  I  know I don't pray like I should. I sometimes get so down on myself because people tell me to pray the Rosary, pray Novenas, pray chaplets, blah blah blah and I start, I try, but I never finish. I never do it.... I used to pray the Rosary daily.  I used to pray the 15 prayers of St. Bridget DAILY!  For YEARS!!  I used to get the kids to sit down before bedtime and we'd rattle off a rosary together as well....

But now?  

Nothing like that.  

I guess I shouldn't say nothing like that.  I do try to pray with my husband daily.  We try to read the readings for Mass and the reflections and read about the saints for the day and the bible verse for the day.... 

I engage in constant conversation with my Lord.  And it's not always the pleading, "Dear Lord, if you don't rescue me from these tiny terrorists, someone is going to be in very big trouble...."

I talk to Him throughout the day.  constantly.  Probably almost annoyingly.  I talk to Padre Pio.  (I swear he hears me...)  I talk to lots of saints.  I now talk to Mother Angelica.  

But I don't do a lot of the formal prayer anymore, not consistently and it's been making me feel I'm a loser of a faith person.  The demon is using that against me!  

Here is what I hear:

"You don't pray the Rosary  like so and so.  They go sit in the Adoration chapel for 12 hours a day and pray nothing but the Rosary.  You're a loser..."

"Can't finish that Novena?  hahahahaha.  You suck, you faith filled wanna be...."

"You mean you don't pray this for so and so? Why even bother with yourself??"

I am NOT kidding!!  I really do hear these voices!   Ok, the 12 hours in adoration might be an exaggeration, but you get the point....

I am getting to the point that I don't even trust myself to evangelize to others!   My Jehovah friends, for instance.  My husband got so mad at their "propaganda, anti-Catholic thought" that he yelled them out of our house and they haven't been back!!!  I kept saying I was just grooming them to feel comfortable, but truth is, every time they came, I begged God to give me something, ANYTHING to tell them that would have them recognize the errors  in their translations, but nothing came....

That was back in SEPTEMBER!!!

I've not seen them since....

So I have to wonder why this evil continues to drag me down!  Why can't I just wake up, pain free, dark voice free, and go on with my life....

It's not as clear as one would think....

Dark times happen to lots of people and apparently, Mother Theresa was plagued with it almost her entire life.  I should feel better that I'm in good company, but in the same breathe, I don't.  I'm not Mother Theresa!  I'm only charged with caring for seven little minions and one amazing super hero husband and I'm not doing that entirely well, either! 

I thought when my superhero hubs and I decided that we would stick it out in snowland for at least another 10 years or so, that I would experience a sense of peace. Ahhh, I thought....  This is our home, this is where we will be for a while, let's get to work and get some things done and enjoy it.  But instead?  I feel even more lost and confused.  I've been second guessing our decision daily, and questioning whether or not this is really where God wants us....

I mean, who doesn't like a place where it's  cold 9 months out of the year....

Ok, not really.  But the lack of bugs and spiders does make it a nice choice.....

So why this unrest?  I really have no idea.  I get so angry with myself and pray even harder for God to remove this yuck from my brain, but it's still there.  Like an Eeyore cloud, following me everywhere I go and I hate it!   Sad people, I'm talking about the people you have to cheerlead from sun up to sun down, suck the life out of people.  I can't handle it at times.  I had to sever a friendship a decade ago because the person could just.not.find.anything. to be happy for or about!  I was becoming as negative as her and my husband said, "enough is enough....please remove yourself from her presence...."   

So here I am.... almost like her!!  I do try to not let it leak out.  I save it up for my husband, who reminds me that I must learn to seek joy even in the yuck because I affect my family.  When I'm dark, the Eeyore cloud is over all of us.  Me, my husband, and my kids... It's not fair to them....

So, I have no answers today.  I have no light, or clue, or anything.  I do see sunshine.  Finally.  It's beautiful outside.  Albeit cold.  So I'll hold onto the sunshine.  I'll hold on to the conversations I have with all my saints in Heaven and with Jesus.  He can put up with my crazy better than anyone...

Blessings this Easter Day 2 to all of you.....

My friend....

Pity Blog....

Today is just one of those days....

Seriously.   Have you ever had one?   You know, the one where, you got a few hours of sleep the night before because a little one started that croup cough?  You know the cough, sounds like a seal barking at the zoo?

Or you know it's nearly 70 degrees outside, and you haven't seen temps like this since last August, but the only thing you want to do is crawl into bed and pray the day starts over, or you sleep until the next day?

Or better yet, you wrestle with a one year old to take the medication you KNOW will help her ear infection, but you wind up wearing most of it all over your nice, clean, white, shirt?

I'm reminded of a Prince, or what ever his name became, Artist Formerly Known as Prince (would we call him Afkp? Sorry, I'm a tad tired...) song with the verse, "Dr. Everything will be alright."

Needing to hear that doctor tell me that right about now.

So it's puddle blog today.  The temperature couldn't be more amazing.  The beautiful skies, the 'knock you over, or even better, make your hair stand straight up' wind is even tolerable....

But because of several things, I'm in a puddle.

I want to quit today.  It started, oh, about midnite.  The baby, #7, little teeny tiny Taz, we'll call her, started coughing.  By coughing, I mean sounding like a seal barking like crazy.  She's had croup a month ago.  I really thought, in my ever so medical brain of mine, we've done croup!

Kinda like, we've done RSV.  Once you've done these things, it's like some kind of unwritten rule you don't have to do them again!!  Right?

Well, no.  I guess.  So this morning, after being awake most of the night walking in her room every half hour to see if she was still breathing, I was exhausted.  I called the pediatric clinic to talk to a nurse.  My pediatric office has the nicest nurses, and I needed a reassuring voice that 1) I would be ok, (cause it's all about me) and 2) should I bring her in?

Second pity moment arrived.  After waiting for what seemed like 1/2 an hour, another automated voice comes on to inform me, the medical line is no longer working.  If I choose to leave a message, it could take up to one whole business day to return my call.... seriously?  I waited 1/2 an hour (ok, more like 10 minutes) for them to tell that?  So, of course, I had to hang up and call back!  The woman tells me, "Oh it's working.  That's the new message...."  Ummmm, perhaps I need to call back on another more sane day to double check that one.....

My theory, in my pity party world, they want my money.  They don't care about me, or my daughter, they just want my co-pay....

Like I said, I'm working on very little sleep and zero patience...

So I got an appointment and tried to feed the little peanut.  Problem is, she is so congested, her nose is completely blocked with double barrels of snot coming out.  So I get the great idea I'll just squirt a little saline in her nose- it's always worked before....

That is until, my one year old developed the strength of Hercules....  She very deftly pulled the spray from my hand, wiped her nose all over my daughter's sweatshirt who was holding her, and screamed at me in her baby language, "Don't you ever try that little stunt again, lady!"

Ok, that's not what she said, but if she could talk, and I could understand baby language, that's EXACTLY what she would have said.  I promise.

My husband happened to come home after dropping off the older kids at the high school, just like that, my super hero went to the rescue.  He held her arms and head, all the while complementing her incredible strength, while I injected her nose with the spray.

Now, who really wants crap shot up their nose????  Anyone?  Hopefully not.  I don't.  But if I could only convey to this tiny human monster that it would make her feel better pretty quick by allowing me to momentarily torture her, she would most likely comply with me....   I hope....

But we forced the spray and in seconds, after wiping the giant mess off her face, she was noticeably breathing better.  The spray thins out the thick mucus and allows her to breath better....

I kind of think it's a miracle drug and this is the first baby I've ever really used it on - repeatedly....

My husband left and soon it was time to load the crew up....

I don't know about Sarah and Abraham, but being 43 and having two tiny monsters is waaaaaay more difficult than being 28 with two tiny monsters....  Or 30 with 3 tiny monsters, or 35 with 5 tiny monsters....

I am just feeling old.  And tired.  And sleep deprived.   So everything is going to be worse, at least today....

I finally got the two in the car after many, many tears (most of them mine) and bribes of snacks and juice....

We got to the doctors office and of course, had to wait.  I don't usually mind waiting.  Well, not in a doctors office.  Our pediatrician's office back home had two offices.  One was for sick visits, the other for well visits.  It was delightful.  I rarely visited the sick side, but when I did, I knew what to expect.  Here?  I don't know if the kid beside has the flu or is here for a checkup.  But I do know, no one wanted to be around my little teeny terror with the double barrels of snot pouring down her nose....

So I played the, 'what's this?' game.... Ever played that to distract a child?   Yea.  It doesn't always work and today, she was having none of it.  Strangely, my 3 year old Taz was just sitting her seat happy as a lark drinking enough water to sink the Titanic  (or cause us to visit the nasty bathroom before we left, inducing even more stress in my life....)

I pointed out every  single object I saw with eyes in the entire office.  I'm pretty sure the people around us were tired of looking up to see what I was so excited to see on the wall.

"Luci, oh my goodness, WHAT'S THAT?   What's THIS??  Wow, Luci, LOOK!!!!"

I was tired of saying it.  I think the nurses rushed to get me back because the one forgot to look up how to pronounce her name- they usually do that with my younger two since they have such 'non' American names....

'Lushia?  Looosha?  Lucia?'

I assured her we responded to anything that closely resembled her name....

She ushered us back.

They tried to get a pulse oximeter on her finger.  It's telling me it's misspelled, but I haven't the energy or the desire to look up the appropriate name for that annoying thing that I think doesn't work...  She was so upset, it wasn't going to give a good reading anyway- I've learned this from RSV- their screaming can altar the oxygen levels as well- and the way her croup was sounding, the nurse just said she'd send the doctor in.

The doctor didn't have much better luck, except that she could hear  her lungs were clear and her ear was infected.

They don't like to use steroids too much, but since she could hear her croup, she felt it was necessary to use at least today and tomorrow.  Hopefully it will shrink the swelling in her throat.  They noted if she gets croup again in May, June, or July or any other warmer month, they'll refer us to a pediatric ENT.  Just to rule out some type of smaller airway issue that is common among repeat croup babies...

Great.

But we got a script for a steroid and an antibiotic.  it's the first antibiotic she's been on in her entire 1 year and almost 2 month existence.  I find that pretty amazing considering she has six older siblings who are hideous sharers of everything BUT germs.....

I was completely exhausted at this point and worried the older one would fall asleep on the way to the store.  I had to get the first dose of steroid in her so it would begin to shrink the swelling.  I rolled the windows down and began acting a fool for the 3 year old.  Anything to get her to stay awake....

It worked.  Along with bribing her with lunch at wegmans.  I was also starving.  And had a headache.  The baby fell asleep, which was fine- so I took the 3 year old to the bathroom (this store has amazingly clean bathrooms) and checked on the medicine, and headed to food.

My three old ordered a slice of pizza.  It was a big as her head.  She got a water bottle too.  You would have thought she won the lottery.  I ate a sub.  It was about the most peaceful 20 minutes of the day.

Chiara had a ball.  We only almost dropped the pizza twice, and she actually caught it both times.  Makes lunch a win in my book.  We finished just as Luci woke up, so we quickly went to get her medication and head home.

Happy as a lark...

Once home, the pity party resumed as I was reminded that because of my lack of sleep, and hurried morning, I didn't get the morning breakfast, tornado mess cleaned up.  Luci began her usual screaming party since the start of this illness.  Which, makes for accomplishing anything pretty slim with her either in my arms, or pulling on me to pick her up....

I tried to feed her some food and give her both meds.  She was a Hercules again.  I'm amazed at her super human strength.  Steroids??  She needs none...  Most of the steroid either got on me, her shirt, or the floor.  Thank goodness they allow for spillage in the dosage.  I'm hoping it was enough to do the trick for the day until her night dose.  The amoxicillen was also a bit of a mess.  I am definitely going to be sporting a multi colored white shirt the rest of the day.  Once she realized this tasted way better than the steroid, she actually drank most of it.... again, hoping for the dosing spillage here....

I went to toss the wash rag in the laundry room and saw the state of my laundry room and literally stood there and just started crying silently.  Almost as if my world just received the most devastating news ever.  All it took was to see the incredibly large amount of laundry, coupled with the train wreck of a kitchen, and the filthy state of my entire home.... and I was bubbling mess...

Isn't it amazing what sets us off?  What the tipping point for pity is?  Mine was definitely enhanced by a dramatic loss of sleep. I am someone who struggles with sleep as it is.  I have chronic neck pain I battle, and finally felt I had gotten a hold of it, and had a set back last weekend that has sparked the rage in my neck again.  So that, coupled with the sleepless worry of her cough, the crazy exhausting day that is still today, just make me want to crawl right back into my bed and hope for tomorrow to come quickly....

I am reminded of someone who once commented on 'how I can handle' such a large family.

It's why I don't like to complain about it too often.  But maybe it's given people the definite false sense I can handle it....

A large family.

A sick child.

A night of not much sleep.

But I can't.  I can't handle these things anymore or any better than anyone else.  I can choose to sit here and cry in my laundry room, or let my 1 year old continue to wipe her snot all over me.  Drop her puffs all over the already messy floor, dump her water bottle for the umpteenth time, finally dislodging the valve so that the water just flows freely all over the floor, and pray that this is only temporary.

Life will get back to "normal" soon.... Yes, my "normal" is somewhat different from everyone else's normal, but we all view normal in a pretty similar way.

Mine tends to include the phrase, 'we all survived...."

Which is exactly I how I feel sometimes, by the time we all go to bed....

I think we sometimes (me superly included in this) tend to look at other people's lives and really compare them wrongly.  None of us should have the exact same lives.  That's what makes us all beautiful.  We're all different.  We all parent differently.  If we looked the same, it would be so boring.  But I think sometimes, we feel we don't measure up to what we're seeing either in person, or on social media, or in our actual social circles.

My life is crazy.  I think people really just want to see what a constant train wreck looks like.

I can assure anyone who asks, it's crazy train all day long.  Some days, I just want to scream, STOP.  Some days, I want someone to stop the planet from spinning and take me off....

Some days, I just want to sit and write a pity blog.

Here's to brighter days, happier moments, and a lot less snot in the very near future...

Literally happened right as I finished this blog....

The Post Review of the First EVER Catholic Women's Conference!

Wow.

Wow.

Really.  I can not think of a better description for what happened here Saturday.  (as I type this, I'm also saying wow to the shingles that are dancing on my roof....  *sigh*)

What happened here Saturday?

Something that has been missing for four years, and probably just as many years prior to 2012 as well.


There was a women's conference in WNY.  Not just any women's conference, but a conference put on by an amazing group of women that I am privileged to be a part of!

This is our group....

 I was pregnant with our baby #7 when the idea began to formulate among us.  Could we even pull off a women's conference?  I mean, it sounded nice.  We sure would like to attend one, but to actually put on one ourselves?  Seemed impossible.  But we kept talking about it.  This was the beginning of 2015.   It wasn't until my baby wound up in the hospital with RSV that we actually began making phone calls.  That was literally one year ago last week.  I remember I contacted two different potential speakers, found out their cost, and called my friends back and said, "never mind, ladies....we can't do this..."

They were so expensive!!  We would have to put down a deposit, pay airline tickets, hotel, food, it was almost too much for me to think about.  (this was when we knew our #7 was ok-just waiting to get her levels back up...)

I remember having a conversation with one of the ladies about us contacting the local radio station.  We figured, if they knew there was a genuine interest, they might be called to bring another one back to our area.  So we called.  And we waited.

I always tell God lots of things.  Probably too many things.  He's my Father-my eternal Father, so I talk to Him like He's my Dad.  I remember specifically telling Him that if He wanted us crazy women, with half a million kids between us, to plan a conference, He was going to have to open every single door and help us make it happen.

And wouldn't you know it, just as He does everything, He answered me ever so softly in my heart and put the desire there.  It was that kind of desire that when you talk about it, your heart gets racy, your face gets hot and you know you need to do something?  He answered me, all right, with a resounding, 'crazycatholicmomma, I'd love to....'

So we worked.  We planned.  We talked and we prayed.  What would it take to make this work?  How much money would we need to have up front?  What kind of speakers could we even afford?

The first thing we needed to do was to seek the Bishop's permission and blessing.  The funny thing was that the Bishop was out of town off and on for several months and his secretarial assistant was actually out of the country.  So we quietly continued to plan, with the hopes that the Bishop would see this as a beautiful opportunity for his flock of WNY.  We didn't want the word getting out until we had his blessing.  It was that important to us.  We thought, however, we could go ahead and figure out, if not schedule, a few speakers ahead of time.

 The first person that popped into my mind was Dr. Ray Guarendi.  I would listen to him on the radio and just laugh at his sense of humor.  He seemed to be very neutral when it came to speaking to anyone so I wasn't worried about him not being able to reach women of all ages and stages of the game.  I emailed his site.

He replied immediately.

I had my first conversation with what I love to call, "my Catholic rock stars..."  (because as you will remember, it's all about me...)

He was not available on the date we requested so we had to go back and revisit our plan.... We finally settled on a date, February 27, 2016.  He was in fact available and told me we'd be in touch later on to discuss details.

Simple.

Yet not so simple.

The two months it took to get and receive the Bishop's blessing was stressful!  Who else would we get?  Who else could we afford?  Dr. Ray was easy- he was driving from his location since it was "so close" and his fee was very affordable.  (to this day, I feel as though we got WAAAAY more than what we paid him!!!)

When the Bishop's secretary finally got back into the country and contacted me, he said he would give him all our information and get back to me.  Talk about pressure. In the meantime, we worked out a slight glitch in where we could host the event.  We made tentative plans for another speaker, Hallie Lord, to speak.

When we finally received the blessing from Bishop Malone, we took off.  We held our first planning meeting, and invited several people we thought could be very instrumental in helping us.  We were contacted once again by the diocese because apparently, they needed to make sure we were a legit Catholic group (I assured him we were 100% authentic Catholics- following the Magisterium).

The roller coaster was off and we were literally sitting in the car, holding on for dear life, and screaming at every high and low!  We didn't stop until yesterday.  The day after our event.

I'm just going to leave you with a few pictures and then a few words (I promise it will be brief) about the experience of our first women's conference....

Getting ready for mass to begin.  We realize there are probably 500 women...

Bishop Richard Malone during his beautiful homily!

Our very own Channel 2 news anchor, MaryAlice Demler

Danielle Bean-excellent talk!

Hallie Lord, Heather Schieder, & Danielle Bean.  Some of the funniest Catholic women out there...

Hallie Lord-wonderful words!  

Just reminiscing over cast pictures....

Fr. Bill Quinlivan with his Reconciliation reflection!

Dr. Ray Guarendi with two of my favorite peeps!

Dr. Ray and MaryAlice Demler.  One of the funniest moments of the day...

Dr. Ray.  Seriously laughed so much during his talk.  

 

Don't ask.  Just don't ask.  Heather is about the funniest woman alive in America today...

Danielle and I the day after as she heads home from the windy WNY!

The day could not have been any better than it was.  Are there areas we need to work on for next year?  Absolutely.  Registration was like herding cats- it was a bit chaotic.  Parking was a bit hairy- I'll forever have running over a cone (put in the spot I was stopped in for our Bishop) and getting out to make sure Danielle and my kids got out safely and seeing our actual Bishop right.behind.me.waiting.on.the.very.spot.I.was.in..... Lots of humility abounded that day, there....

I will tell anyone who asks, that the women never once complained about parking to me.  The gentlemen who helped with parking said the same thing.  They were very complimentary of everyone in attendance.

Lunch went fairly smoothly, the three locations really helped.  Note to self, GF lunches will be kept behind locked doors until said GF ladies find us.... lesson learned there....

The day was just a beautiful, beautiful, example of God's grace and mercy shining through.  I was astounded by it throughout the day.

So that's a wrap.  The conclusion?   We are a here to stay.  We are already working on next year.  We have a date confirmed by our diocese.  We have a few speakers on the radar we are emailing and getting information from.  We are already planning a "debriefing" meeting with ideas/concerns we need to work on for next year.  It's so exciting, humbling, beautiful, to be a part of this amazing group of women.  I am truly blessed.  Truly.  To God be the Glory.  Always.