Getting to Know You, Part 2

Did I say we are Engaged Couple Sponsors for our church now?  It's going well, we had to go to a training session and then we got our first couple.  I was nervous but it's really a nice thing, you get the answers to the couples' evaluation (never test!  Although it's really a test, ha!) and go over the challenges in the answers.  We have worked with one couple who are getting married this fall and we are going to work with another couple this week, who are getting married in June.  I don't necessarily feel like we have so much to say about how to be a good married couple, but we do have experience being married now and I feel like our training was good - it's really just common sense stuff.  Anyways, it's all we can do, volunteer wise, right now and I feel like it's helpful so that's good.  This weekend in church they spoke about how it's important to have a mission and while I don't know that I necessarily have a MISSION, I do have some idea about wanting to give back to the Church, etc., and I'm happy we can do something.  Ha, even if it's a lesson in What Not to Do.

Here's the second part of the Getting to Know You thing.

Getting to Know Me Post 2

Have you ever had something happen to you that you thought was bad but it turned out to be for the best?

Well I guess I'd say everything, because that's really how I try to look at my life but especially Anthony's being autistic. I was really scared of Autism, scared of it all, but he is my firstborn child and my only son and it's my duty and privilege to take care of him.

What was one of the best parties you’ve ever been to?

I loved my wedding. I met Mike at a retirement party for these two friends of mine who were retiring from coaching a basketball program. I'm going to say that was the BEST party I've ever attended. It was postponed twice because of bad weather and then finally they had it and I met Mike again moments after I went in, we stayed the latest of anyone.

What was the last movie, TV show or book that made you cry or tear up?

Everything makes me cry. I cried at Downton Abbey last night but not when the Big Thing happened. I cried when the mom was thinking of Sybil, the thought of losing a child is very upsetting to me.

What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done? 

I don't know. It was hard to go through the experience of getting Anthony diagnosed, it continues to be hard, to constantly review our actions and hope we are doing enough.

What was the last experience that made you a stronger person?

I would like to think that I get stronger every time a person comes out of me, ha! I don't know if I do or not.

What did you do growing up that got you into trouble? 

My mother caught me smoking one time, at school. One time we were out super late and we said our car got towed from the Diner but my mom called to complain and they said they had never had a car towed from there in their thirty year history, ha! Busted! I used to get grades that were unacceptable and I'd spend a lot of time grounded.

What do you miss most about being a kid? 

I miss naps and allowance.

What is your first memory of being really excited? 

I don't know. I used to really love my life, I loved going to school and seeing friends. I loved this Gym Show we used to have in grade school. I loved everything. I used to be excited every damned time my eyes opened in the morning.

What was the first thing you bought with your own money?

I'll tell you what I remember buying with my own money. My Aunt Joan always gives me $3 for my birthday and when I was in second or third grade she gave it to me in quarters, taped in my card. I brought the quarters in to school and I bought ice cream (which was a dime, I think) for everyone in my class. Then poof! the money was gone and I was super sad but extremely well loved in my class.

When was the last time you were nervous?

I am pretty nervous! I was truly nervous on Saturday night at work, first we were super busy and then this customer had kind of a breakdown. We know her well, she is a regular, and she was having some kind of a manic episode and I was nervous for her. She's fine.

What is something you learned in the last week?

The last week. I learned that I know nothing about people and that they are a constant surprise to me. I saw a friend of mine on Sunday and she told me that her husband and she are separated, his decision, they have two little kids who are Anthony and Maria's ages and I just - I am shocked. I don't understand people and I never will.

What story does your family always tell about you? 

I don't know. I fell out of the car when I was around three or four. Three, I guess. We were at my grandfather's house while my parents went bowling. They used to bowl on Sundays. It was cold out and I guess the door handle froze? Or something? We went around this super hard turn and I fell out of the car. I don't remember much but I do remember that they KEPT DRIVING until my sister Laura said 'Joanne's not in the car anymore!'. I remember I was mad at my dad when we were at the hospital to get checked out (I was fine) and I remember I was wearing this cute outfit with kitty cats on the pants and then it had one kitty cat on the shirt. Our Don't Break the Ice game went out with me and my mom always talks about hearing the tink tink tink of those ice cubes.

At what age did you become an adult?

I don't know, really. I guess I am an adult because I have all these kids? I know that when I go to parent/teacher conferences at the girls' preschool, i am looking around for my mom or dad, ha!

Getting to Know You

I stole this from my internet friend, I would like to blog more here and I keep forgetting.  I want to say things about the Pope leaving and about how I have so many friends and acquaintances who think that, like, Hillary Clinton or someone should be the Pope, it's driving me insane.  I have completely faith that those Cardinals will get together and pray and let it come to them who should be the Pope.  I'm glad JPII was the Pope and I'm glad Benedict was the Pope and I'm glad Leo, Doctor and Saint, or whoever was Pope was Pope.  I'm not worried about it!  I don't think that we should get a pope who is more modern, or super young, or hip and with it, or anything.  I think we should have the pope be someone who God wants as His vicar on Earth.  Maybe I'm a simpleton, but I have a hard enough time with faith, I can't get all pushed up about who is going to be pope.  Sheesh.

So anyways, since I am IMPOSSIBLE about the pope situation and other current events, I thought I'd just steal a meme and go from there.

What was your favorite food when you were a child?

I used to love cheese sandwiches, also tomato sandwiches and by sandwich I mean either cheese or tomato with mayo on white bread.  MMMMMM.  I don't really want a cheese sandwich now but I could TOTALLY have a tomato sandwich.  I miss white bread, Lord I loved it as a child and we had only white bread and white bread from which to choose.  We also had bread every single night at dinner.  EVERY NIGHT.

What’s the #1 most played song on your iPod?

I listen to this Avett Brothers song that I got for free from Starbucks but I can't remember the name of it.  I am terrible with new music, on account of I am usually listening to the kids' crap in the car or sometimes I listen to comedians on Pandora to cheer myself.

What is one of your favorite quotes?

My favorite quote is from Judge Judy and it's "Don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining".

What’s your favorite indoor/outdoor activity?

My favorite indoor activity is reading, whether it's books or the internet.  But I also really enjoy several shows on tv and since we have Netflix streaming through our Blu Ray, I try and catch a movie here and there.

What chore do you absolutely hate doing?

The laundry around here is pretty daunting but I do sort of hate all of them, because it never stops.  Sometimes as I am folding clothes, Felicity is tearing them out of the basket and throwing them on the floor.  I hate sweeping the floor because it is so gross to look at the amount of stuff that's been on there!

What is your favorite form of exercise?

I used to love going to boxing classes at my gym in NYC.  Now I like this KenPo workout from P90X and I like Turbo Jam.  I like anything that makes me work hard and goes fast.

What is your favorite time of day/day of the week/month of the year?

My favorite time of day.  I think it's probably evenings after the kids have gone to bed and we are sitting together watching tv.  My favorite day of the week is probably Friday, after all this time where Friday doesn't really mean anything to us.  My favorite month of the year is probably March - it's my birthday month, we are busy at work because of NCAA basketball and St. Patrick's Day, and it's finally getting warmer, usually.

What’s your least favorite mode of transportation?

Flying.

What is your favorite body part?

I have long nail beds and all my manicurists comment on them.

What sound do you love?

I'll tell you what sound I love and that is the sound of silence.  I never hear it, though, EVER.

I guess this is kind of an abrupt ending.  I'll have to go look at the stolen meme and get the Part 2, but not right now.  Right now I am taking advantage of the fact that it's President's Day and Mike is home and I'm going to do a (hopefully) simple computer consulting job.  

Annulment

I follow this blogger on Twitter and, well not to be too kissy assy but I really, really like this blogger, and anyways she was talking on Twitter about how she had recently had her first marriage annulled by the Catholic Church because her ex-husband requested it and got it.  He is marrying a Catholic girl and of course, he can't have been married before if he wants to get married in the Church.  

I will always, always come down on the side of the Church when I can.  I try and really find out about what the Catechism says about things so that I can make sense of them.  Like, I used to not understand about why Catholics shouldn't use artificial birth control, it made NO sense to me, but it does now.  I have done a lot of reading about it and, not to be lame, praying on it and I get it now.  But I do not get this.  

Why would the Catholic church annul a marriage that took place outside of the church?  I recognize that a marriage is a marriage is a marriage to the Church, but I thought it was hard to get a marriage annulled.  I thought there were specific reasons, like (and this might not be all of them but just off the top of my head) say, the person you married was crazy and didn't say that.  Or say they claimed they wanted kids and then didn't.  Or, abandonment is a big one.  

I remember when my Uncle got married it was very important to him that his fiancee get her first marriage annulled because he wanted to get married in the Church.  This was like 30 years ago and we were all on tenterhooks, would she get the annulment or not?  But she did and they got married and all was well.  But she had a daughter, my cousin, and I remember my sister and I saying, what happens to her?  Where does a child fit in an annulment situation?  The Catechism says that of course it doesn't make a child illegitimate but I wonder what does it mean, then?  

I can see that if you get married in the Catholic church that the church should be responsible for that sacrament.  I can see that if I got married to Mike and he said Ha ha!  I didn't mean any of that RCIA stuff and I am never going to have a child and also I am a raging alcoholic and I beat my last wife to death, I could say, um, I can't be married to him anymore.  BUT Mike and I went through pre-marriage counseling and we were encouraged to talk about everything.  The church was responsible for it, they seemed to take it seriously and I did, too.  So I can see how they would have jurisdiction over my marriage.  But I don't see how they'd have jurisdiction over some marriage that took place outside of the Church.  It doesn't make any sense.  

I do wonder a few things - like, if you're not Catholic and your ex gets your marriage annulled in the Church, why does it matter?  But there was some sort of court involved, could it be an actual court?  Also, I was wondering about Joe Kennedy's divorce and annulment.  I remember that he wanted it but his wife was against it, (she was Episcopalian but maybe their kids were Catholic?  As Catholic as any Kennedy is, I guess?) and I just googled it and I had forgotten she wrote a whole BOOK about it but anyways, the Vatican has reversed his annulment.  I didn't know that, nor did I know that he got married civilly, which, what the hell?  Why did he care, then?  

Anyways.  I could see if we lived in Ireland before whenever they changed their No Divorce rule, or in some Catholically run country but the Church doesn't run the United States?  Who cares what they think with regard to a marriage that didn't take place in their Church?  I mean, I care, but I recognize that others do not, that other people aren't Catholic.  I feel that way about birth control too.  I mean, I get impatient with Catholics who purposely work against the rules of the church, and still consider themselves to be 'good Catholics' but if someone isn't Catholic?  Why would I care about whether or not they use birth control?  Sheesh.  

Anyway.  If anyone knows why the Church is involved in annulling marriages which they had no part of, let me know.  

Vocation

Tonight I was feeding the baby and watching a documentary about this nun who used to be an actress. I read about it last year, it might have been nominated for an Oscar. Anyway. I was watching it and I had an epiphany. The former actress, who is now the mother superior, was talking about how hard it was when she was first a novice. Then another woman, a nun, talked about how hard it was for her, and yet another novice was shown crying to the mother about how miserable she was.

I think I've always thought of nuns and priests as having callings to the religious life and just being sure of their choice. I figured they had a calling from God and that fueled them to be happy and leave their former lives behind. But today I was thinking, I have a calling, too. I am called to the married life and to be the mother of these four kids and just because I have a calling doesn't mean I'm not going to have doubts or be sad sometimes. It is very freeing to believe that. And even if I'm wrong, who cares? It's the first time in years that I've had the feeling that maybe someday I'll be happier and more content. Maybe at some point in the near future I'll feel confident I made the right choice. Because you should have seen those nuns now, they seemed right where they should be. Well, not the novice. She was still a mess, like I am, but she was new, I figured. She won't feel that way forever! And I won't either. Probably.

Our Song

I am linking up to this on this blog because it's from a Catholic writer I read.

Our wedding song is You Send Me, but I also think of Here, There and Everywhere and especially God Only Knows as our songs. Neither of the last two are good dance songs though, and You Send Me is a nice rhumba, so that's what we chose for our wedding. I always thought my wedding song would be True Love Ways by Buddy Holly but I guess Mike didn't think of it as our song. He did play it when he asked me to marry him, which I remember thinking was just adorable and perfect. He told me he liked Here There and Everywhere but it seemed to focus too much on the girl in the situation, so I nixed it for our wedding song. I remember, though, that I told my mom that that was the song he liked and she listened to it and said that if that was how he felt about me, I should definitely marry him.

God Only Knows is the best song, even if the first lyric is 'I may not always love you'. It's so beautiful and the thrust of it is something that really speaks to me with regard to marriage, especially now that we have all these kids. I really, really feel that way - God only knows what I'd be without Mike. Now that we're together, I don't feel like I'd be me anymore, without him.

You Send Me is a perfect wedding song, in my opinion. It's a good dance song, it's beautifully sung, and the lyrics are perfect. I'll tell you what my first choice was and that's You Sexy Thing. I couldn't imagine dancing to it at my wedding reception but I love it. 'I believe in miracles, since you came along, you sexy thing. Where did you come from, baby? How did you know I needed you?'. I loved it and I could totally relate to the lyrics. It did seem like a miracle that Mike and I found each other. I did need him! I still do.

Anyway, back to You Send Me. Here are the pertinent lyrics: at first I thought it was infatuation, but ooh it's lasted so long. Now I find myself wanting to marry you and take you home'. You send me, you thrill me, honest you do. As time goes by, Mike still sends me, still thrills me, but in such a different way. Honest, he does, honest he does, honest he does.

Here's a picture of us dancing, and a note about it. We took lessons at an Arthur Murray type place before we got married and I always recommend it to couples who ask. It didn't cost too much money, and it was such a nice thing for us to do once a week in the time working up to our wedding. It was also nice to know exactly what was going to happen with at least ONE thing that day. Also, I'll never forget this - we started dancing and the crowd went wild! It was so funny, it never occurred to me that it looked good, just that it felt really good. Anyways, it was wonderful and we danced a lot that season, we went to our wedding and my friend Chrissy's wedding and it was nice to know what we were doing. Here's a picture from our wedding, actually we were practicing before our wedding in the basement of the church.

Rules

Ugh, I know I am posting a lot but I'm so frustrated. Yesterday, two friends of mine posted an article (I am too lazy to find it) about a woman who was denied communion at her mother's funeral. It said that the priest said he couldn't give her communion because she lived with another woman. If a priest had knowledge of that, I suppose he couldn't give her communion, that's a fact. It seems KIND of weird that he would know that she was living with this woman, but whatever, if he did, the thing to do would be to not give her communion, although I guess he could have handled it better, i.e. talked to her before Mass. It then said that he walked out while she was giving the eulogy, and that he fell ill (or pretended to) so that he didn't go to the graveyard. The woman said she was a life long Catholic AND that she didn't think her sexual orientation would have anything to do with receiving Communion.

So. The communion thing is clear, I guess. My question is, why was she going to communion if she was aware of being NOT in a state of grace? I bet I know the answer, I bet she was not a church goer and was not a confession goer and had no intention of changing her life, which is all fine. It is hard to live your life according to the rule of the Catholic church, I agree! We are all sinners, the way I figure it. What I don't understand is WHY are you marching up for communion if you know all these things? If you were, to use a phrase I despise, "raised Catholic?". If you don't go to church anymore, if you don't believe in it, then don't TAKE COMMUNION! Sheesh! And I have no idea how someone could be raised in the church, be a life long Catholic, and not be clear on the homosexuality thing. Really? REALLY?

As far as the eulogy goes - no one except the priest is supposed to give the homily. This is also a fact. People want to have a more personal reflection of the person who died, at a funeral, which is COMPLETELY understandable, but if you want to do that, I think you should either talk after the Mass, or do something at the funeral home. Or better yet, at the wake after the funeral. I think a lot of people forget that a funeral Mass is a Mass and has rules, just like every other frickety fracken Mass that they have.

A friend of mine was saying that the priest was giving her trouble about playing a spiritual at her mother's funeral. It was Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, and a favorite of her mom's. They did play it, as a recessional, which makes perfect sense to me, both because of the lyrics of the song (coming for to carry me home) and because it was outside of the Mass. Personally, I think a priest presiding over a funeral mass for a mom who died very young should try to err on the side of the KINDLY but people are imperfect, I guess.

I think a lot of people don't know about the rules of the Mass, or about having to have sacred music for a Mass, because a lot of churches have gotten very lax about it and it's confusing. But just because people don't know about it, or because they are constantly showing movies where they are playing the wedding march at a Catholic church, doesn't mean it's not true. I feel like such a jerk, but I also feel I have to defend the church. Because I am insane.

Kids

Yesterday we all went to Mass together, as we've been doing for around four weeks in a row. Veronica was hateful, horrible BAD! during Mass so finally Mike took her out to the car. She fell asleep so hard when we got home, I assume she didn't feel good or was super tired or something and that's why she was so bad. Anyways, I took a picture of her and put it on Facebook and said basically that. A friend of mine posted a comment that said "I will never understand why you CATHOLICS TORTURE YOURSELVES AND YOUR CHILDREN by expecting them to sit still for an HOUR! That's what you GET!". I was all, what in the who now? First of all, this girl is a Christian Scientist, which is a much maligned church and second of all, an hour's not really SUPER long. I take the girls to a frickety fracken story hour at the library and they sit there for most of that. Also, we don't expect her to sit exactly still or we whack her hands with a ruler or anything. She brings a book, we will gladly take her to the foyer, she just can't run up the damned aisle or SLAP at her father's FACE! GOD! What is wrong with people?

But it made me think, typically Catholics don't have Cry Rooms or whatever. We were always expected to just behave in church. If we didn't, and sometimes we didn't, we got spanked after church. I don't care so much, it wasn't TRAUMATIZING or anything but Mike and I don't want to do it so we have to discipline in other ways. So I was thinking why do we torture ourselves? Why do we take them all? I work on Saturdays so we have to go on Sunday and we would rather be together than alone at home with them all. It's good for Anthony to practice sitting and being quiet (and not smacking the head of the guy in front of him, which he did this week). I think God is right there in that church and I like to bring my family there. So that way when I pray for them, I can be all, "These people! Right here! THESE are the ones that I am praying for!".

I have to run, Felicity is crying, but I wanted to get that thought down before it flitted out of my ears.