It is time for another of my children to recite “The Road not Taken.” I always look forward to it.  They are also asked to memorize another Robert Frost favorite, “Stopping by Woods on Snowy Evening.”  While the latter is…

With a daughter off for religious life I’ve been asked, “How do you do it? How do you raise children open to religious life and willing to pursue it?” Wondering myself, I asked other moms and dads we know who have sons…

So, your child has vocation.  Congratulations!  He or she has told you about the desire to enter a seminary, cloister, order, or monastery.  This is wonderful news.  You thank God for this gift to the Church; you make telephone calls…

A quick survey, please if you have a few minutes to spare. These first questions will merely require a yes or no answer. Thank you.

Did you buy any books of a spiritual nature this year? For example, books with God…

Schools across the country are open. I know this because my local big box stores have huge layouts of pencils, rulers, paper and notebooks. The current trends of Hannah Montana and Batman are seen emblazoned on everything from clothes to…

No one would say that you get real wisdom from country songs. After all, as a genre country music gave us such treasures as “You’re The Hangnail in My Life, And I Can’t Bite You Off”, “You Changed Your Name From Brown to Jones, and Mine From Brown to Blue”, and “The Last Word In Lonesome Is “Me”. No, no real wisdom here.

I will admit to having an odd thing about shoes.  Not a weird predilection but rather just a real strong like.  I am no Imelda Marcos who had, according to reports at the time of her husband's fall from grace in 1986, acquired over one thousand pairs of shoes (yes, 1000+ shoes).  In other words, this woman could wear 2.7 different pairs of shoes a day for year without fear of making the fashion faux pas of being seen in the same pair more than once!  No, I will never compete with her but did wonder if I should worry.

According to an article on shoes by US Today (which also mentions Imelda Marcos), women keep 14 pairs of shoes in rotation, while owning approximately 24 pairs.  Reading this made me feel better as I own fewer than that.  Quite honestly, I would probably have more but my budget prevents it.  Rather than spending the average $277 a year on shoes for myself, I am spending our shoe budget (which is way less than that) for the other dozen people who are under my care — eleven children and one husband.  So, while I might wish I could spend that much, God has prevented me from going overboard with shoes for myself by providing me a large family.  As a result, I do get to shoe shop on a regular basis just not always for myself. 

Have you ever passed a car with a bumper sticker that just makes you scratch your head and say, "Huh?"  I recently passed a truck with a bumper sticker extolling the skills of a local tattoo parlor.  The sticker claimed it was "the friendlier tattoo parlor."  I have never frequented any of the numerous tattoo parlors in my rural county but I wondered if the other tattoo parlors were truly unfriendly.  Were they cruel as they applied needle and ink?  I chuckled as I drove on, grateful for that brief moment of laughter in the midst of my busy day.

I have a weakness for bumper stickers.  They are a short peek into someone's mind-set and attitude about life.  Now that we are in the midst of the fifth season there is an increase in political stickers.  We have, of course, the expected four seasons — spring, summer, fall, and winter — the normal seasons.  But now we are fortunate to have that special fifth season upon us — election season.  Each season has its drawbacks — allergies arrive in spring, summer has its mosquitoes, fall brings the first chill, while winter, for many of us, brings lower temperatures and ice.  Election season brings candidates — their mailings, their incessant mailings, recorded telephone calls (I hate when one pretends to be my friend!) and annoying ads.  Each of these same seasons has so much to look forward to — spring has robins and Easter, summer brings vacation time, the beach or the mountains, fall brings the colors, and winter has Christmas to make the snow appear picturesque.  Election season?  Why, it brings out a whole new batch of bumper stickers.

It is as if Christmas season just finished.  The ornaments are just put away, the crèche wrapped up in tissue for another year.  But still Lent arrived before we were ready, and I found myself a bit overwhelmed.  Lent, already??? …

Let's peek in on a recent conversation between Perpetua Felicity and her mother.  Perpetua Felicity (Peppie to her friends — if she had any) is a homeschooled 13 year old, who has been wondering about all the things she hasn't…