cleansing - ma - fire!

So today I got to go to CONFESSION for the first time since I left Des Moines! It was so so so so wonderful! The priest at the church here is so wonderfully holy and he just encouraged me so much. Confessing to him helped me to realize how much Jesus loves me, even in my sin and wretchedness. I was so happy to be able to go!

Thank you, Jesus for the precious gift of Reconciliation and holy priests! YOU are faithful, my beautiful Savior!

almost done

So my aunt is almost done with school now, which is really nice. I cannot believe how long they had to be here this year! I've already had two months of summer and theirs is just beginning. It seems surreal that the 4th of July is just a week away and the last day of school was Friday.
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Other than that, I've been working on sewing and knitting projects. I made Lara (my cousin's wife) a knitting needle holder. I really like it a lot! The idea for it came to me in a knitting book that she lent to me while I was learning to do cable knit. They have a lot of patterns to make things in there that I thought were really fun, and I saw two different knitting needle holder patterns. One of them I really liked was not very functional as it was a rolling case and the other was very functional as it hangs on a hanger, but it was rather ugly. So I incorporated the two ideas and made my own! It is really quite super!
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I am excited because Lara really loves it, it can hold several different types and sizes of needles, and I made it without a pattern. (I haven't done that before except from when I made purses, pillows, dolls, or doll dresses as a small child.)
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So everything has been going well. This Thursday I go back to Des Moines for a week to go to Margaret's wedding! (She was my youth minister/hero back in high school - and hero still today!) I am so excited for her and for Charles.
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And now I'm off to help my aunt with more paperwork!
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Have a lovely day!
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God bless you!
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reading again

Hey everyone! I'm not dead! I've just been very busy with helping my Aunt at her school!

So things have been going pretty well. I got to see some people who were on NET with me, Anne, Chris Hirniak, and Brianna Duffy, on Monday night as they drove up the east coast from Georgia. (Two of their teammates got married to each other this past weekend.) It was so wonderful to be able to serve them and see them! I am very pleased that they were able to make it up.

And Annie was even able to spend the night, so we spent Tuesday morning boating and swimming and skiing and water tubing on the creek. It was so much fun! She is such a wonderful woman and I was so happy to spend time with her!

Life Giving Love by Kimberly Hahn

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So I finished reading Love and Responsibility yesterday and today have started Life Giving Love again. I just felt like I needed a little renewal of the beauty of the procreative aspect of love, now that I am renewed on what love is and is not, thanks to our friend, Karol Wojtyla.

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Tonight I am going to "Operafest" at the University of Mary Washington with my aunt and uncle. They are performing several different songs from several different operas. It will be a lot of fun!

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bargain hunter

So I am coming back to Des Moines for the first week in July for my friend Margaret's wedding! My aunt is so grateful for my help that she bought me a plane ticket! It is so lovely of her!

Today I went to an outlet mall to get a dress for Margaret's wedding. I ended up finding a really lovely little red dress as well as this green coat. (Don't worry, I won't wear them together.)

Other than that today was pretty good. I taught a ninth grader some math, which was fun. He is such a sweet person! He just moved here from Somalia and had never been to school before. He is learning everything so quickly! I love it when he gets excited after figuring something out!

That's about all! Have a great day!

head up the nose

So let me update you on how everything has been going. My Aunt, Uncle and Cousins had a good time at the wedding in Santa Fe, NM. Below is a picture of my cousin Dave entertaining his sister Ellen's daughter Jessie.

And I had a good time with my grandma last weekend. We just relaxed the rest of the weekend as she was pretty worn out from all of the shopping we did on Saturday and Sunday. She had a good time showing off her "namesake" (that would be me) to all of her friends.

This past week I went into my Aunt's school with her and helped her get a lot of paperwork done. It was nice to be useful and to help her.

On Thursdays at my Grandma's place they have Mass for the residents, and so my aunt suggested that I go out there to surprize my Grandma. I did and was so happy that I could! The residents were all every excited to see a young person there, and my grandma was pretty surprized. One man told me that there is a tradition that the youngest person does the readings and asked how old I was. I told him that I was 107 and everyone thought that was the funniest thing it the world.

I am super happy because I have been able to go to Mass a lot lately! And last night a church was having adoration too! Oh! I was so wonderful to go. And I realized how spoiled I had been with perpetual adoration at my church in Des Moines.

Well, I should go help my family with yardwork now. I hope you all have a very nice day!

Congratualtions on graduation today, Emily!

God bless you!