have to get me one of these

So I just went to the grocery store to fill my prescription and I was definately shocked. The pharmacist handed me a really fat prescription bottle and I was thinking Great! I get migranes almost every day, or at least once a week, so there should be a lot of pills in there since they're super little.

Yeah...so it definately had SIX individually wrapped pills in it. And the best part? It cost $100.72! :-/ Hence my need for this little guy:

Large Funny Money Bank

Actually, it isn't that bad, and God bless our health insurance, because I only had to pay $15 for it and the insurance covered the rest. But Jesus help whoever doesn't have health insurance and suffers from chronic migranes.

God bless America! Oye!

now that's love

My mom and dad just left in my dad's 1953 XK120 Jaguar to go on a garage tour with their British car club. When my mom went to get in the car I saw that she was carrying a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with her. (Let's just think for a moment about how messy those kinds of sandwiches can be.) I saw an apprehensive look on my dad's face, but he didn't say anything. He loves her more than he loves the car! :)

The above is a picture of my neighbor's father in my dad's car.

When I saw that, I thought, Now that's love.

beautiful morning

I went to Confession this morning at St. Theresa's and went into their little Eucharistic chapel behind the altar to do my penanace. I had never actually been back there since they remodeled it, and it was so beautiful! It was very simple and peaceful. Then I was outside and saw a little grotto with a statue of the Holy Family and realized that there are so many beautiful little corners in churches, we just seem to be too busy to appreciate them most of the time.

On my way home I drove by my friend Angel's house and saw her and her boyfriend Greg carrying Angel's college stuff inside. So I parked on the street and ran up and sat in the back of the van to surprize them when they came back outside. It was fun. :)

I also got to meet Lampshade, Angel's rat who can do tricks. :)

And last night I went to the Mahler's house with Dana and we hung out with Paul and his family until we were all too tired to stay up anymore.

Now I'm off to the store to get my prescription filled!

Have a lovely day!

God bless you all!

extremely uneventful

Today I had to get a CT scan because I've been experiencing chronic migranes for several years now. I went to the doctor thinking that I may have allergies or something as the headaches are much worse/frequent in the summer, but instead I got a prescription to Maxalt, some blood work, and an appointment for a CT scan.

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CT Scan

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So I went down to the hospital for my appointment. I was kind of really excited to get the dye injected into me (I've never had an IV before) and then to see all of the equiptment that was going to be used for the proceedure as I really had no idea what a CT scan was like. But when I got there, the CT technition told me that she would not be injecting the dye, even though my doctor ordered it, and the entire proceedure took less than five minutes with no explaination of anything.

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Needless to say, I was dissappointed.

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I was actually pretty upset by it, but then Jesus helped calm me down in Adoration (as usual), so I am alright now.

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Oh yes, by the way...there is probably no need to worry about the fact that I had a CT scan as it was just done to rule out the possibility of brain cancer. (Just like the blood work was done to rule out the possibility of other things like fatigue, anemia, diabetes, etc.)

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So once again, I'm probably not going to die. :)

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martyrdom

Wednesday night I had a dream that I was in a dark building with some people and that if I stood in front of a window I was going to be shot. Somehow in my dream I knew that I was supposed to be a martyr and that this was how God wanted me to go. Yet I was so afraid of the pain of being shot that I refused to let it happen to me.

Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence

It made me sad to realize that I wanted more to avoid pain than to become a martyr for God. I want to be able to love God so much that I would gladly die for him. After all, this is what Jesus did for us. He loved us more than He wanted to avoid pain. And love is painful - if we look at the Cross - sometimes we have to sacrifice ourselves, our will, our desires for those we love.

Yet there still seems to be so much to loose.

But there is so much to gain.

smart women

I saw this picture and it made me super happy. It makes me so sad when women (as well as men) gripe and complain about how they want women's ordination and how they are dissapointed in the election of Pope Benedict XVI because he will not even consider "options" like this.

Very Smart Women

God bless America and all defenders of the Truth!

constructive criticism

Today during his homily, Fr. Emmanuel was talking about how Paul, in today's first reading, was being persecuted for doing what was right and how the world is full of darkness. This darkness is also in each one of us because of our tendancy to sin, and when someone shines light into the darkness, we often feel exposed and humiliated, so we may try to stop the light.

He spoke of how we are so bad at taking constructive criticism, even though we know the other is right and that we do need to change.

Change, after all, can be very frightening. It seems much more comfortable to sit in sin, participating in the defliement of our souls than to come into the light and be cleansed.

Well, this spoke to my heart, because Manuel and I were having a conversation very similar to this yesterday. And I know that I really stink at admiting when I am wrong. Blaming others - anyone but myself - seems much easier than admiting that I am wrong and imperfect.

It's funny how God works.

Lord, please humble be to be able to accept that I am not always right. Help me to realize that the criticism of others touches me so strongly because I need to change. Give me the grace to follow You to perfection more and more every day.

Accept whatever befalls you, in crushing misfortune be patient; For in fire gold is tested, and worthy men in the crucible of humiliation. Sirach 2: 4-5

locks of love

So Manuel and I look a bit different now. We both just got our hair cut for locks of love on Tuesday...see below....

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Manuel cut 13" off and I cut off 12"! It was super funny to see Manuel looking so horrified the whole time that they were cutting my hair only to realize that it was not terrible at the end. :) And he especially looked frightened when they cut his hair!

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God bless whoever gets our hair! Help him/her to get better soon!

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short and skinny

Today I was checking my email and a couple of links to articles caught my attention. One was called Am I too short to date women? and the other was called Is my guy too skinny? Of course I wanted to read them as I seem to have a trend for dating skinny, sometimes short guys. (See photo below of one of my best friends Paul and I when we were dating in high school. Just ignore the fact that we're matching. It was not intentional.)

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So I read the articles and they kinda made me laugh. The first one actually was kind of sad because this 5'4" guy said, "I’m a great catch: I’m thirtysomething, I make a six-figure income, I’m well-educated, outgoing, and have a wide range of interests." I love how after his age he put his income. And while all of this has to do with him, it doesn't really tell us too much about who he is. But this is what the world thinks is important.

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In the second article, a woman was saying that her friend who wants to date her is too short (when she has heels on) and too skinny for her.

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Basically, both of the people who replied to them said "looks aren't everything," although the woman from the second article basically yelled at the girl and told her she was being selfish, superficial, and stupid not to date a guy just because he's skinny.

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So while it is important to find the person you are dating attractive, it is not the most important part by any means. Take a look at the above photo again...if I had not wanted to date Paul because he was skinnier than me or shorter than me (at least the same height, but probably shorter), I would not have gotten to know him as well as I did and we would not be good friends now. He's a really great guy and I'm grateful for the time I spent getting to know him in high school. Again, looks aren't everything. But don't take my word for it...

Let's see what our good friend Karol Wojtyla has to say about this in Love and Responsibility.

In the section called "Love as Attraction," Wojtyla writes mostly of attraction to the person's soul, not to qualities about them. But he also mentions physical attraction...

"The appreciation of beauty goes together with the appreciation of values, as though there was in each of them a 'supplementary' aesthetic value... Beauty finds its prober place in the context of attraction... We should, however, recall here that a human being is a person, a being whose nature is determined by his or her 'inwardness'. It is therefore necessary to discover and to be attracted by the inner as well as the outer beauty, and perhaps indeed to be more attracted by the former than by the latter... This attraction on which this love is based must originate not just in a reaction to visible and physical beauty, but also in a full and deep appreciation of the beauty of the person." (pp. 79-80, emphasis added.)

So there you have it, straight from the mouth of our beloved Pope John Paul II (when he was still Auxiliary Bishop of Cracow)...looks aren't everything.

silly family

I found this picture of my family when I was a baby and thought it was super funny. We all look weird...or at least the women do! :) It's so amazing how people start out as little babies and then grow up into adults. I wonder if my parents had any idea what I was going to look like, because I sure don't think that baby me looks too much like adult me.

But I'm very grateful for my family and for being able to grow up in such a happy environment.

Jesus, please bless each one of my family members today and always. May we love you more and more with every breath.