Adam: Therese, why don’t you draw what you want on the jack-o-lantern on a piece of paper first.
…
Therese: Ok! I’m done.
Adam: Uh…How about just a face?
Therese: Oh, right.
Therese has been asking since September when it would be time to go trick-or-treating. Tonight was the night. Therese was Our Lady of the Snows. Fulton was St. Francis. Muffin was a random pink leopard–I mean a friendly companion to St. Francis!
Afterwards, the kids took out 10% of their stash for our homeless bags. They were very generous and I’m glad they are still at the age where there’s no such thing as “the good candy.” It’s all good to them.
Many of you know Greg and Julie Alexander, founders of the Alexander House. Julie suffered a heart attack on Saturday. For more information on her condition, please visit their Caring Bridge site.
A couple of months ago Adam and I were invited to the Acton MBA grand opening since he has helped create games for their MBA program. I picked up some of their literature since I was quite taken by their facilities, books adorning their shelves (which included Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters by Dr. Meg Meeker and The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis), and the many Catholic sounding quotes on their walls.
One of the brochures was: Everyone Needs a Little RLC. RLC is “Rat Like Cunning.” I was certainly not born with RLC so I have quite enjoyed reading it. And I certainly appreciate the advise in the literature that’s “for the rest of us.”
This morning I had the perfect opportunity to haggle!
After the successful pizza attempt last night, we discovered that our bread pan in our bread machine broke! This is totally unacceptable. I used my bread machine at least 2-3 times a week for bread and pizza dough. So we looked online for replacement bread pans for our machine model. Ebay was selling one for $50! Woah! That’s out of the price range of what we’re willing to pay! For that price, we might as well consider buying a new bread machine since we’ve had this machine since we’ve been married. So I called the manufacturing company this morning.
Lisa, the sales associate said, “The bread pan with shipping with be $50.34.”
Me: “Really. Can you bring the price down at all? It is an older model.”
Lisa: “Let me see what I can do. Hold on for a minute.”
Lisa comes back: “The lowest I can sell it for is $32.44, and that includes shipping.”
Me: “That would be great. I’ll take it.”
SCORE!!! I got 35% off! And all it took was knowing when to ask and having the courage to do so!
“Among the most important titles we have in the Catholic Church for the Blessed Virgin Mary are Our
Lady of Victory and Our Lady of the Rosary. These titles can be traced back to one of the most decisive
times in the history of the world and Christendom. The Battle of Lepanto took place on October 7 (date
of feast of Our Lady of Rosary), 1571. This proved to be the most crucial battle for the Christian forces
against the radical Muslim navy of Turkey . Pope Pius V led a procession around St. Peter’s Square in Vatican Citypraying the Rosary. He showed true pastoral leadership in recognizing the danger posed to
Christendom by the radical Muslim forces, and in using the means necessary to defeat it. Spiritual
battles require spiritual weapons, and this more than anything was a battle that had its origins in the
spiritual order—a true battle between good and evil.
Today we have a similar spiritual battle in progress—a battle between the forces of good and evil, light
and darkness, truth and lies, life and death. If we do not soon stop the genocide of abortion in the
United States , we shall run the course of all those that prove by their actions that they are enemies of
God—total collapse, economic, social, and national. The moral demise of a nation results in the ultimate
demise of a nation. God is not a disinterested spectator to the affairs of man. Life begins at conception.
This is an unalterable formal teaching of the Catholic Church. If you do not accept this you are a heretic
in plain English. A single abortion is homicide. The more than 48,000,000 abortions since Roe vs. Wade in the United States constitute genocide by definition. The group singled out for death—unwanted, unborn children.
No other issue, not all other issues taken together, can constitute a proportionate reason for
voting for candidates that intend to preserve and defend this holocaust of innocent human
life that is abortion.
I strongly urge every one of you to make a Novena and pray the Rosary to Our Lady of Victory
between October 27th and Election Day, November 4th. Pray that God’s will be done and the
most innocent and utterly vulnerable of our brothers and sisters will be protected from this
barbaric and grossly sinful blight on society that is abortion. No woman, and no man, has the
right to choose to murder an innocent human being.
May God grant us the wisdom, knowledge, understanding, and counsel to form our conscience in
accordance with authentic Catholic teaching, and then vote that well “formed Catholic conscience.”
Please copy, email, link and distribute this article freely.
The changes noted in my last post paid off big time.
We first started with a cornmeal-parmesan Pizza Dough recipe from Sharon’s bread machine recipe book. It’s hands down the best pizza dough we’ve made. We shaped it in a small cake pan doused with olive oil and let it rise for 30 minutes. I then layered mozzarella and provolone cheeses on the bottom followed by pepperoni and Italian sausage. The pie was finally topped off with crushed tomatoes and parmesan cheese and set to bake at 375° for 30 minutes. After it baked I garnished it with oregano and basil.
My beloved is short of words on how to make it better, other than perhaps try adding vegetables. I agree. The next round will probably include bell peppers and onions to balance out the meaty taste. Also, it would be interesting to try selecting fresher/organic ingredients to see if it would give it a bit more “life”.
This afternoon we made it out to the Life Chain in Pflugerville. October 5, is the National date, but today was the alternate date. There wasn’t a huge crowd–maybe 30 people– and the only familiar faces we saw were part of the Pojman family and some others that I have seen praying at the abortion clinics.
This was a very peaceful presence. The organizers–who are protestant– had signs already made up with some great scripture reflections and prayers on the back of the posters (since they don’t pray the rosary ). And everyone pretty much just held up their sign along the intersection of FM 1825 and Wells Branch Pkwy. Most of responses from the cars passing by were quite positive. The organizers we talking about doing this maybe once a month. We’ll let you know if that comes to pass.
Now that I can eat “real” food, my first pizza-related meal request for Sharon was a deep dish pizza. I knew this was uncharted waters for our household so I was taking a bit of a risk. Sharon already makes an excellent homemade pizza so naturally we started out using the same methods and ingredients – just make the pizza deeper.
That was a mistake.
I won’t even bother posting a picture of the botched attempt. The crust was too chewy and the pizza was “soupy”. After a bit of research we learned three things:
Liberally oil the pan
Use a cornmeal-based dough
Use crushed or pureed tomatoes, not simply sauce
We’re also going to try adding a few more toppings and a variety of cheeses other than simple mozzarella. Boy, I’m getting hungry already.
Something that has been on my mind a lot recently is bonding opportunities with my son. Sharon brought home a flier the other day for a local youth sports activity and asked if we wanted to get Fulton involved in something similar like T-ball. My first reaction was “sure, why not”. After all, it’s great for making new friends, exercising, being outdoors, the endless practices, etc. Then she added the remark “and you could coach, too.”
Hold on, slow down.
Coaching youth sports is not something at which I excel. I do not know enough about any one sport to be of any benefit to a youngster – much less to satisfy his parents’ expectations seeing as they invested a good amount of time and money for little Slugger to be under my tutelage. Now of course, my outlook may change if Fulton were involved in something in which I had extensive knowledge and passion.
How about racing?
Okay, now we’re talking. Fulton does in fact show signs of interest in the sport: 1) Lightning McQueen is still by far his favorite animated marvel, 2) He loves toy cars, and 3) you can find him every Sunday by my side watching NASCAR… even though his primary concern is knowing the position of “the M&Ms car” (I’ll have to work on that; no son of mine will ever favor Kyle Busch). So how could a young boy get active in racing?
RC Racing
I think remote control cars would be a good introduction. It’s a small enough investment for a hobby that a boy and his dad could enjoy any day of the week. There’s even a dirt track raceway just a few miles from our home. But if we want to take it to the next step, we’re talking gas-powered RC kit cars for on-road racing. Yeah baby!
Soap Box Derby
I’ve never actually took part in or witnessed a Soap Box Derby race, but they’re still out there. The closest one to us would be in Houston. I’m thinking however that there is probably more fun to had in building the car then the actual race itself. Not to mention that the youngest age allowed is 8, so that’s at least 6 years out. Surprisingly, Fulton would be closer to try out…
Karting
Believe it or not, kids can start out practicing on 50cc karts at age 5 here in Austin at the Ironrock Raceway. They start competing in organized races when they reach 8.
I spent a bit of time with Karts in the Purdue Grand Prix and it was a lot of fun. Karting is pretty intense but as you can imagine it does take a bit of investment upfront to get into the game. We’ll have to play this by ear as Fulton get’s closer to age, but we’ll certainly make our way out there sometime to get a feel for the atmosphere and gauge his interest.
All in all, I think this can be quite a bit of fun. There are other things to do from a spectator level such as visiting the Thunder Hill Raceway in Kyle, TX and take in a NASCAR or IndyCar event at Texas Motor Speedway.
And besides, I think “Crew Chief” is more my style than “Coach”.
And a bit of fun…
“When it comes to Mike Wallace, the story ends with me putting him in the wall.”
Thank you all who responded earlier to our request for recommendations on siding contractors. We received a few estimates and decided to sign a contract with Aztec Roofing and Siding. The consultant was friendly, genuinely courteous, and worked with us to reach an agreement that meets our budget. Not to mention, we’re happy with their choice to advertise locally on Relevant Radio. It’s a family owned business. Sharon talked to the father and the son who own the company on two separate occasions. They sound like a nice Catholic family. The father is a Knight and used to be Grand Knight of his counsel some time ago. The son, Paul, is actually in his 5th year of formation as a deacon! How cool is that!? When he pulled up to the house he said, “Well, you don’t see many statues of the Blessed Mother in the front yard any more.”
In the end we are opening our home to referrals for their business. They’ll be using CertainTeed’s fiber cement siding, a product CertainTeed has been working to further expand into new markets. It has been around as long as James Hardie and CertainTeed the company has been in the building supply business for over 100 years. We’re optimistic it’ll do well to protect our home. It also turns out we’ll have a “Green” house using their siding. Some of the environmentally friendly highlights are that their siding is: 5% lighter, made of more than 30% recycled content, and comes from sustainably-managed forests.
We have quite a bit of rotten wood where the water ran up and it just continued to deteriorate. Here you see some of the reasons why our house needs new siding:
The siding arrived last Thursday.
The 4 man work crew arrived Monday morning a little before lunch. These guys were hired by Aztec. They are pretty nice and good with the kids.
Here is the back of the house with the new primed siding on the first floor. The house will be painted after all the siding is put up.
The west side as of this afternoon:
and the east side:
We’ve only had one mishap on the interior. Sharon took the kids to the atrium this morning and wasn’t home to take the stuff off our wall in our dining room. Unfortunately, our wedding cake topper took a severe hit and we haven’t found all the pieces to glue it back together. The nativity we bought in Rome on our honeymoon fared a little better–St. Joseph lost his head but Sharon was able to put it back together. The guys were very apologetic and they actually removed all the wall stuff when that happened so nothing else would get damaged. It’s only “stuff” so we aren’t too upset. All and all, it’s looking great and we’re happy.
). And everyone pretty much just held up their sign along the intersection of FM 1825 and Wells Branch Pkwy. Most of responses from the cars passing by were quite positive. The organizers we talking about doing this maybe once a month. We’ll let you know if that comes to pass.
