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Traumatized

09 Nov 2008 by

I officially don’t like irresponsible dog owners.

Fulton and Therese were traumatized on Friday by a dog who’s owner did not have it on a leash while she was out for a jog.  Unfortunately she couldn’t keep up with her canine and it ran straight for us while I was taking the kids on a bike ride.  The dog was about the size of Fulton and of course, the kids started screaming.  I asked the owner to put her leash on her dog–which she didn’t do even after that because we saw the pair again on our way home.

Most of you who have dogs know that the kids weren’t big fans of these animals to begin with.  The most unfortunate part of this all, is that my kids were scared today to go out on a bike ride.  They were peddling slow and apprehensive at every corner.  Therese wouldn’t take the lead like she usually does.  Fulton even said, “I don’t want to go that way. The dog might come out.”  I took them that particular route anyway, assuring them that it would be safe and I wouldn’t let anything happen to them.   And now they are even more weary just passes houses where we know there are dogs.  Their joy in biking riding is gone in less than a couple of weeks.

I know they are well meaning when dog owners say, “oh, my dog is nice. It wouldn’t hurt you.”  Quite frankly, we don’t know your dogs and they don’t know us. And you never know what a dog will do when faced with a 5 year old screaming kid.

So what to do (beside carry pepper spray)?  How do I keep the kids from going completely bonkers when they see a dog? And there’s NO WAY we’re getting a dog to get the kids used to them.

Category: Uncategorized  3 Comments

Nailed ‘em!

08 Nov 2008 by

The critter was indeed a rat, yet a small one at that… no Di, I will not get a cat… in a hat.

Ok, I’ll stop now.

But yes, he has been caught. Sharon brought home 3 rat traps. I placed two in the attic knowing it was a long shot that the rat would be hanging around up there on occasion. The third I went directly to the source.

I removed the air vent cover from our bedroom ceiling, unlatched and pushed back the flexible duct pipe, and slipped the rat trap above the ceiling. I tied a piece of kite string to the trap and set the spool on an unstable surface in our room. Two reasons for doing this: 1) it would serve as a telltale that the trap had been moved the slightest bit 2) in case the trap was a bit slow in doing it’s work and the rat tried to drag it off, I would have something to pull it back in.

Thanks Allen for the great advice. The cotton-cheese ball worked like a champ. Marc, the same technique might work for those campaigners…

Category: Uncategorized  2 Comments

Wildlife Refuge

07 Nov 2008 by

This is seriously getting ridiculous.  For some reason little animals like our yard, deck and house.  Some bloggers out there find it amusing when little animals come visit their home and quietly depart.  I wouldn’t mind, if the animals that come to our property would in fact depart without eating the veggies from our garden, eating our trees to death, scaring the bugeebers out of me, or pecking out the wood from out siding!

In our almost 6 year living in this wildlife refuge we’ve seen:

  • squirrels, of course
  • an owl
  • a swarm of honey bees (no offense dear Roses)
  • wasps
  • bag worms
  • these red hornet looking things
  • a raccoon
  • a woodpecker
  • a couple of snakes
  • a rat (I hate rats–they are SO not in my job description)

But the line has been crossed…either a squirrel or a rat is in our house between the upstairs and downstairs.  We can hear the pitter patter of its little feet running across our bedroom ceiling.  And of course my beloved husband decided to point this out to me around 3 a.m. this morning.

Worst case scenario, that animal dies in our walls…oh that would be so so bad.

I’m seriously considering doing something about that St. Francis statue outside!

If you have any SERIOUS suggestions of what to do, please comment.

Category: Family  6 Comments

Where’s the Beef?

03 Nov 2008 by

In our freezer.

We just received a quarter of a calf on Saturday–approximately 92 lbs of grass fed beef from a local farm. We got several different cuts including stake, brisket, and of course lots of ground beef.

Let me know if your interested in some meat of your own. The owner said they sell the beef around once a month.  The cost is about $3.50 per lb regardless of the cut and you can order a whole, half, quarter and even an eighth of a calf.

Category: Uncategorized  4 Comments

Happy All Saints Day

01 Nov 2008 by

We’ve had a very blessed All Saints Day so far today. We went to 8 a.m. Mass. Adam went to the Central Texas Fellowship of Men conference and the kids and I came back home to get ready for our All Saints Day party!

All the kids came in great costumes. We had St. Juan Diego and St. Anthony, St. Pascual and one of his Kitchen Angels, St. Joseph, St. Maximilian Kolbe, and a little Angel.

Here is the “David and Goliath” game. The kids had the knock the bucket off the ladder using a ball. This was a huge hit with the boys!

Here’s Muffin playing “St. Peter’s Feed My Sheep” bean-bag toss.

St. Joseph is playing “Canonize the saint.” We had Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, Blessed Pier Giorgio Frasatti, and Servant of God Fulton Sheen on our cones.

Mrs. Haunsperger was playing “St. Lucy’s Eyeball Toss.”

Mrs. Molina brought the “San Juan Diego/St. Anthony Tic-tac-toe” game.

Then we had our Saint Walk (kind of like a cake walk using candies instead of a whole cake).

And “Pin the Rose on St. Therese,” was nailed by none other than our little flower.

And no party is complete without a pinata!

Thanks to all our friend who joined us today to celebrate all the Holy Men and Women in heaven!

Category: Uncategorized  4 Comments

Hallow’s Eve

31 Oct 2008 by

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.

Category: Family  One Comment

Pray for the Alexanders

28 Oct 2008 by

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.

Category: Friends  3 Comments

Rat Like Cunning

27 Oct 2008 by

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!

Category: Budgeting  4 Comments

Rosary Novena to Our Lady of Victory

26 Oct 2008 by

Starts, Monday, October 27:

“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 City praying 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.


God Bless You
Fr. John Corapi
www.fathercorapi.com


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Chicago-Style Pizza: Attempt #2

26 Oct 2008 by

Home freakin’ run.

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”.

Category: Family, Recipes  Leave a Comment
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