Blessings and odds and ends

Blessings
Last night our kids gave Mrs. Curley and me a great gift. You must understand that until we moved to Bethune, virtually every week for over 2 years, Mrs. Curley and I went on a date-usually dancing to 30's and 40's era music, (as I may have mentioned before). Since moving to Bethune, we have not been 'on a date'. Last night the kids told us that we were invited to dinner for two at 7:30 PM-but we had to "get out of their way" for a couple hours. At 7:30PM one of my sons came upstairs to escort Mrs. Curley into the "restaurant". They had transformed our livingroom/dining room area into a candlelit dining area. The song we had danced to at our wedding was playing in the background (during dinner, a soft collection of classical music played). Dinner consisted of homemade bread (with homemade butter), appetizers of potato skins and homemade cheese sticks. The entrees were a scallop dish for me and shrimp stir-fry for Mrs. Curley. Dessert include brown sugar bars and lemon squares. The youngest children helped served the appetizers and then quietly went to bed. The older children stayed to serve, to clean-up (and to eat any left overs). Except for serving us, the kids stayed away from the dining area and let Mrs. Curley and I talk and enjoy ourselves. The food was excellent! Ironically, this was planned for last week, (we got invitations in the mail!), but the sickness postponed it til last night-which conicidentally was St. Valentine's Memorial. It is comforting to know that our children have enough awareness, even at their young ages, that their parents sometimes need to be taken care of. It is a comfort to me that I know my kids will take care of Mrs. Curley when I am no longer able to....

On a very light note, Mr. Riddle's comment below on Pope John Paul the Great's poetry reminded me of a very funny story I have been meaning to blog for over a month...On January 6th, we took the youth of our parish on a round of Christmas caroling to the parish shut-ins. We also stopped at Fr. John O'Holohan's (our paster) house to sing a few carols. He graciously invited us in. He figured not many of the kids had visited a priest's house before. Now Fr. John is famous for greeting people with "Shalom" as this is the greeting of Christ to us. At some point in time, someone gave Fr. John a little wall plaque which says, "Shalom, y'all!" (probably when they heard he was coming to SC). As he was giving the tour of his house, Fr. John pointed to the plaque and said that he likes to use that word because it is a greeting that Christ actually used. Mrs. Curley suddenly pipes up, asking, "Y'all?, Christ said 'Y'all'? I whispered to her: "Didn't you know, Christ was a southerner?" This is one we will laugh about for years and years.

Odds and ends: As it is quite apparent now, I have been robbed and cheated! Obviously some nefarious plot is afoot. My illustrious blog has been left off the nominations for the 2006 CatholicBlogAwards. Go and vote anyway. Besides I have made a more prestigious appearance, being included in this.

And a final thought: "Those problems which used to overwhelm you and seemed like enormous mountains, disappeared completely. They were solved in a divine way, as when Our Lord commanded the winds and the waters to be calmed. - And to think you still doubted! " [St.Josemaria Escriva-Furrow #119] (That's me the doubter who is continually blessed....)

From Bethany, the small holding in Bethune...Oremus pro invicem!