7 Advent Distractions (Including the Pinterest Complex!)

Each year I say I'm going to focus on Advent more and each year it doesn't seem to happen. Amidst the craziness though, I have found moments to be hopeful and desire Christ's coming. Last year, being pregnant for the first time, really helped me understand the meaning of 'expectation.' However, just to get them off my chest, here are 7 distractions:

1. The LIST: you know what I mean. The list of all the people you need to get presents for, all the people you want to get presents for and the few that you would get if you had it all together. There that list is, lurking, waiting for me whenever I have a spare moment. 
2. The PINTEREST Complex: Admit it, you know what I'm talking about. Pinterest has convinced me that I can (and should) show my affection for friends and family by making them original Christmas gifts. For heaven's sake, I even have a board entitled "DIY gifts" I will admit one year, I successfully made raspberry infused vodka (not sure if the recipient was into it or not), but this year: nada. The only thing it has done is distract me from actually getting presents, which has distracted me from Advent.
3. FACEBOOK: most particularly when other people are talking about all the creative, prayerful things they are doing for Advent!
4. My baby: Okay, he is a pretty great distraction. He is only five months and -- lets be honest -- he could care less about celebrating St. Nick's day or anything like that. We do however (a few days late) have an Advent wreath, so maybe he'll get a kick out of the fire (from a safe distance)
5. My work: Okay, this is a pretty necessary distraction. Plus, I work for the Church so I'm getting to write on topics like Advent and Christmas. Plus, we get a day of work for a retreat. What am I complaining about again?
6. My other job: I'm now writing an article a week for a great evangelization site called Aleteia.org. If you're interested you can read this week's article on Advent here.
7. LIFE: Okay, I'm out excuses! 

I'll be back next week with 7 things I actually am doing during Advent...I hope! Check out all the rest of the 7 Quick Takes.

O Come, O Come Emmanuel

Give me strength just for tomorrow!

Sunday Dress

I was going to participate in this Sunday Dress link-up this week, I really was. This is a new post where women take a picture of what they wore to Mass on Sunday as a way to focus more on wearing beautiful, reverent clothes to Mass. I think its a great idea and I definitely dressed with that in mind.

However.

However, by the time I got to Mass in my well thought out of outfit, got my hair mussed by my son, had brunch at our place with friends and then got the overly social son to sleep, I didn't feel much like taking a photo. Finally I dragged the boots back on and took a photo in the mirror. I felt like I looked slightly pregnant and decided not to post.

The upside of all of this is I now have a motivation to continue to lose the pregnancy weight so I can actually take photo!

Playing the Tourist and Loving It

My brother-in-law mentioned last week when he was in the area for work that he was amazed that we lived so close to D.C. Without traffic (okay, thats rare) it really is only ten minutes to the memorials, the Smithsonians and all of those iconic buildings and monuments D.C. is known for.

While we do better than many, we often forget to take advantage of the great things that D.C. has to offer. Yesterday, however, we took an excursion that made me grateful to live where we do. We were only out for two hours (perfect, so that my son didn't have to eat or get too upset while we were out) and yet we got to have frozen margaritas at Tortilla Coast (I've been going there for almost ten years - hard to believe!) walk by the Capitol and take a quick turn around the Botantical Gardens - part of the Smithsonian, and therefore, free.

I'd highly recommend the Botantical Gardens for a kid this young. Much as I like to pretend otherwise, Gus doesn't yet have much appreciation for the zoo or animals in general. What he definitely does love, however, is sunlight, trees and interesting smells. While the Gardens (inside) are fairly easily navigated with a stroller, Gus liked it even more when I took him out and carried him and he could see all of the different kinds of plants which are set up by climate system. He particularly liked the humid jungle portion and was fascinated by the light filtering in through the dense trees. What an easy and great way to spend a few hours!

Loving a Good Book

So, Erik and I talk a lot about not forcing a certain personality or particular interests on Gus or any other future children. He can be a sports player, an artist, a shy guy, a prankster (within reason!). But I do have to say, I would be very disappointed if none of my children loved books.

I'm one of those people. I can't get a Kindle or whatever the other readers are called. I know the arguments for them, but I just can't. When we got married, we had to go through and argue about every duplicate book we now own from combining collection and -- even after weeding through -- we still have three sets of Shakespeare! three!

However, one thing I have not kept around are my childhood books. The one exception is a collection of nursery rhymes that my Godfather gave to me when I turned four. It is so well-loved that the pages are falling out and I believe my favorite poem has already been lost as I can't seem to find it (the spider and the fly).

Now, I am excitedly planning how to grow a collection of childhood books. I know he'll have favorites of his own, but I hope to contribute! I couldn't stand reading books that only have letters, colors and animals (even though he is only 4 months...) so I've already purchased Dr. Seuss books. Gus alternates between laughing hysterically at them and looking at them very very intently. I try to tell him that no matter how hard you look at them, Dr. Seuss books will never make sense.

For Christmas, I'm planning on getting him the Polar Express and Where the Wild Things are. I'm open to all suggestions for little boys who grow up fast.

7 Quick Takes: Post-Election Blues Edition

For my very first seven quick-takes, I can't help but concentrate on my post-election blues:

1.  At 10 p.m. on Election Night I showed an unordinary amount of prudence on my part and shut the computer down and went to bed. I could see that Virginia and Florida were going to the President and realized I would better serve myself and my family if I was grumpy and well-rested the next day, rather than grumpy and exhausted.
2. This prudence sadly did not extend to my (over)usage of Facebook the next day. I'm not sure how Facebook makes me feel, and many of us act, like a teenager, but I definitely saw a range of emotions on Wednesday. Which led me to
3. Thursday, when I took a break from interacting on social media -- a mental health day. I needed to do it so I could mourn and move on with my life.
4. Because I couldn't take out this mourning through Facebook interactions, I took a run to the grocery store. Normally, I'm chiding my husband for his unhealthy purchases. Want to know what I bought? Paper towels (so far so good), pumpkin (neutral), icecream (it was low-fat!), icecream bars...., fudge sauce (for my husband), and chocolate chips. Yup, thats all.
5. Today, I woke up not thinking about the election! However, thats because I had to have several cavities filled...yup, several. I had really great teeth before I got pregnant. In fact, I only had one cavity in my whole life. Now suddenly I have three. Thank you cavities for the distraction!
6. I'm now in a good enough mood to write this post with some lightness. I'm glad that I was raised to be political and I continue to be political as an adult. Its a sad country where all of its citizens are apathetic. So while some might have said (particularly if their candidate won) to "get over it already," I think it is right to feel saddened and disappointed when referendums or candidates won that I believe will do damage to our country and to human lives.
7. However, after a few days of this, I am ready to focus on the fact that politics save no one at all. Even if Romney (who I certainly don't hero-worship) had won, we'd still have many issues. My hope is not in who won 2012 or will win 2016. This is why we pray each day as a family, why I go to Mass every Sunday and not a political rally.

Okay, if you're sick of politics and you regret ever ending up on my newly founded blog, make your way back for other 7 Quick Takes.

Election Woes

"This is man's choice: either he conceives of himself as free from the whole universe and dependent only on God, or free from God and therefore a slave of every circumstance." --Luigi Giussani, At the Origin of the Christian Claim

I'll admit it, when I saw the election results leaning towards President Obama, I turned off my computer and went to sleep. Besides being upset, why lose sleep as well?

And throughout the day, I've really been mourning a few things, most prominently the votes for homosexual marriage and what that will mean for the many children who won't have a father in their lives or a mother (depending on the situation). 
And on the flip side, I was curious about how I felt so convicted about a number of issues, but still hesitate to voice my thoughts on them in a public way.

The above quote, shared on a friend's Facebook wall, helped me to start working through some of this. Even though election issues really matter, and some real damage can be done -- in the end, it is only God who saves. And the question is, in this Year of Faith do I really believe that?

I do have to say, though, that brightness and innocence shines through even when I have real cause to be upset. This is the face (okay this is from over a month ago, but you get the idea) I woke up to this morning!

I "know" that my Redeemer lives

Do you ever find yourself trying to be so diplomatic, so reasonable to people who don't share your views, that you don't say what you truly think?

I have been realizing lately that I do this with some frequency. Example: I have a conversation with a sibling about people for whom change seems impossible. Whether it is that their temperament is such that they don't want to change, they are stuck in old habits, or they just haven't shown any signs of progress, my sibling suggested that they were hopeless. If I understood her correctly, she was saying that they were hopeless because they weren't capable of change.

I nodded and said that I understood what she meant and agreed somewhat about change being very difficult.

What I thought immediately but took me a painstakingly awkward amount of time to get out is that I thought our analysis was missing something – Someone – crucial. My life (gulp) is centered around Christ and my hope is in Him and in having a life after this with Him. I firmly believe because I have seen it happen that people can change at any stage of life, even if they are not capable of it on their own. I believe that Christ helps make that change happen and gives people hope if they let Him.

I didn't say that right away because I was nervous about her thinking that I was insensible. WHICH IS RIDICULOUS because I think my faith is completely sensible, reasonable and real.

As I drove away, I kept coming back to the phrase from the popular hymn: “I know my Redeemer lives.” I know my Redeemer lives. Not I think He possibly does and I'm open to some other options. No. I know it. As a fact.

Sigh, sometimes its hard to recognize that I still have a long way to go.

Encountering the Beautiful

Can't get much better than this. The zoo (near the monkeys no less), my husband and our son Gus.

I won't say that they are my whole life, because that certainly is not true. I have my work, my brothers and sisters, my interests and a myriad of other things I'm involved in. However, my small family is what made me begin to pause and stand in awe of life.

There are a thousand small things that amaze me about my life with my family (and hundreds of things that frustrate and irritate me) and they don't necessarily have anything to do with my overachieving personality, my goals or any other check-lists I have (I have a lot of them...)

What they remind me of every day is that each day presents me with the opportunity to encounter reality - to encounter beauty. Rather than escape behind my headphones or drown out my concerns by browsing Facebook, I've begun to challenge myself to see the totality of life - to encounter my life, my faith and reality daily.