Tag: prayer

january round up

 

  • Running! Chris and I are training for the Holy Half on April 4. Chris schedules everything he does and we switch off with the girls and it has been so fun for me to be serious about running again! My goal is 3 runs/week and I’m up to 6 miles and it feels good to be out in the cold and getting stronger. I’m super hungry all the time, and more tired, but endorphins!
  • Decluttering and cleaning. Over Christmas I made a list of places in the house I wanted to reorganize, and I hit the ground running when we got back home. Basement, pantry, girls’ clothes bins, both hall closets – woot! Linen closet is next on the list. It feels like something I can control as we await news about Chris’s PhD applications and is weirdly energizing. I asked my friend Annie for help with organizing/house stuff and she gave me a tip that keeping cleaning supplies in each bathroom makes it easier to just do a little bit of cleaning whenever you have a moment. And she also pointed out that our downstairs bathroom is used by all visitors, but has no storage space and therefore is hard to keep clean. So I got this, and Chris mounted it and here’s to keeping this bathroom a bit cleaner for the sake of hospitality!
    wow, this is the most boring picture.
  • Feedback. That interaction reminded me how hard it is to get feedback, lol. Chris read a book for a class last semester called Thanks for the Feedback and he told me about a part that has been helpful. The idea is that when you receive critical feedback, you can be emotionally triggered in one of three areas – truth, relationship, and identity. This observation from Annie touched on my identity as someone who tries to be hospitable and to create a beautiful space to welcome people into. Because I never once thought about the fact that it’s my guests who use that bathroom the most! Eek. It also made me reflect on how often I used to receive critical feedback in my previous job and how the work of sorting through the emotions and responding well was probably the source of a lot of my stress. Phew! (Love you, Annie.)
    our first chore chart … because E got a piggy bank for Christmas and is trying to figure out how to get more coins.
    just the cutest.
    her writing is exploding and it’s so cool!
  • Books. I finished The Overstory and Commonwealth over Christmas and read This Must Be The Place at the recommendation of my MIL. All very good. The Overstory made me sad about deforestation and the dire situation of the planet, but in a very compelling, well-written way. I recommend. Then I read Circe and loved it. Felt like my third grade Greek mythology-loving self again. Just finished The Dutch House and now reading A Gentleman in Moscow while I await other holds to come in. (Waking up to nurse 2-3 times a night is infinitely more bearable when I have a good book to read.)
  • Big girl Zelie. On impulse, I decided it was time to graduate Zelie from the pack n play and set her up with a “big girl bed,” aka the crib mattress on the ground in her closet. But it turned out to be a great move (go me) because 1) she’s sleeping with a comforter now and 2) she (mostly) stays in bed until the alarm clock turns green! She does wake up at 5:45 still, but she lies in bed singing and talking until 6:15 and it doesn’t alwaaaays wake up Evange. Progress! In my search for a toddler size duvet for her I discovered Kidizen and found a great deal on an IKEA bedding set – score. I also started having her do a 30 minute morning quiet time when we get back from dropping E off at preschool. So far, it’s going pretty well! IMG-2130
  • Prayer. I gave a reflection at our parish’s mom’s group this month and really enjoyed the process of praying and thinking about what to share. It was sort of about Mary as Theotokos – because I was asked to do it right after that solemnity – but more so about finding freedom from things that hold us back from seeing ourselves as God sees us, and being a God-bearer, like Mary. As I was thinking about this, my friend Adrianna shared an article with me and I really loved this quote from it. “The longer I walk under [Jesus’s] gaze, the more even all the wounds I have, my littleness, my sorrows, the things I do not understand about myself, the fears, the pettiness, and the sins, become dear to me. I know that they are my only opportunity to intercept the Lord passing by, because they leave me disarmed, needy and small. I am amazed how I no longer want to censor anything about myself; on the contrary, I stubbornly want to look at everything, down to the bottom. My humanity is only dear to me because it is embraced by the Lord who comes.”
  • Lions. We’ve watched The Lion King a few times now, and Zelie will tell anyone that it’s the best and her favorite. It’s also meant a lot of roaring at each other and endless questions, mostly about Scar. Evange and I also just finished The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe and immediately started rereading it. I’ve been getting a lot of questions like, “Why does Scar want to be king?” and “Why isn’t the Witch the true Queen of Narnia?” that have made me reflect on the parallels between these stories. Good times. IMG-2150
  • Outside time. We had a great two hours at a county park last week and it reminded me that we never go outside anymore, and we should. I feel like we live in the backyard all summer, and then I hibernate all winter. But the girls played together so well and were loving it! And I love watching them explore. So, going to try to start a weekly park play date with a friend and maybe even track our outside hours to stay motivated! Here’s to a mild February!

our four year anniversary retreat

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Chris has been wanting to do a marriage retreat since we were engaged, and we finally did one this year. In the break between summer classes and the semester starting, we have two weeks to spend with Chris’s parents at their beach house in Rhode Island. Our anniversary falls in this break, so last year we spent the day buying a car in NJ (lol) and went out to sushi. This year we booked ourselves a private retreat on Ender’s Island in Mystic, CT and took two nights away from the girls. We wanted some structured time to reflect on our marriage and pray together, and initially looked into seeing if any Marriage Encounter retreats would work location and date-wise. But the closest one was in Baltimore, so Chris’s dad suggested this little island, and we decided it’d be fun to plan our own time. I’m so glad it worked out this way.

Ender’s Island is a tiny island off the coast of Connecticut that was owned by Thomas and Alys Enders, and sold to the Society of St. Edmund in 1954. It now functions as a retreat space, with a sacred art institute and a small recovery program. We didn’t really know anything about the island before we arrived, but quickly discovered it was a little piece of heaven. I felt God’s love for us in so many details of the place. We had unknowingly booked “the Bishop’s suite,” which was two tiled rooms with views of the ocean and the island gardens from every window.

I was so glad we came in August, when the dahlias and roses were in full bloom. 🙂

Something I hadn’t thought about beforehand was how luxurious it would feel to be served all our meals, and not have to feed babies while we ate. And the food was so good. We ate with men in the recovery program and the priests who were there on retreat. It felt like a special gift to eat with those men, and reminded me of our summer at CityTeam in Oakland … where it all began. There was a group of Korean Catholics on retreat on the island, too, though they ate in the larger dining hall. I loved seeing two Korean grandmas holding hands to support each other as they walked down to the water’s edge.

To honor Chris’s love for structure, we spent time creating a schedule, which was much more enjoyable than I expected. We took a date night in South Bend to get started, and finished it up on the car drive from NJ to RI. During our engagement, we had done an Engaged Encounter retreat, and really liked the format of writing letters to each other about different topics and then talking. So we incorporated letter writing, and used our Engaged Encounter journals for some ideas of topics to discuss. I wanted to do morning runs, Chris wanted to do morning prayer and go to Mass, and we gave ourselves a big chunk of free time. There were some things that changed once we got there – we decided to attend a meditation in the chapel on Wednesday evening and learned that they do morning prayer right before Mass, and forgot the old letters we’d written while dating and engaged that we were going to read back through. Oh well.

The chapel had a huge relic – the arm of St. Edmund. A bit weird, but cool.

And, we got to go sailing! We saw little boats sail past the island and thought, let’s see if we can find a place to go this afternoon. So I happily abandoned my nap plans and we went to the Mystic Seaport Museum. It was an anniversary splurge, because we had to buy tickets to the museum to get to the sailboats, but we ended up seeing some of the ships because they made us wait an hour for the gusts to die down a bit.

Chris was grumpy about that. I thought going on the whaling boat from 1841 was neat. But sailing was definitely a highlight! It was a time of working as a team and enjoying being friends and really embracing our whiteness. Lol.

I wanted to include our schedule in case it might help anyone get started on planning their own private retreat! Individual or for a couple, it’s so worth the time and money. I usually love silent retreats by myself – this was special in that it was prayerful and also fun quality time with Chris.

Happy four years, Chris!

Wednesday

2:00-3:30 Check in, Settle into retreat space

3:30-4:00 Silent Prayer in Chapel

4:00-5:00 Session 1 – Reading Letters

5:00-5:30 Rosary

5:30-6:15 Dinner

6:15-7:15 Session 2 – Marriage Timeline

7:15-8:15 Session 3 – Sex/ NFP/ Intimacy

8:15-9:30 Free Time

9:30-9:45 Night Prayer

9:45 Bedtime

Thursday

6:45-7:00 Wake up, get ready

7:00-7:45 Run

7:45-8:15 Breakfast

8:15-8:30 Shower

8:30-9:00 Morning Prayer

9:00 – 9:45 Mass

9:45-10:00 Silent Prayer

10:00-11:00 Session 4– Conflict/ Communication

11:00-12:00 Session 5 – Relationships with Others

12:00-1:00 Lunch

1:00-3:00 Free Time

3:00-4:00 Session 6 – Finances

4:00-5:00 Session 7 – Budget

5:00-5:30 Rosary

5:30-6:15 Dinner

6:15-7:15 Session 8 – Designing Our Marriage

7:15-8:15 Session 9 – Vision Statement

8:15-9:30 Free Time

9:30-9:45 Night Prayer

9:45 Bedtime

Friday

6:45-7:00 Wake up, get ready

7:00-7:45 Run

7:45-8:15 Breakfast

8:15-8:30 Shower

8:30-9:00 Morning Prayer

9:00 – 9:45 Mass

9:45-10:00 Silent Prayer

10:00-11:00 Pack, Checkout

11:00-12:00 Session 10 – Goal Setting

12:00-1:00 Lunch

1:00 Depart

Designing Our Marriage
Marriage Timeline