As I shared last evening.. Nancy's request for a picture they would consider enlarging and using as artwork on their wall... has opened the floodgates for me and also opened an obsession that I admit to... my pictures. The old ones are in albums and I am regularly scanning them into my computer from the 30 or more albums that I have plus that many for each of the kids - at least one for every year they were alive, when they left home for college.... then it slowed down some, but now I have thousands on the computer! Sigh!!!!!!!!!
I am writing later today not because of any other reason than changing from sledding pictures with the kids the day of our big family job of preg checking... deciding that the old ones I have been looking through are much more special and using them instead... Adding pictures to my blog is a slow process and I think it is safe to say that it is a definite labor of love or obsession! 
I do admit to being on the mend today, and hearing about how sick both my daughters, Maria and Nancy, are... I am hoping that the flu shot that I got is going to help me be less sick as I have to go and work day shift for the next 3 days! 
I think that I am liking these pictures taken early summer/late spring better, because I am already feeling a bit of cabin fever, with the early winter, and being closed in this house with little ones as well as Joe and John... I think that the weather is a bit confused today also as rain is coming down on the huge snowpiles! The house is quiet now as the little family went over to spend time with Ruth and the kids at their place, and then Ruth will have the 4 while Joe takes his wife out for a nice lunch date! Their time together is coming quickly to a close! 
Joe was amazing us by describing a meal for him in the ... the marching along the food line side stepping... the ducking into the salad bar in formation and bringing your plate to the food... the standing at a table until there are 4 of you and holding your cup up in front of your chest with your elbows up and then going to get their beverage as a group... drinking all their water first then the other beverage can be had throughout the meal... kind of crazy and wild! 
I always find myself in a very agitated state inside when I am given a project to do with my pictures... I guess also knowing that there are many other things I should be doing than sitting here... If I had cleaned and done some of the other jobs first... maybe I would be more calm and happy.
I just found this amazing quote by Venerable JPII in a gift that I got for teaching religion..."A woman's role in the Family"
"It is disservice not only to children but also to women and society itself when a woman is made to feel guilty for wanting to remain in the home and nurture and care for her children...
"It is also necessary to counter the misconception that the role of motherhood is oppressive to women and that a committment to her family, particularly her children, prevents a woman from reaching personal fullfillment and from having an influence on society.
How I love to see the kids all together! It would be amazing to believe that we could all be in France for Susan/Hallel to take her first vows! "No responce to woman's issues can ignore a woman's role in the family or take lightly the fact that every new life is entrusted to the protection and care of the woman carrying it in her womb." Vererable John Paul II... His words are so true to my ear and remind me that my only hearts desire was to have a family and be here for them in all times of their growth! I was blessed to be able to be here and "be a stay at home mom" for 14 years until John started school... I still fought going to work as a nurse, but can see that to care for others in this way is also a gift for me.
Life is so never boring!!!!!!!!!! It is the best way I describe the ups and downs that can come upon you at any time of the day or night! I think that is why I feel so driven to capture the facinating things that are happening with that artistic eye to share it with the world! The many attempts to accomplish that leads to the huge amount of pictures that I must sift through to find the ones that I am looking for and that makes me become slightly unhinged! 
But to find the treasures.. the ones that have my Susan in them today are pulling at my heart stings and I find the tears burning in my eyes... trying to form and run down my face as I see her in the midst of family time... WE miss her so much...
With this in mind and heart... I would like to share more from the Christmas letter we received in the mail a few days ago from the community in Kansas City..." To conclude, let us tell you how me met Jesus in the neighborhood... Three of us were on mission that day. We had begged for our lunch as went and thanks to the generosity of a Mexican family, we had received all the necessary. We were sitting on a low wall, in the street, to eat our sandwiches. An old man came, pushing his little cart full of empty cans he was collecting. He looked tired, so we invited him to sit for a while and to share our meal. He sat at our side and ate with us. He offered us to drink coke he had in his bag. When we had finished, he stood up and said: 'Give me your hands! Let us pray to thank God!.... O Lord, I give you thanks for this meal and for this encounter. You sent your disciples 'without silver nor gold.' They have nothing but your Name. And yet, if they share the little that they have, we know that you will never let them lack of the necessary and that you will pay back a hundred fold!" The name of this new friend was: JESUS!"
So.............with that kind of community forming our family in a new and wider and more amazign way.. how can we allow ourselves to be sad at the ways that we miss Hallel being here to be a part of the day to day of this small family that we have... I do know that part of her sacrifice is to miss her little neices and nephews... especially her little Simon!
I need to get this done! Today with the prophetess, Anna, being in the Gospel for today... it speaks of how "all those who are awaiting redeption"..."Man had waited and tarried for the morning, and now the day was breaking. He found set before him the perfect figure of a man - gentleness, self-sacrifice, hatred of hipocrisy and cant, sympathy for the frailties of human nature, and the fierce love of justice, truth, and innocence. Suddenly he discovered that the wonderful word, which his mind had vaguely formed for itself as the ideal of human nature, was made flesh and dwelt among us." Fr Bede Jarrett
Lord, so much pulls at us in this world and causes us to be distracted from you... thank you for those islands of peace we are gifted with to pray and be grounded in your amazing truth! WE hunger and thirst for you and want to love and serve you in our midst - in our families first of all and then all those we encounter as we go forth into our jobs and communities and neighborhoods! May we "see and know You" in all those that we encounter! Jesus, we trust in you! Amen and Halleluia!Bless-bless, Barb
"...the family is the living home in which humanity is nurtured, which banishes chaos and futility, and which must be protected as such... The individual family cannot survive; it will disintegrate unless it is kept safe within the larger family which guarantees it and gives it security. So this night needs to be the night in which we set out once again on our twin paths: we set out on the path to the new city, the new family, The Church, and dedicate ourselves irrevocably to her, to our heart's true home: and then, on the basis of this family of Jesus Christ, we can proceed to grasp what is meant by the human family and by the humanity which sustains and protects us." Pope Benedict XVI
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