Transparency - Good or Bad?

I have been thinking a lot lately about the way that I express myself on social media.  I am an introvert, so while I do have social interaction in person, I probably do more socializing on the internet on a daily basis than face to face.  The thing is, I pretty much am the same way no matter which situation I am in.  I haven't yet decided if that is a good thing or a bad thing.  In personal situations, there are things like body language to read, and tone which can be more easily understood when you are standing a couple of feet from someone, and there is also the fact that if I say something completely off the wall, the person may actually forget it.

Obviously, social media is different.  Words last and they are there forever.  Unless you delete them, which I am not a fan of.  I am a believer of standing by my words, even if that means I have to go back and explain relentlessly if something is misunderstood.  I think it's a good thing though.  People here on earth may forget my words, or misunderstand my words, or even use my words in a negative way towards me, but there is One who exists who knows not just all my words (spoken and typed out on the internet), but the true intentions of my heart that go along with those words.  I can choose to delete anything I post, but God still knows what I said, and there is some major accountability going on there that will last long past the age of the internet.

All that being said, I just basically have a pretty transparent personality.  I've been through too much in my life and know that life is just way too short and too precious for me to be concerned with appearances.  I don't get the draw of appearances at all.  Are people concerned with appearances because they want others to like them?  I figure if you don't like me, that's fine, I'd rather know up front and honestly, and be done with the pretenses.  One of the things I have discovered as I have aged is that not everyone is going to like everyone else and that is a-okay.  Some people just have personality clashes.  I have met people that I really want to like, but I just don't.  That isn't to say I am rude to them or have no use for them, it's not like that at all, it just means that I am never going to be bff's with them.  I really do try to value everyone, and I do believe that in most cases, everyone has something valuable that we can learn from and that can enrich our lives, even if it just an opportunity to pray for someone else that really rubs us the wrong way.  I have also met people I really didn't want to like, and I ended up really liking them a lot and being surprised at how different they were from my first impression.

I seem to lack an ability to temper myself depending on which category of person I am interacting with.  I am just as open with a total stranger as I am with someone I've known for most of my life.  I am pretty much an open book.  If you ask me, I will tell you, and I will probably share way more than you really wanted to know to begin with.  It doesn't matter to me if you are a friend of a friend on facebook, or a relative, or someone I have regular phone coffee dates with.  I tell it like it is, at least as it relates to myself.

Some people see this as a negative.  I know there is such a thing as over-sharing, and I know that I tend to get long-winded, but I just think, what if one thing I say makes one person feel better today?  Is it worth it then?  I'd like to think so, but maybe that's not true.  Some important people in my life don't understand why I am so open and why I share so much and they are the complete opposite of me when it comes to what they feel is an appropriate level of sharing.

Me?  I love sharing but I also LOVE being shared with.  I love hearing peoples stories from all walks of life.  I know it sounds incredibly naive, but I truly do believe we can learn something from absolutely every single person we come into contact with.  Other people fascinate me.  The human condition fascinates me.  I love hearing about how people function in their situations and how they come to decisions they've made and their opinions on all things and really, I am just fascinated with knowing people's stories.  We all have a story.  I want to know yours and I sit enthralled when I meet people like me who share without any preconceived purpose other than to share.  To me, it's almost like trading tips.  You never know what someone else knows that might help you out.  I have learned some pretty random things through various social media interactions that have really changed my life and the way I live.  I think it helps me to be a kinder person as well.  You really never know what someone is going through, and I try to always keep that in mind when I see someone else.  It makes me look like an absolute cheeseball, I know, when I see a grumpy looking person at the grocery store and I smile at them and tell them hello, or when I strike up a conversation in line at the pharmacy with someone who looks lonely.  I am an introvert, and these things are typically usually against my nature, but there are times when I feel compelled to because, what if, what if it brightens their day?  What if they've been in a cranky mood all day and haven't been able to have a decent conversation?  What if they are feeling incredibly and utterly alone in the world and me commenting on their purse makes them feel better?  There have been plenty of times when a strangers comment or smile has really changed my entire outlook.

I sometimes wonder if my sharing is too much though.  Maybe I am one of those annoyingly talky people who you wish would just shut up.  I know I tend to talk like a fire hose, expelling a steady stream that can be overwhelming.  I try to be aware of that and make an effort to be a better listener.  Maybe I am one of those people that others see and think "loooooony!" in their heads.  There are several times in the last few weeks I have caught myself getting ready to share something and then have backspaced and deleted thinking, oh, that's probably over-sharing.  And then I wonder when I started being concerned with over-sharing.  I think it depends on what is currently going on in my life.

Right now I feel like I am finally exiting the end of a long dark tunnel.  In the darkest of the tunnel, I was afraid to share because I felt very fragile and vulnerable and too thin-skinned to take much criticism.  Coming out the other end, I have felt almost euphoric about sharing, maybe because I forgot how beautiful it is to be in the light and I want everyone to know.  I really can't seem to find a rhyme or reason that is exact, just a possible loose pattern.

I don't think I will ever stop being so transparent.  Whether it is refreshing or getting old, I don't think I know how to not be this way, so for good or for bad, it is what it is.

I'd love to know your thoughts.  Transparency, a good thing, a bad thing, or just a thing?

Bits and Bobs - Week of April 5

I decided I am going to make a weekly post of random things that captured my attention in one way or another throughout each week.  This will be a true random mishmash of stuff, things I find humorous, poignant, touching, mind-numbing, religious, mundane, all sorts of things, and in no particular order.

• We are doing the Divine Mercy Novena this week.  Something we read tonight just really struck me. Tonight's prayer was for heretics and schismatics.  There was a part that said something along the lines of when they tore apart my heart, my church.  Yes, we the Church, we are the heart of Christ.  I guess I knew that, but it just really hit me for some reason.  Also the part about not looking at their wrongs, but looking at them and realizing they also belong in the compassionate heart of Christ.  Food for thought.

• This week, Easter Mass was just amazing.  I've been grumpy and out of sorts more often than not lately.  I am typically a pretty positive person and usually can easily find the good in almost any situation or person.  I am a bit of a Pollyanna and always try to see something positive in everything.  I have been more like the Grinch as of late.  Lent has been extremely challenging and I really have felt chewed up, dried up and spit out.  I have been parched and I had no idea how much the joy of Easter would be so profound as it has been for me this year.  We typically attend Latin Mass, but the girls were singing in the children's choir at the 10:30 NO Mass (English for those who don't know).  In Latin Mass, we do not talk (except for prayers at the end) and we don't respond verbally and there is a lot of quiet and it is very contemplative.  I am an easily distracted person, so this is good for me.  It helps me keep focus.  In a louder, busy (especially for a major Holy Day) Mass, it is easy for me to get side tracked by any number of things, and as horrible as it is, I have to really fight sometimes to not get annoyed (not so much with others, as with myself).  This year, there was a Vietnamese gentleman sitting behind me.  When we started singing the first hymn, he started singing, super loud and slightly off key.  And you know what?  It was AWESOME!  I was so blessed to be standing in front of him and I thanked God right then and there.  I needed that.  It was dry, there was no Alleluia in Lent and now, finally we could say   sing Alleluia and he was doing it so loudly and joyfully.  It just struck me over and over again during Mass, the beauty of all of us coming together to celebrate on that blessed Holy Day of Easter.  

• We came out to van after being out and about one evening this week and there was a paper stuck under the rear windshield wiper. It was starting to sprinkle and we were hurrying to van and we both got grumbly about someone sticking some trash under there for us to have to take care of.  I walked up and grabbed it.  It was this:
  
  I wish I had been able to find who left it so I could give him or her a great hug.  This really brought a smile to each of our faces and it really touched me.
  
• Great food!  The week was full of tasty dishes.  Granted, I am currently on round two of steroids, so I have an unhealthy obsession with food right now.  My favorites were an Italian tuna sandwich with capers and lemon along side of some of my mom's recipe cucumber salad.  The second meal is a tasty new york strip steak, fresh sliced tomatoes and roasted cabbage.  Yumm-O!

Re-cap of the past year!

Obviously, I haven't blogged in a long long time.  The last time was last year in March.  Things were going okay, then we had a no good very bad day.  Juliette had a seizure at morning Mass.  The world just sort of tilted off axis at that point and it really hasn't slowed down much since.  Blogging just became non-existent.  I actually had started a post last year after it was over, but I never was able to finish it.  I just read it a minute ago, the part I had written out.  Wow.  I honestly don't even want to finish it.  It is very intensive since I wrote it shortly after it happened, so it was all very real and very fresh.  It was just too much re-living to write it and so I just stopped and it sits unfinished.  So much has happened the last year.  I will try to do a quick run down (possibly out of order because after a while things kind of run into each other) just to catch up, but not a lot in the way of details.

Mostly, we have had one medical drama after another after another since the seizure.  It has been super crazy.  We have hit our catastrophic cap two years in a row now.  Oy.  It has felt like once we recover from one crazy thing, another happens.  We have lived so much in recovery mode, that it sometimes feels like actual living has been pushed to the side.  This year has pretty much kept up pace.  God has done some crazy amazing things in my way of life and living and He is still doing some crazy things.  As always, I am a HUGE work in progress, and I am learning to live with a bit of a different reality than the one I had.  It is definitely a learning process.  Anyway, here's a basic rundown of the past year and that will bring me current so hopefully I can get back to writing again.

March 2014 near the end of the month - we decide to start attending daily Mass again as a family.  Jules passes out and has a seizure in the middle of Mass, losing bladder control.  Definitely ranks up there with my most terrifying parenting moments.  She spent 3 days in All Children's Hospital and they never could figure out what set her off.  Just a crazy syncope episode and her body decided to turn itself off and on again.

May 2014 - Evy starts having oral allergic reactions to a crap ton of foods.  Take her to allergist and get epi-pen and test and lo and behold, my little pumpkin tested positive to 50 freaking different things!  She is basically allergic to Florida.  No open windows for us, it's A/C all the time (to keep down on moisture and prevent the mold that she is also allergic to).  All the abundance of fresh fruit?  Yep, cut down on that drastically since she can't eat half of it.  Most notable are her allergies to apples, peaches, pears, plums, cherries, watermelon, honeydew melon, cantaloupe, avocados and her beloved beloved bananas.  If it can be cooked, she can usually eat it cooked, but not raw.  We have found banana bread okay, but still haven't found a good banana pudding she can tolerate.  She can actually eat the banana flavored smooshed-up-baby-food-fruit-in-a pouch-nasty-things-made-for-toddlers-not-big-girls that I hate buying (along with canned fruit) but for fresh fruits it's pretty much berries and grapes.  And citrus, but she's not a big fan of that.  We already knew about the peanuts but confirmed that she hasn't outgrown it.  This year we have added crab and shrimp and........fresh parsley.........to the mix.  Seriously, who is allergic to parsley?  That delicious homemade chimichurri sauce?  No go for her.

June 2014 - Hannah went to Italy.  Awesome pilgrimage trip for her.  Life changing.  While she was there she had an almost passy outy episode a couple of times.  They were hiking, she was probably dehydrated, blah blah blah.  It happened again when she got home, so I took her in.  I figured it was blood sugar problems.  Then she had a concerning EKG.

July 2014 -Now she has her very own cardiologist.  She has a heart problem that really isn't a heart problem.  It's a vagal nerve problem.  Look up POTS.  She basically has POTS but they aren't calling it POTS because it isn't as severe. It's really a milder form of POTS.  Basically, she can (and will) pass out at any given moment if her body decides whatever is going on is too much.  It can be walking, laughing too hard, standing up too quickly, being startled, exercising, whatever.  She has had days where she can't even get out of bed to do her school work because just sitting up gives her such bad chest pains and palpitations.  She can't get her license yet because driving when you can pass out at any time without warning isn't such a great idea.  She wears out super easily and if she has a busy day planned, she needs to cushion it with non-busy days.  It has cut into her teen life quite a bit, but she is an awesome and amazing trooper and she is so strong and such a great witness to God's strength and love and has such perseverance and fortitude.  Love that girl!  She is now on beta blockers like an old person.  Some of the older Knights of Columbus in my husband's council got a kick out of her being on the same medication as they are!  The pills make her seriously tired and basically she can't function awake on them, so when she has bad days or episodes, she has to take an extra pill and basically is a puddle for the day.

August 2014 - Jules has emergency appendectomy!  My tough girl with a super high pain tolerance told me one evening that her side had been hurting her all day but she didn't want to be a bother, but it had gotten so bad she couldn't stand up straight so decided to tell me.  This is my aspergers girl, so if you know aspergers, you can probably picture this perfectly in your brain.  I suspected appendix and we take her to the ER and yep!  The thing is, no one here will do surgery on a pediatric patient.  So, after her first ambulance ride with the seizure, she got to have another one going from the local hospital back to All Children's where she got to have her rotting body part removed and stay an extra night due to infection.

September 2014 - Sophia starts having hip and knee pain. She has GHD and with her treatment and rapid growth that can happen, one of the things to watch out for is slipped growth plates.  We were worried so we took her to see her doctor and they did an X-ray and an MRI.  The MRI showed a cyst/tumor in/on her hip.  She named it Bob.  It looked benign and after a shot of tordol and spending a week off of it, the pain subsided.  ***  it has currently been causing her pain again more frequently, and she has another MRI tomorrow and an ortho appointment next week  ***

November 2014 -  My one remaining ovary decided to be unkind and pop out a cyst.  The cyst was growing and causing me a lot of pain.  I tried to wait it out.

December 2014 - I did my first 5K!  (sorry, had to throw that in there, but it was a huge accomplishment for me especially since I did it with the ovarian cyst and a recurring kidney infection)

January 2015 - I had surgery to remove the ovarian cyst, since waiting it out didn't improve it.  Silly dopey ovary was hiding out behind my intestines, so it had to be put back in its place.  Adhesions were also removed, along with the remaining fallopean tube.  Thankfully this was all done via laparoscope, which was a relief after having had a long icky recovery from my hysterectomy which was not able to be done via laparoscope.

February 2015 - I had emergency gallbladder surgery.  Just a couple of weeks after the cyst removal surgery.  My body was not happy with back to back surgeries, and my health basically took a huge dump after this.

That brings us to now.  My health still isn't back full force.  I am in the middle of a nasty autoimmune flare up and my TSH is pretty high which is keeping me feeling very foggy headed.  I just finished a round of steroids that did wonders for me and I didn't realize the quality of life I was lacking until I wasn't lacking it anymore.  The mystery rash that faded along with the steroids is now coming back.  No clue what is up with that.  My new reality is that I am dealing with a chronic autoimmune issue (I have Hashimoto's for starters) and I am not as healthy as I once was.  I am navigating these waters and trying to learn to swim with the currents rather than fight against them, which is what I have been doing up until now and which has been backfiring madly on me.  So if I seem off, or scatter brained or whatever, there is likely a legitimate reason for it.  I fear that I come across as a huge flake, but I truly cannot help it.  This is my life.

Now that you are caught up on all the life-changing events of the past year, I hope to move on and be able to write more exciting things! 

Part Reveal and What I've Been Up To

I hinted at some big news for my oldest daughter a few posts back.  I am still not releasing major details in such a public place, but she is going on a big trip this summer.  It is out of the country and she has the opportunity to go on an amazing faith-filled pilgrimage.  This is a huge blessing for her, and I am beyond excited for her.  

Part of her job is to fund raise for some of her expenses, mainly her food costs, and anything she raises beyond that will go to help another young person join on this pilgrimage.  She has been baking up a storm this past week, and she is selling home made bread after Mass.  She is going to be making some cookies as well, to sell at a later date.  We are hoping her baked goods will sell well.  She makes these amazing better-than-otis-spunkmeyer chocolate chip cookies, big ones, that she will probably sell.  (FYI, these can be shipped if you are interested, lol!)  She really is a great baker.

To help her along, I decided to try my hand at some embroidery.  I have done dish towels before and they've come out well, so I decided to embroider some Catholic Saint dolls.  I saw a design I liked for the first one online, and I ended up drawing it out myself.  After that first one, I drew out all the rest by looking at various pictures of the Saint.  I think they came out really cute.  We are selling them for $20 each.  Every cent goes to help Mini Me on her trip.  If you are interested, please let me know.  Below are pictures of the ones I have already made up.  I have a drawing already made for Saint Kateri, and I have plans for other Saints as well.  If you are interested and you don't see a Saint you like, let me know!  I am confident I can work one up.  If you know someone who may be interested, please share this with them.  Our goal is to get her food cost raised by Easter.  (I think these would make adorable Easter basket fillers!)  Without being on Facebook right now, my audience is rather limited.  I am counting on my friends and family to help spread the word along for this amazing experience for Mini Me, and other youth as well!  Please share as much as you can.  Thank you!

Saint Anthony

 St. Bernadette

 St. Clare

 St. Francis

 St. Therese

Being the Mom This Time

My childhood growing up was so different from the childhood of my daughters.  I grew up and lived in the same house until I got married.  My girls have grown up mostly in an Army family, moving every few years.  I went to school with the same kids pretty much from elementary school up through high school.  My girls, well, they are home schooled, but they have lived in several different places, and have never had the experience of growing up around the same people.  I grew up around lots of family and spent lots of time with cousins, aunts and uncles, and grandparents.  We haven't lived near family since Mini Me was a baby, and have lived pretty far from most family.  I have always felt connected to my mom and have delighted in passing on family traditions to my girls, but I haven't really had any one experience that has struck me until this weekend.

This Saturday, my older three girls had their first choir festival.  Since we home school, this is something that they haven't had through public schooling the way I did.  We are blessed that our parish has a wonderful and amazing children's choir director, and my girls have really enjoyed being a part of it this year.  On Saturday, we dropped them off, and it brought to mind all the choir festivals that I attended in my middle and high school years.  They were to rehearse all day, songs they had learned on their own, with several other choirs from all around Florida.  In the afternoon, they would have a choral prelude singing alone and with the other choirs, and then sing during Mass as well.

I sat there in the church listening to the choir with my daughters singing, and it just suddenly struck me.  I thought of all those times I had been the girl in the choir, singing and having my mom sitting in the audience listening to me, and later telling me how beautiful we sounded, and how proud of me she was.  This time, I was the mom sitting in the audience listening to my daughters.  It was such an amazing and touching experience.  I am so proud of them, and it made my heart ache to not be able to share the experience with my mom.  I got misty-eyed sitting there and I just closed my eyes and listened and said a thank you prayer to God for giving me the honor and privilege of being the mom this time.  

My Bashful Birthday Girl

My littlest girly, my Gift, turned 8 yesterday.  Unless you know her well, or have spent a lot of time with her, she is pretty quiet.  It takes a while for her to open up and talk to people these days, especially grown ups.  She is going through a bashful phase.  I see it with some of her little friends, who also tend to be on the bashful side, and it is amusing to see them being bashful to each other.  The moms say, "Did you tell your friend hello?"  And the girls say quietly, almost in a whisper, "I did."  And the girls smile at each other and want to talk, but they are bashful.  It's quite cute.  

The youth leader in our church passed out boxes for the kids to collect money for the poor in Haiti.  This leader has traveled there before, and has collected items for the kids and women there.  Gift has added money to the box from her piggy bank, and all the members of the family have also chipped in here and there.  Last weekend, she had this bright idea:  "I know!!  I know what I can do!!  I can stand outside of church, after Mass, and ring a bell, you know, like they do at Christmas with the red buckets, and I can say, "Help for Haiti!" and ring my bell, and people can put money in my box.  And next Sunday will be the perfect day, because it is my birthday!"  I told her she would have to talk to the youth leader to get permission, and she was very excited about doing so.

This kind of surprised me, because, as a bashful girl, she doesn't like to be up front and center on anything.  It took me a long while to even get her to talk to the youth leader, and getting her to talk to other grown ups has been difficult.  I encouraged her, and then honestly, I forgot all about it.  After Mass last Sunday, she ran out the door to find the youth leader and share her idea. The leader took Gift right away to talk to our priest to ask permission.  She asked Father and after a silly joke, which had to be cleared up because she was utterly confused, he said she could do it.  

Flash forward to this past Sunday, on her 8th birthday, my little gift couldn't wait to go to Mass, so she could ring her bell after and collect money for the children in Haiti.  She stood there quite stiffly, rang her bell whenever anyone came up to the church, and smiled her bashful smile, and even answered other adults when they asked what she was raising money for.  I am so utterly proud of her.  She looked so uncomfortable, but she stuck it out, and my mama heart is proud of her for doing something even though it was hard to help someone else.  

She raised enough money to get clean drinking water for a school, but most importantly, she lifted her mommy's heart.  

Spring Break

This week, Mr. Cat is on spring break from college.  He is a dedicated student with a full course load, plus tutoring, plus president of a political science group, plus he is a Knight of Columbus.  Along with all of that, he is a wonderful and amazing father and husband.  I am very proud of him and honored to be his wife.  Since he has a week of freedom from the grind, we are spending the week together doing fun family things.  I will be back sometime next week.