Through the Prayers of the Theotokos, Save Us!

Today is the Nativity of the Theotokos, and since I am such a bad Eastern Catholic in my ignorant Roman state, I forgot about it. Sometimes I wonder what my great grandmother would have done. But I think I know the answer. She would have gone to church. There should have been a mental hint for me - Immaculate Conception is December 8th...so Nativity of the Theotokos is September 8th.

Why did I not connect the eights?

(Bless me, father, for I have sinned...It's still the only way I know how to go to confession)

I have no Theological insights to impart, no apologetics to share. I have only this to say...

Without her, the Blessed Mother, the Theotokos, I would not have a voice with which to pray in the morning when I committ my children to God. And I would not hear Our Lord as clearly if His Mother was not nudging me when I am bitter or distracted and I begin to turn away...

"Do as He tells you"

I love her more than I could ever express. Without my heavenly Mother, I would not know Christ as He intends to be known. I would not have known to seek Him with all my heart. I could not have know Him if she had not said,

"Be it unto me as you have said," and then welcomed, with human hands, Emmanuel, the One who would save His people from their sins.


"Your nativity, O Mother of God, heralded joy to the whole universe, for from you rose the Sun of Justice, Christ our God, taking away the curse, He imparted the blessings, and by abolishing death, He gave us everlasting life." - Troparion, Liturgy of the Nativity of the Theotokos

Flying and Such

It is a Tuesday that is more like a Monday today, so I have very few words of wisdom. I can only "report" my latest adventures in living.

I have become more organized. This should impress my irritating friends who love office supplies (my sweetheart is one of these people, so don't feel targeted if you are irritating with your neat little notepads and obsessive need to clean).

I have signed on with Compass as a client and a rep (because if I happen to pass along this great life coaching service, I want the dough for having done it), and I love it.

It is so simple. Fifteen minutes a day is all it requires, and really, it only takes about ten total. I log into my daily MAP. Listen to the pep talk about sucking it up and learning how to dump the excuses (they intelligently call "learned helplessness"), to admit that most of my fears are quite ridiculous and keep me from the sort of success I want, and to make a daily plan to strive for. If one leaves things to chance, chance will happen. Or as some say, **it happens without a pen, paper, and some basic, simple articulation of how I want my priorities directed.

Now, the organizers in my world will suggest that they have everything it takes to achieve all, because they are clean and neat and obsessive. But hold on, Nelly. Really? Is that why your kids are all running away and your husband ignores you?

Yes, cleany. You too have issues. And you need help. Do you ever organize your spiritual life? Actually live for God on purpose and with a specific goal in mind?

Yeah. Thought you were perfect, huh?

Anyhoo...I am just on Day 2 of my map, and I am figuring out how to manage my Compass website (will reveal that soon), so that I might invite my pals to learn how to make people listen to them better, how to assert oneself more effectively, and how treat their husbands and wives with a modicum of love and respect.

And little old creative-brained, scattered-thought me gets to learn how to use a day planner and make use of all these ingenious thoughts I keep inventing and then turning over to others.

"Papa! Watch me fly!" (It's from Yentl. Which reminds me...I have to pencil in that two hour political phone debate/mystery book review with my Daddy for later today)

It's a Beautiful Day

"It's a beautiful day today, Mommy!"

This was the greeting my 3 year old Mikey would give to me every morning, no matter the weather. In the midst of a blizzard, a torrential rain, a bright summer day, he thought everything was beautiful and I should be happy, and if I wasn't, he would work hard to find a reason for complete happiness...for me. And I didn't ask him of this. Nor did I need it. What I discovered I needed though, was this sweet little spirit that roamed about my messy house, contented and pleased simply to be part of the joy that flowed through his family. A joy he was then, and is now, still a grand and gracious part of.

All the greatest parenting experts say you shouldn't be your childrens' friend. But I can't help it with this one. He is what my Jewish grandmother would call a "mensch". He is a friend (even if he is one who has to wash the dishes at night, help his littlest brother get pants on in the morning, and take the dog out for walks. Even if he is my son to whom I must teach discipline, he so much still my friend).

Michael's goal in life is to bring honor to those he respects. I know this more than I know most things. He is pleased when we are pleased. But what he doesn't realize is that - even when he disagrees with us - we are happy, because he is Michael and he is ours.

Michael is the kind of kid who teachers have school conferences about just because they want to thank his parents for allowing him to be part of their class. True story. I have had, at least, three teachers say this to me.

I arrive to conferences all messy-haired and unshowered and a suited teacher is shaking my hand, not because of me, but because of the kid I send off to school each day.


When my good friend, Catholic School Sister, was eating lunch with a friend of hers who happens to be Michael's junior high football coach, he suddenly brightened up at Michael's name and said,

"He is a great kid! Tell his parents they are doing something right."

But it is only part our doing and a large part Michael's. A complete part Our Lord's doing. Michael is a hundred times the human being I was at his age. Already, he has more integrity than me in many ways. He challenges me to be a better person, because he is already a better person than I am. He won't just be something great as an adult. He is something great now, and I love him more than the sunshine of a beautiful day. After all, the first truly beautiful day of my life was the late afternoon in early September, the moment he was born.

His father held him in his arms until he they both fell asleep snoring.

His first cry was, "Maaaaa! Maaaaaa!" And I will never let him live that one down.

When he was getting his three year old check up, he turned to his pediatrician, Dr. Meehan, and asked curiously, "Are you Irish, Dr. Meeman, because you look Irish."

"Send this one to Harvard," Dr. Meehan said, and he genuinely lights up whenever he sees Michael at his yearly check up. They chat like old pals.

When I invited friends to offer Michael a word of spiritual and life advice for his 13 birthday (which I am collecting for his scrapbook I will be giving him tonight), without any exceptions every single participant was excited to offer Michael their words. I think, because most of them know that Michael will be excited to read them, be open to heeding them, and will look forward to living a life of great character.

He is just that kind of kid, and he is 13 now. A teenager. I look forward to discovering the young man he will become.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MIKEY!

You make my every day beautiful.

(He will be so embarrassed if he reads this:) I should send it over the loud speaker at his school...It will produce what we in the family call, "Michael's Russian Smile".

Grains, God, and Politics

You know how you can tell if a new lifestyle is actually working for you? When you naturally and easily become frugal towards the unnecessary things you always insisted you "needed" even if you already had several of them at home. When you make simplicity a virtue with pure adrenaline-hyped rewards.

The night before last, I finally gave into this wild craving all day that I had been having for vanilla ice cream. For people who know me, they know that I generally do not like ice cream. I don't like milk and milk products. I rarely even desire milk shakes. So, whenever I get this craving - about three times a year - I give into it. I headed to the grocery store for a small container of vanilla ice cream. I don't usually even want the loaded stuff. But I figured, and maybe even stupidly, that I am now finally absorbing iron via supplements (though I might still need an infustion) and vitamin D via the daily walks in the sunshine. So maybe my weirdo body is now even wanting some calcium that, for once, it may not dump in the form of kidney stones into my kidneys. It was just a thought...

As I was passing by the magazine rack, the book nerd (and addict) in me noted all the great new issues with pictures of neatly carved pumpkins on the cover. "Easy Autumn Stews!", "50 Great Kids Costume Ideas!" "Trick or Treat Treats That Will Drive the Little Goblins Crazy!"

Can you tell I freelance these ridiculous things for a living?

In the past, the recent past, I would have grabbed one of those senseless magazines in one of my weakened sleepy stupors, because the colors, the words themselves, and the mental picture of a healthy mother with enough energy to carve Halloween pumpkins with her children was momentarily inspiring. But I would have never done what was demonstrated in the picture. Too tired. I would have, instead, let my kids cut up the $5.00 magazine for some lonely rainy day craft, and the mess would sit for a day or so, because I would be too tired to clean it, and too tired to insist that they do it. The latter takes much more energy. And I would have ended up with a small, but powerful, stab of guilt when my husband finally cleaned up the mess himself, complaining quietly that I let the kids "run all over" when I get too tired to control their creative endeavors in the kitchen.

But this time, because I finally had my energized wits about me, I walked straight past the covers saying to myself, "That's a cute idea. I will see if I can find something similar on a free craft site on the Internet."

See? Wits. Energy. Natural simplicity.

I have spent nearly a week now briskly walking my dog for 45 minutes a day, avoiding bagels and whole grain breads, and it has completely changed my life. I have not told anyone outside of the readers on my blog, and yet, neighbors and friends who have seen me throughout town will stop their cars spontaneously, rolled down their windows and yell, "Have you done something different lately? You have so much great color in your face?"

Someone else said, "I love your energy!"

I don't think those words have been uttered about since the early nineties, if ever.

My own sister doesn't know my new blog address (a clerical error on my part that I have yet to correct), but she saw me today walking the dog down the main street of our busy town and she said, "You look great! What's going on? Vitamins or something?"

Then I tell people I just stopped eating wheat.

"Meat? Me too! Vegetarian," they say proudly pointing to themselves.

"No, no. I am not a vegetarian," I reply. "I am not eating WHEAT."

There is usually a heavy confused blinking and then another, "Oh..." No one seems to be able to wrap their head around this one even though it is quite common in this world. But I guess just not in my little hippie town.

I can already see how others around me are wanting in on this new "energy". I have begun to have the wherewithal to schedule my own time, to say no to people who are doing things I cannot do or are not interested in. I have begun to make my reading time a staple again - though only for about 15 minutes. I go to bed with the idea that sleep makes one feel better and not just the same as going without adequate sleep might make someone feel. Before, sleeping never mattered. I was always asleep anyway. I slept for longer times than I do now, but without absolutely any benefit when I ate oatmeal every morning.

I drink maybe one cup of coffee a day. I still love it. I just don't need it as much. Though I still need it. It is part of my morning routine.

How to keep this goal moving along?

This was my only concern. I have no issues motivating myself. All alone in a silent, dark room I can come up with an action plan and an inspiring self-directed speech. But when it is a chronic fatigue and poor immune system you are fighting, how do you stay on track?

I was searching for an answer to a vitamin question the other night when I came across a life coaching company. Very cool. I never thought I needed anything like that. Always wondered how these converts to Catholicism and Orthodoxy got all these "mentors" and "spiritual fathers, sisters,donkeys" etc...But I inquired, got to talking to one of the coaches who stopped me before our conversation ended and said, "Your life inspires me. It is not often I feel that about a client."

Interesting.

I am going to do it though. I am getting one of those mentors the eager, shiny-eyed converts always get. Only I am going to do so with the intention of possibly becoming one myself some day, if I can come up with more than, "Stay Away From Dinner Rolls And Change Your Life Forever!". This particular company is looking for a qualified female coach of the Catholic persuasion. They already have many other churches represented. And now is a great time for the lack-luster spiritual interior life of many Catholics in the Northeast to be challenged a bit. We'll see how this goes...This company is not expensive at all and is just starting. Quite affordable and, I predict, quite worth the guidance. I need a push and some clarity where I might not get it from friends and family. Everyone who knows me now has always known me tired - from college to the present. How can they imagine for me the Tiffani with an energetic future when they are quite happy with the slow-footed Tiffani of days past?

It is amazing what a lack of wheat can do. It is amazing how finally following the path, you know that you know, God wants you to follow can change even your energy level and eventually just spill out into other areas of your life. It's great to know who you really are when you aren't falling asleep between stop signs. It's great to know that I can come up with statements like the one I came up with in the grocery store the other day when someone asked me if I was a conservative,

"Yes, but I am an American first. Sometimes conservatives are as ridiculously hardcore as the rainbow colored left can be. Really, they are just two sides of the exact same gaudy coin that isn't negotiable anywhere. My Right doesn't look anything like Reagan's anymore. It's all ideology and no common sense."

The spittin' Right grew silent and the teeth-gritted Peace Lover in the room, both, turned away from me in disgust. I knew I felt satisfied, because I was just being me.

Now see? That's the swift thought of a woman who hasn't eat grains all day.

Growing Up

Last Wednesday, I put my tiny little baby on a bus and watched him ride off to kindergarten. He was so excited, holding his big sister's hand tightly - slightly alarmed, but much more eager than afraid.

He came back nearly seven hours later more excited than when he had left. I had committed him (and all my children) to the Sacred Heart several times throughout the day, begging Our Lord, all His mighty angels, the Blessed Mother, St. Nicholas, Pope John Paul the Great, etc...generally all holy dead people I could think of, to look after my littlest man who has the greatest desire, of just about any human being I have ever seen, to learn absolutely everything he can from morning bus to the afternoon one.

I wait for him and my daughter by reading a Mauve Binchy book on the steps of an old historical building in town - just at the site of the afternoon school bus stop. Whitethorn Woods, and I try to distract myself from my restless excitement to hold their hands again. It's the same excitement I feel when awaiting my middle son's school day. That moment when he become thrilled at having accomplished something new - a challenge he didn't even know he would have. And it's the same when I am waiting for my oldest to come out of the locker room from football practice. He's so big! I say to myself. Once he was like you in kindergarten, I say to my youngest who is, by then, already asleep in his booster seat, knocked out from a day in kindergarten.

My daughter now frequently borrows my clothes, has "girl movie nights" or checks out books just for us to read together. Already, she has dismissed school cliques as "being for snobs and people afraid of personality." Smart one, I say tapping my head.

"Enjoy them while they are young," said an old woman to me as I walked them to the corner for ice cream the other night. "They grow up so fast."

No, ma'am. I think I actually enjoy them every year, every day, just as they are. Young, growing, and old - they are amazing. I have great kids, and I love them completely.

Thought For Your Motivated Day

Got something you know must get done on a regular basis for good living?...Found this Aristotle quote today. I am already a huge fan, but hey, this quote was new even for nerdy old me:

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but, a habit. Aristotle

Goals That Actually Work...

So last week, while I was preparing for my youngest's first day of kindergarten, watching my oldest move over to the local high school for junior high and become a teenager, guiding my daughter on her new 4th grade adventure, and looking forward to teaching my homeschooled son another year...I could hardly stay awake inside the car as I waited to pick my brother up from work. It seems I have all these things to do for other people, but I cannot even shower myself most days without an immense lead time for rest afterward.

"How am I going to make it to 50?" I said out loud. Truly. How can one person, so consistently fatigued, survive anything? It is like being perpetually in the first stage of pregnancy or wearing an xray jacket around all day while washing dishes, driving the car, and walking the kids to the bus stop.

Maybe it sounds extreme, but that is because you have never been perpetually exhausted. Maybe you have only known such fatigue (the kind that makes you literally collapse) when you have just given birth or have a nasty form of the flu. But I have felt like this on a daily basis most of my adult life - which is why I rarely answer the phone or keep commitments to leave my home. Most of us have felt this kind of literal fatigue, but not most days of our lives.

So, I decided last week (begged God really) to show me a better way. A way that all my brilliant doctors over the years have never discovered. I don't need a secret plan for the entire universe. Just a way for my own body to work properly. Medical professionals have never considered fatigue an issue, while Social Security gives checks to millions in the US every year, because of this kind of clinical fatigue. What the heck causes it? Conventional medicine will long say they have no idea, and truly they don't care. Behind the fatigue is a massive amount of drugs. But I don't take them - they don't work anyway. I just wanted God to show me a way to aquire just enough strength to be normal and not 80 years old inside a 35 year old body. Truly. I can settle fine with normal every day tired that most people feel after a hard day's work.

I grabbed the only available piece of paper inside the purse my mother gave me for Christmas, and I started writing cryptic, messy goals in a red felt marker. What have I got to lose?

The first thing I was going to do was to stop eating wheat and to begin taking the supplements and vitamins I never naturally absorb. More than 80% of the immune system is located in the intestines. If you are not absorbing there, then something is "off", and it is usually (about 90% of the time) an allergy. The most typical allergy is to wheat or eggs. I know I don't have an egg allergy, because when I eat them, I am temporarily normal. It is after the toast when I feel drugged. If I feel awake after avoiding wheat, chances are...I am actually beginning to absorb some of the nutrients I am purposefully taking. Normally, I just dump them.

So far, so very good. I have actually been awake for the last three days or so. I have taken long walks Saturday (needing a nap afterward), Sunday (not needing a nap, but a cup of coffee), Monday (needing neither nap nor coffee, and actually washing the dishes and baking a pie afterward).

My next couple of goals was to find a way to afford my vitamins better. I think I have done that. I order them wholesale when I am not being lazy and begin to refill them just before I run out. I have invited a few friends to order with me, so we can all get a nice discount on the every day stuff - like vitamin C, calcium, and kids vitamins - that we all use. So far, so good...

Then, I decided that even if I could not coordinate the standing up properly, I would exercise - by walking - every day for 30 minutes. This is a real commitment for me. Sometimes, I cannot even walk to the kitchen to refill my morning coffee cup. I am so glad I no longer have an infant in the house. I could not even care for my youngest when he was born without medical professionals helping me in my home all day. And when they left, friends and family had to even help feed me. I don't want to go back to that kind of anemia and fatigue ever again. And I am hoping to avoid more iron infusions after this next one, because maybe just maybe I will actually retain what I have been given via IV.

So far, so good...with the above efforts.

I also turned my debit card over to my husband, because when I am overly tired, I cannot cook properly and so I order easy to cook food or I give into the junk food junkies in my house, and I allow them to order out. This time, I can't do that. So, I work within the budget I am regimented with when I have the energy. I have decided that if I really want something, I have to live as though I am already there. I crock pot everything like I have an amazing physical list of activities to complete by the end of the day, because one day, I will have the energy to complete them again.

And lastly, I have decided that I want to complete my degree in natural health. I will start slow - with certifications first, and by begging friends to let me use their health issues as case studies while I learn...offering them free vitamins and daily really good smelling cups of nutty tea. That part has only arrived in a small sliver of excitement on the horizon so far, as I need the capital and organization skills to keep me focused on my educational goals.

What is amazing to me, is that, since we found out we were losing the house, I have begun repeating the phrase to God, "You are just going to have to surprise me, Lord." And He does. Everytime. It is as if this is what He really wants to do. Or maybe, I have just finally melted into that part of Sacred Scripture that says He will give me the desires of my heart. Perhaps, after all this sleepy suffering, He has created the desire to get better, so I can help others in much worse shape.

Imagine that. Who knows?

I will keep you updated. Off to teach the first day of homeschool now, and to prepare a gluten free afternoon and a long walk with my obese dog who currently has human-imposed weightloss and etiquette goals.