I didn’t keep up with Humble Handmaid very well over the Christmas season. My apologies if any of my more faithful readers kept checking to see if I’d updated anything, and had to read the same thing e every time. (I’m probably speaking to about four people here, and you know who you are. Good thing I’m related to most of you so you probably know what a busy mess I was and have forgiven me already.:)
It’s already Wednesday night, but I’ll do a “This Week” post anyway and catch you up. The absolute highlight of my week so far was attending a women’s Opus Dei Evening of Reflection on Tuesday night. These events are low-key, free, and open to everyone, I’ve been to three of them now and have really enjoyed them. I very much connect with the spirituality of Opus Dei: to seek and attain holiness through sanctifying the work of our everyday lives. St. Josemaria Escriva, who started Opus Dei in the 1920s, wanted to re-emphasize the fact that God calls all of us to strive for holiness–not just priests and religious.
The monthly Evenings of Reflection (they hold one in the morning as well) are like a mini retreat. There are two meditations by Opus Dei priests, and one talk by a lay member of Opus Dei. Confession and spiritual direction go on continuously during the evening. I really like how the meditations and talks are practical and down-to-earth. The talk on Tuesday night was on the virtue of sincerity, specifically sincerity in Confession and in spiritual direction. The speaker talked about being courageously, “savagely sincere”– in examining your conscience and deeply reflecting and praying about your sins and their possible root causes, and in confession laying them out simply, without excuse, and without beating around the bush.
St. Josemaria Escriva
If you’re in Houston, I highly recommend attending one of these sometime.
In other news, we are having some friends over to watch the BCS National Championship on Monday night. As LSU fans, we’re very excited about the game. 🙂
Geaux Tigers!
I am trying hard to get into a good routine at home with the babies, but as a young mother of two-under-two, routine can be elusive! Faith started getting up once or twice a night again around Thanksgiving, and getting less sleep has definitely affected me over the last six weeks or so. I need and want so much to rise before my family, to have some reading/prayer time and to get a couple of things done to start the day smoothly for all of us (make Mike’s lunch, start laundry, cook a decent breakfast), but getting out of bed on my own in the morning is so tough for me. Embarrassingly so.
On the breakfast note, I was talking to some college-aged friends of mine recently, and one of the guys was saying how “all we eat for breakfast is, like, just cereal, sometimes eggs or maybe a granola bar,” and I thought to myself, That’s all we usually eat…am I feeding my family college student breakfast…?!
So, a goal of mine is now to cook a hot breakfast twice a week for my boys.
My boys LOVE pancakes. So that’s probably one of our weekly staples 🙂
I have been faithful to training for my 10K race in April (not that I’ll be racing, haha), but I’ve only been able to manage twice a week–which is still something, I know. I’ve been using a great little iPhone app called Couch to 10K that is helping me train. Here’s what one of the workouts looks like:
I still feel so far away from being able to run six miles, but I can’t believe how much I’ve progressed since I started. I know I will get there. Now that I’m looking at the amount of time I have left to train, I’m pretty sure I need to step up jogging to three times per week, so I’m working on making that happen. Another reason I’m trying to get back to a more structured, disciplined routine of caring for my home and my family. Thanks for all of your prayers and encouragement, with special thanks to my husband Michael, who has been so wonderful in holding me accountable and encouraging me in this.
I feel especially joyful and thankful this week for my friends. I praise God for wonderful friends in whom I can confide and find some mutual encouragement! He has blessed me this past fall with several new kindred spirits in particular that I am incredibly thankful for. 🙂
I love the freeze-ahead idea! I'm putting it on my radar:) to do as I can get myself together to start doing…as with everything! I've made some babysteps in the past few months with making larger batches of meals and freezing half.
You reminded me of how my grandmother used to make these little thin pancakes and freeze them, and we'd always take them out and heat them up when we visited her house. Yum 🙂 The waffle idea is good too–Michael loves them.
Have you ever considered making breakfasts ahead of time and freezing them so there's less work to do in the morning? I personally make and freeze pancakes and love them. I'm sure you could do the same with waffles (heat them in the toaster), a quiche, or an egg bake. Just a thought:)