Our Hearts Are Restless

Over at Will Write for Tomato Pie, Erin has kindly invited me to write a guest post - so go read about my "Word Addiction!"

Hello y'all!  I'm absurdly excited about my first post over at CatholicMom.  Click on the pic and check it out!

While thinking about adjectives tonight (more on that later) I decided to find an online word-cloud generator.  I popped over to WordItOut, and copied out all the adjectives from a section of the first chapter of Lord of the Rings.  Couldn't do the whole thing, although I have ambitions.  But, just for fun, here's a word-cloud of Tolkien's adjectives.  The size is randomly generated, not based on repetition.  Some things about the randomness amuse me - "enormous" is in the smallest font, but "grey" is grey-colored, though "dark" is printed in white. Oh and by the way...yes, I'm a nerd!

Working on a movie review for y'all, but I wanted to share this quickly. Several times as I was telling people about my job, they asked where I found it, and I was surprised to discover that a lot of people don't know about CatholicJobs.com.  I spend two months trolling it this summer, but unfortunately, they don't give frequent-applier points.  This site was a lifesaver for me in my fresh-out-of-college career search! CatholicJobs is super easy to use - here's the homescreen: I usually searched for jobs by category, because I was trying to keep my options open as far as location and specific job type.  Below is a screenshot of the category "Publishing/Journalism" which is where I spent a lot of my time!  Because of my interests, I also regularly checked the Clerical/Administrative page.  There are a lot of options, and it's a great resource if you're really interested in putting your talents at the service of the Church.  I recommend re...

This is the weirdest experience of my whole life.  Okay, maybe not, but it's awfully close - I had an entire Saturday with no plans .  No homework to do, no wedding planning, no travel, no family or friends nearby, no urgent tasks.  There were a few things that needed to get done (some necessary shopping, a little apartment cleaning) but really, I had hours to waste.  Lord knows I needed the rest after last weekend's wedding frenzy, and the last six weeks of non-stop running to get moved up here.  But I've been vegging out all week, and need to "recalibrate" as my dad puts it. So today's been a mix of boredom and spurts of energy.  I got up for morning Mass at the parish I think I'll join; came home and enjoyed a leisurely breakfast with my roommate.  I baked a pineapple-blueberry dump cake, then went out for a slow shopping trip for a few necessary items.  After a late lunch, I've done basically nothing except shift some stuff around in ...

  Memento, homo, quia pulvis est, et in pulverem reverterit. When important things happen in the world, my dad always reminds me to remember .  Remember what you saw, what you felt, so that you can tell the story to your children.  He's told me to remember so many times - when we watched the last shuttle launch from NASA...when the Chilean miners were rescued...when I attended the canonization of St. John Paul II...when 9-11 happened. Remember.  Where were you?  What were you doing? Not forgetting is different than remembering.  Remembering, calling to mind an experience, is an active thing, while "not forgetting" just means filing it away in the back of our heads to be pulled out later.  History is built by little people.  The great ones provide the impetus, but each one of us is deeply vital to the story of God's work in the world.  History is not only a story of actions, but also consequences and reactions.  How will our childre...

It's time to get back into the swing of things!  Writing prompts help me a lot, so here goes for this week's edition of Small Success Thursdsay, hosted by CatholicMom. After a year's worth of planning and preparing, my friends' wedding was successfully pulled off.  The end result was remarkably smooth, thanks to a large crew of friends and family who put so much time and effort into the day!  There were so very many little pieces that all had to "click" in order for the big pieces to happen...and they did, thanks be to God.  But there were always the problems that come up, large or small, which led to some very grateful praises of Divine Providence when they were all solved in time.  So here's to the workings of God for which I was not responsible! Disclaimer: the wedding was held in Virginia; I am from Indiana, the groom is from Texas, and the bride was from Ohio.  Which means that this entire event was long distance and engineered from hotel rooms...

Four years ago, I remember passing by the Christendom chapel one evening and observing a young man and woman standing outside, chatting.  Today, those two are getting married - my dear friends, Brian and Lindsay.  I wrote this while still in the last few weeks of wedding prep, but it's scheduled to post at the time their wedding Mass begins in that same Christendom chapel. I've been with these two the whole way. Brian and I teased and pranked each other freshman year, mutually adopted each other sophomore year, went on double dates junior year, tolerated each other in Rome, and grew a solid friendship senior year. I gave him the big sister speech the day he took Lindsay out for their first official date. I sat next to them as they held hands in the dark at the school play. I helped him comfort Lindsay when her grandfather died - at the Marian overlook where Brian would later propose to her. I watched him grow in his love for and devotion to Lindsay, and I know how joy...