All things Prom

If you have a daughter and she either has been or is of an age to attend a High School Prom (over here it is synonymus with the ‘May Ball’), then you will likely understand that I am by no means exaggerating when I say that I swear (and I shouldn’t because I only just went to Confession!) that these past 5 months of Pre-Prom Planning have been more stressful and angst ridden than any dental apointment i’ve ever attended… even the ones when I had absesses and had to have teeth extracted!

When my daughter first told me that there was going to be a Prom I remember thinking it would be jolly good fun for us to plan this thing together. Conjure in your mind if you will, a scene of a mother and daughter bonding….in your vision there should be a little soft focus going on and some banal elevator music playing…we gals are laughing together, shopping bags filled with Prom atire swinging on our arms, we stop for a cuppa tea before moving on with military precision, to check yet another item off the list of required Prom regalia.

Yeah right.

Well, that was what it wasn’t like.

It all began when we went shopping in the ‘expensive’ dress shops in town, the type we wouldn’t ordinarily frequent…we went just after Christmas, knowing that they sell designer dresses at huge discounts in the New Year and we thought we’d see if we could get Primadonna a Prom dress while the sales were on.

And would you believe it?

We saw THE dress in about the fourth hour of looking.

Of course, when I say ‘we’ saw THE dress I mean to say that while we both saw it, I knew it was THE dress.

After 16 years of raising Primadonna, I know my daughter. I know her figure, her deportment, how the very colour of THE dress has complimented her hair and skin tone since before she could crawl.

But what did Primadonna say?

She said , “Naaaah….”

(which is actually teen-talk for ‘no thank you mummy I’d rather eat dog than wear a dress that you picked out for me’).

I was gutted.

But we proceeded to search for a dress that Primadonna did like.

We looked for hours and hours.

On many occasions.

We went all over the place, we even drove as far as Cheshire Oaks in the hope that she would see something that would make her go…

‘WOW! That is THE dress!’.

However, nothing made her go…

‘Wow! that is THE dress!”.

Though I did buy 2 enormous boxes of Thorntons chocolates from their outlet store, so the journey wasn’t completely wasted.

For days and weeks I bemoaned that THE dress…the beautiful, floor skimming, slimline, red satin, dress had been dismissed so eagerly by Primadonna (I suspect, because I liked it)…we argued, I swore, I think she did too…the Prom drew nearer.

No dress!

Arghhghgh!

I was anxious as we needed to get the dress before we could buy the shoes, the wrap, the bag, the cosmetics etc….and there was still the non-matching items to buy.

Then she did it.

One Saturday she came to me, all smiling like.

I was suspicious.

This funny, beautiful little girl of mine (who can be seen wearing her new specs below - ain’t she cute!), was saying, ‘muuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmy’, in the sweetest, gentlest tone….well there just had to be something she wanted.

She had been ‘thinking’, she said…

And just what had she been thinking, I enquired.

She had been thinking that I had been right about THE dress.

The very dress that I KNEW would look amazing on her.( It could have been made for her for goodness sake!)

She asked if we could go back to town to look at it again.

I was fuming.

I was tying a proverbial knot in my by now, wearily thin metaphorical rope and hanging on very tightly.

Would this turn into yet another battle, would I return from town with a grumpy sullen teenager yet again and with not a shopping bag in sight?

After all, how likely was it that the designer range hadn’t been changed by now and surely they wouldn’t have THE dress anymore. Besides which, I had asked the sales assistant at the time we were browsing, if they had any more of the dresses in stock as Primadonna was unsure about it…and the assistant had replied that they only had left what was then on display…and even then there were only 2 sizes of the dress left, and just 3 dresses in total, if I recall correctly.

I was so angry about the meither of it all… because quite apart from the fact that it was THE dress… it had been reduced at the time we saw it….it should have been £200….and it was half that price in the sale….

Now I don’t have that kind of money sitting around, but Primadonna’s kindly hearted grandparents had offered to pay for her Prom dress…that’s another reason I was sad that we didn’t get it when we saw it….it had everything going for it.

But now?

Well it probably wasn’t even there anymore, and who knew, maybe the dress we would eventually settle on would cost twice as much?

I recall praying before we went to town that day.

Something like, “Please O Lord, let the Prom dress still be there!!”

I’m not that imaginative when I talk to God.

I figure he knows me too well for exorbitantly wordy prayers to mean anything much to him. I do pray them sometimes, usually when i’m full of myself, but I’m sure I can sense that he’s tapping his foot and yawning as I spout forth.

Anyway do you know what?

Unbelievably.

THE dress was still there…and it wasn’t because there was anything unatractive about it (judge for yourselves from the pics), there was absolutely nothing wrong with it…the only thing was that it was looooong….and would have been too long for many girls to carry off… it was as though it had just been waiting there for my tall Primadonna to say ‘yes’ to it.

She tried it on.

She loved it.

I knew I had been right about it.

I usually am, just so you know.

Except when I’m not.

Which isn’t very often as long as you don’t ask me a question.

Well what a relief it was!

And only another 4 or 5 shopping trips to find all the accessories to go with it.

Wonderful.

I’m sure you’ll agree when you look at Primadonna’s Prom pics (below) that I took last night, that she really is absolutely one of my greatest ever achievements (my other greatest achievement being my wonderful son).

And isn’t she just beautiful!

Yes I know all Mum’s say that about their kids, but it happens to be true.

When I worked as a professional portrait photographer, I couldn’t believe some of the girls and guys that had me *shoot* their modelling portfolios….oh my ….still, it wasn’t my job to crush their spirits and I did my best to make them all feel like a million dollars…I also learned the art of using the most flattering vignettes,lighting and focus ranges possible!

Anyway, after all the griping during the Prom preparations I can honestly say that it’s been well worth the end result….here’s a photo of my Primadonna Prom Princess just to prove it…

Yup, she’s mine. Excuse my pride and satisfaction!

But PHEW! Last night was the culmination of so many months of hissy fits and arguments about everything from which wrap to buy… (that only took us two shopping trips and a million shop visits to decide - I wanted the chicken and salsa variety of wrap, she wanted the material version to go with her dress) ….to long discussions in the make-up aisle of Boots Chemist about which eye shadow to purchase…..

And let me tell you something about that….

When we went to Boots chemist to buy make up we proceeded to argue debate for 20 minutes about which eye shadow up to buy….I’m sure the staff thought we shoplifters as we were behaving so furtively, having whispery in depth discussions….hmm….Barry M or Bourgeois…decisions, decisions…. I ended up spending £10 on 3 tiny pots of Dazzle Dust/Sparkle Dust…only to find that the Sparkle Dust was a complete waste of time…and that cosmetics are extortionately priced!

Why Primadonna couldn’t just use my make up for the Prom like she uses everything else of mine, I don’t know….(yes I know, cross contamination - though we still share it usually - and mines completely un-trendy because I’m an old fart)…..worse still, ever since we bought the new make-up, Primadonna had made me sit through (and analyse) Youtube videos on how to apply prom makeup….as I would be the one applying it.

Oooh the pressure!

But it paid off i think, because don’t you think I did her make-up rather nicely (see below)?

NOTE: I did not do Primadonna’s hair, she had it done professionally yesterday afternoon. It was a mad rush to get it done as she finished school early at 2:25pm and I was at the Presbytery so my wonderful parents collected her and took her for her appointment in town…when she got back from the hairdressers we only had 1 hour to get her makeup done and to get her dressed in her Prom stuff!)

When she got home from the Prom at 12:30am THIS morning, it took us until 1am to take all the pins out of her hair! YIKES, we were both so tired this morning when we awoke at 8am…I tried to have a lie-in bed till a bit later, but the dog jumped on my head and since she has a weak bladder i didn’t want to take any chances, so i got up!

Oh yes, and here follows a possibly useless….

Beauty Tip for applying Barry M Dazzle Dust…

…if you use Barry M’s Dazzle Dust/Sparkle Dust…do NOT apply it with a brush applicator unless you have a ‘make up application proficiency certificate’….because, well basically it will end up all over your face…nope….instead, use a sponge applicator and you’ll have no problem whatsoever. That’s something I didn’t learn from Youtube but from hours of frustratingly failed dazzle dust application attempts.

Y’know, if my daughter wasn’t such a sweetheart I could have always have gone for this look on Prom night, couldn’t I?

LOL!

Primadonna and her friends had a wonderful night, some of her closest friends went with her in a huge pink limo to the venue….they even got a couple of glasses of champagne each on the ride there (I told her to sip it veeeeeeeeeeeerry slowly)….I’m not surprised she’s smiling!

In this next pic Primadonna’s grandad, who bought her to the ‘Limo meet-up’ as he suggested my car was too unclean and crabby for Primadonna to sit in, (he’s right but it’s mostly Primadonna’s mess in the car), jokily pretended that the limo was his and that he was going to get in it….

Yup, because pink suits Dad so well. Not!

It should be a blue limo for a Navy boy like you Dad, not girly pink!

And before we waved her off for the night, there was just time to get a quick snap of three of my four fave people in the whole world (Wonderboy was at his Dad’s for the night).

my Mum, Primadonna and my Dad

Primadonna leaves school next Friday. She will then be on study leave and return sporadically to sit her GCSE exams before going on to college in September. She’s been working so hard and still has so much revision to do that I feel she deserved every bit of happiness on her Prom night.

So Babe, I know you’ll read this (if only to look at yourself again eh?) and I just want you to know how proud we all are of you, not just for being an A student and a high acheiver, but because you have just as beautiful a personality as you do an appearance. Your Dad would be so proud of you, and I’m sure if he was looking out of that window in heaven last night, he’d have been nudging the Saint’s and Angels and saying,

‘hey, that’s MY beautiful girl down there!”.

Just for fun…

Can you guess whose voice this is?

I LOVE  this song.

Cut the Cable….

I don’t have cable TV, in part that is due to a lack of funds, in part it’s because when we did have it for a short while I realised how much innapropriate programming was on it and how my kids were drawn to watching it….what with MTV and the like purporting to be music channels yet all the while merely using the medium to promote soft porn….what with their gyrating, scantily clad women and men appearing in supposed music videos…ugh! If you ask me, if you need sex to sell music, then the music ain’t that good in the first place.

Besides which.

I spent a fortune on the shopping channels.

The cable had to go.

So I got rid of it…eventually….after watching every single episode of Alias from season 4 and 5 within the space of 10 days! It was hard going but well worth it ….especially as it was free to watch as a Virgin ‘thank you’ to their faithful customers.

I hadn’t seen season 1, 2 or 3 but with a show like Alias that isn’t really necessary and anyway, I was hooked after watching the first episode of season 4!

So I’d been merrily watching away when

the bomb fell.

I discovered that Virgin wasn’t all it was cracked up to be and that they have their fingers in WAY too many pies (Oh my goodness, read that link and tell me that’s not scary!!) which basically equates to poor servicve in many of the areas they cover.

It’s a company I now despise, not least because they treated me with abismal customer service after they took over from NTL …or that thy overcharged me by hundreds of pounds (at one point they had me listed twice on there computers- yup, two lots of bills) and redirected all my phone quieries to a non or barely english speaking person living in India…each of whom had a limited number of responses of which they seemingly constituted only;

~ I am sorry Madame, I do not understand your quiery.

~ I am sorry Madame, it is not my department to speak with you about this.

~ Yes, I will put you through to the department you require….which actually means they will cut you off and have a blooming good laugh about you with their colleagues when you can hear them saying things like ‘Stupid english, stupid english HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!, before they put their phone down.

~ Madame, I am afraid I can not hear you, I must now put down the phone and would be pleased to help you later.

etc etc etc…..

….So the upshot has been that Virgin had the gall to charge me for watching all the ‘Advertised as FREE’ Alias programmes….and even after numerous screw ups billed me for over £124.00 for watching them!

Eventually….after about 15 phone calls…for which I was never reimbursed…they said they were sorry about the misunderstanding and asked , would I give them another go if they gave me a reason to stay….well call me a stupid English person, but I did…and lo and behold…they didn’t give me the ’special treatment’ they said I’d get for being a loyal customer ….in fact, they promptly removed from my bank account, the £124 quid for the free Alias episodes i’d watched…. in addition to the cost of my phone, Cable and broadband which i had with them…..the final straw came when I rang them to end my phone contract …they said it would take effect from month later as I had just days before paid for that particular month ahead. The very next day my phone stopped working. I thought it was the phone in the lounge so I tried the others on the house. Nil. Nothing. Nada. They never reimbursed me for the month they removed my phone service.

So, that was when I ripped the Modem out, extracted the Virgin Cable Box from the tangled mess of TV/video/dvd cables behind the TV cabinet and phoned them (by mobile (cell) phone) with one last request.

“Collect your stuff from my house within the next 7 days or i’m going to trading standards!!!”

Rather surprisingly, they did.

Oh, sure enough, they bungled even that up by saying that they only came to collect the TV Cable box… but I soon sorted that out…in no uncertain terms I told the man who came to my house, that he wasn’t leaving unless he took the modem as well. He must have thought I was one wierd and desperate woman.

But he obeyed.

2 weeks later Virgin sent me a letter with a complimetary and very cheaply made (probably in India - do the same people make them that answer the phones?) cotton eye mask….it really was hilarious…because yes…I would really be persuaded to return to a crappy business like theirs… I know that they have happy customers, truly I do...because they sent me a nasty, scratchy eye mask with a message to ‘relax’ printed on it……GRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!

I was perfectly ruddy relaxed until they started taking money off me hand over fist! Perhaps if Richard Branson cared as much for his customers as he did for incompetently abseiling down skyscrapers then I would still be with Virgin today!

Anyway, so where was I? Oh yes, I remember now. I don’t have cable tv.

There was a point to this, but I know you must be getting fed up with tediously log posts so I’ll continue this in another post…

Have a great day!

Bloggin Bleggin’

One of the least popular comments I ever made was a few years ago, on the blog of someone who asked the visitors who read his blog regularly, to show their support by donating funds to keep his bank balance healthy as he was spending so much time blogging that he was not earning as much as he could be, offline.

Poor thing.

Not.

I strenuously disagreed with his request and made my opinion known. However, the blogger had his share of sycophants and needless to say, you could have hacked off my little Catholic corner of cyberspace with a motherboard after I clicked ‘post comment’.

Now ‘for the record’, I don’t disagree with bloggers placing a paypal button or a ‘Tip Jar’ icon on their blog so that readers can show their appreciation for a blogger if they choose to, and I certainly don’t have a problem with bloggers who offer a service other than writing blog posts, trying to make a living, or at least a little side earner, via their blog. There are bloggers who are for example, authors selling their wares in physical or digital format via the internet, I happen to think that’s pretty cool!

I’ve purchased from bloggers in the past, and one blogger who IMO provides a great service to the Church and to the Catholic Blogosphere, is the Catholic Apologist Dave Armstrong. I bought a disk from him about a year ago containing numerous apologetics books he’d written that I can now access on my laptop/computer at my leisure and though I haven’t made good use of it yet or even had time to dip into it, I know that it’s there at my fingertips when I want to do so…and the same quantity of physical books rather than the CD version, would have cost me much more…well I simply wouldn’t have been able to purchase them. If I remember correctly, Dave was in a pretty tough place financially at the time and he dropped the price of the disc to considerably less than it was actually worth in an effort to continue to support his family financially.

Well I like it when i see my fellow Catholic bloggers taking the initiative to help themselves or to help others. Right now, one of my blog buddies is trying to raise funds for a very worthwhile endeavour, which will involve him cycling some 90 kilometres/55 miles each day over two days, raising funds to help build and/or repair several schools in Asia, Africa and South America.

You can reach Owen’s personal fundraising page by cicking THIS link and you can read more about the Chalice Catholic Sponsorship Programme HERE. The Ontario “Cycling for Children” fundraising bicycle tour benefits Chalice, which is a registered Canadian charity (Registration #13759 1012 RR0001) supporting 38,000 children in 15 developing nations.

I know these are hard times for many of us financially, but if we can just do without our Starbucks coffee for day or two (I must admit, I’ve never had one myself and don’t intend to either) or make our own sarny’s for lunch tomorrow instead of spending a fiver on canteen food or take out or a packet of cigarettes…then maybe we can throw a few quid/dollars etc, into the Chalice kitty instead?

If you know Mr Owen Swain as i feel I have come to know him over the last couple of years, you have to also know that his heart is all about service and doing the right thing when called to do something, whether that be in leaving his protestant pastoral ministry which meant losing the job associated with it, because he heard God calling him to the Catholic Church and obeyed….( the upheavel and uncertainty that followed for his family, can you imagine it!)….or whether that be in cycling 90 kilometres a day to raise money for children in need….yup, Owen is most definately a man of action!

Now, if you’re like me, you don’t necessarily have much to give ….. so BLOG about this worthy cause and bring this to the attention of those who CAN give.  So all I can ask of you is that if you have £1 or $1 (or whatever your currency is) to spend on a coffee tomorrow, why not spend it in a way that will make a real difference to someones life…. and hey, don’t you know, coffee isn’t that good for you anyway!

…but getting back to my opening statement….I do so often go adrift don’t I?…..to me it seems a little arrogant to assume that one’s blog entries are worthy of ‘pay to read’ status.

Would you pay a blogger to blog?

What say you?

p.s this isn’t a trick question, if you say ‘yes’, you won’t suddenly see a tip jar appearing on my blog, I promise!

Well, it’s been a while…..

I came across this on The Flying Dutch Girl’s Blog and thought I’d have a crack at it….feel free to pick this meme up if you feel so inclined, but please remember to let me know in the combox that you are doing it, so that I can read your responses on your blog!

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What time is your alarm clock set to? 7.27am
What is the first thing you notice about the opposite sex? Whether or not they have a pulse
Do you think people talk about you behind your back? I know they do. I’ve heard them when they thought I was out of earshot! The biggest give away of course, is their loose tongues..you just know that if a person gossips about others to you, that same person will do the same to others about you.
What movie do you know every line to? With a memory like mine….none!
What is your favorite movie? Truly, Madly, Deeply & Ghost (for the same reason)
Is anyone in love with you? If anyone is, I sure wish they’d let me know!
Do you eat breakfast daily? I can’t face food in the mornings
Do you sleep on your side, stomach or back? I fidget like nobody’s business….I sleep every which way possible
Who was the last person to make you mad? myself
Are you a lover or a fighter? I’m both
Are you a morning or evening person? I’m definately an evening person
Are you a cuddler? I love cuddles. My dog and my children suffer as they have to endure more hugs than they would like.
Are you a perfectionist? In certain matters, in things that mean something to me
Have you ever wrote a poem? Yes
Do you have more guy or girl friends? I don’t have loads of friends nowadays, not good ones anyway, in fact i have very few indeed, but I used to always have more guy friends than girl friends. Men are usually less bitchy (uness they are gay)
How many tickets have you gotten? I’m not sure what this means? Does it mean parking tickets or speeding tickets or something? In which case that’d be none on both counts, and that’s more about good fortune than my driving skill or judgement!
Piercings? I had one piercing in each ear when i was about 3 years old. But when I was a teen I made two more holes in each ear using an ice cube and a very blunt sewing needle. I very rarely wear earrings at all nowadays
Do you have a tattoo? Nope. I used to want one but that was because i wanted to be/was an obnoxious git. Now, when i see how every part of my body is sagging and hitting the floor… (yes, soon there will actually be parts of me i’ll have to roll up and place back inside my clothing so as not to trip over myself when shopping in the supermarket) i am so pleased that i never did it. I don’t want to be a tattood granny with wrinkly tattoos some day! Yucky!
Are you patient? Rarely
Do you miss anyone right now? No, not unless I think about people who I have loved and lost…and until i wrote this, those thoughts weren’t in my head at this time
Tea or coffee? Most definately TEA, and preferably Earl Grey
Regularly burn incense? Nope, it’s bad for me asthma
Ever been in love? Im a hopeless romantic, I’m always either in love or wishing i was in love or wishing someone was in love with me…i’m ridiculous!
Best room for a fireplace? in the living room
What do you do when you’re sad or upset? I eat
Afraid of heights? No, but i do get a bit dizzy
Can you change the oil in your car? why would i want to do that when i can get some bloke (hi Dad!!!) to do it for me?
Favorite flower? Forget me nots
Favorite hangout? I like to be at home
Middle name? Ann
Most romantic sounding language? South African is mega appealing to me for some reason….especially South African’s speaking English
Ever been overseas? Yes, just about…I have a fear of flying and so i tend not to leave the country. I don’t even posess a passport! On the one occassion I went abroad I went to Bruge. I was 15 years old and went by ferry from Felixstowe. My mum, cousin and aunt and I went for 24 hours. I don’t think I actually saw anything of Bruge though because i got paralytically drunk on Bloody Mary’s on the way over and spent the whole time throwing up blood coloured puke in various sinks and toilet bowls the whole time i was there….on the upside, a big, hairy, Danish long distance lorry driver who was also on the ferry, seemed to fancy me and asked my mum for my hand in marriage. He kindly offered to take me off her hands that very night. He didn’t even bat an eye when Mum said

“But she’s 15 years old!!!”.

That was right before she said to me;

“there are some things we won’t tell your Dad about this little trip, okay?”

The Budget

I tend not to stick at such things, so this might be yet another whim that will fizzle out just as surely as many of my other bright ideas have done in the past…. but since I’m in something of a pickle financially, I’ve decided to write down all my weekly outgoings to make a visible record of what I’m spending my money on and also to deter me from overspending what I haven’t got and can’t afford to spend.

The household bills are almost all paid for using the marvel of Direct Debit (the bills/invoices/utilities etc are all paid out of my bank account automatically each month) but I really don’t have a disposable income to speak of and what I do have, has to stretch an awfully long way.

With my daughter’s prom fast approaching, and the fact that she was desperately in need of a new pair of specs and I had to buy her some last week (thankfully Vision Express have a brilliant offer on at the moment)…well, the purse strings are getting ever tighter. In fact they couldn’t get much more restictive. My debts won’t be cleared for another couple of years to come and I have absolutely no job prospects or even the hope of being employed for the hours I need in order to give some much needed stability to my situation and although I thought I’d already cut back loads, I decided that it was time to take a closer look at my poor financial situation and see if there was any more that could be done to improve it.

Frankly if the rug beneath me gets pulled at any time in the reasonably near future, bankruptcy will be the only option. However, since I need access to an overdraft/credit as there is no ready cash available, that’s a prospect I don’t even want to contemplate. With all the other worries and responsibilities I have right now, I am trying my best just to keep myself from wallowing in self pity and not to become despondent.

Last week I discovered another hiccup in the finances…my old E-Card site hosts have been unscrupulously continuing to take money out of my bank acount despite my contacting them and my wanting to terminate my agreement with them….and I have now had to have my debit account frozen (hence, I can’t use my bank account for a week!!) so as to set up a new account for which my old e card hosts will not have my banking details to take more money from me. It was only a pound a week to have my old ecard site hosted, but I found somewhere that could provide a btter service for only 40p a week and I chose to go with them instead.

So anyway, from a couple of Saturday’s ago I have been writing down what I have been spending each day…and do you know something? It can be quite a shock to see your purchases written down! Especially when you ask yourself,

‘Did I really need to buy that?’.

I mean, i don’t buy extravant things, I don’t have the money for them, I’m talking about basic things, cutting back on stuff that costs only a pound or two can make a difference though, when things are tight. It all counts when you are as financially challenged as my family is.

I would highly recommend those on a tight budget having a go at this if they don’t already do so, because I tell you something else, till receipts are easy to lose and if you are anything like me, I am always forgetting what shops I’ve been in and how much money I have spent. BUT just as importantly, the more financially affluent probably SHOULD do this too as to be honest with you, I’ve been appalled recently at the financial waste and uneccessary spending I’ve witnessed in the lives of some of the people I know personally, some of whom claim to be as financially challenged as I am, yet all the while knowing they have triple the amount incoming each week and certainy more financial security and savings than I do(I can’t actually recall the last time I had any savings!)!

I originally got in to debt through necessity, but wil also admit that I may have made a few financial mistakes along the way and perhaps I haven’t always been a good steward of my finances, but I have paid the price over and over, and will be paying it for at least the next 3 years…. having said that, those who have more make just as many (if not more) mistakes and can be just as poor stewards of their finances.

Anyway, as for the budgetting I am finding it beneficial and hope to continue with it.

Why not try it, you might be surprised at just how much you are spending unecessarily.

Laptop death

there has been an unfortunate laptop death in the family.

Fortunately it wasn’t mine that died, but my daughter, Primadonna’s laptop. It was only 5 months old and it worked fine yesterday, but today it won’t switch on at all. We’ve tried the ‘holding the on/off button for ten seconds’ trick and the, ‘plug your laptop directly into the mains instead of a extension socket ‘ trick…it isn’t that the power cable is dead, it still works fine, even with my laptop, but Primadonna’s laptop shows no sign of life whatsoever. It hasn’t been dropped or bashed. It’s been safely stored when not in use etc.

Anyone got any ideas?

Or is it just dead dya think?

If it’s dead then it will still be under warranty….though it’s not covered for accidental damage so if they find that Primadonna spilt something on it and she just isn’t telling me, then she’s lost the £350 she paid for it with all her Birthday & Christmas savings :-(

I can’t afford to have it repaired if it isn’t covered with the warranty.

Hopefully it is a manufacturing fault!

Anyone else had any problems with Advent laptops?

Where dreams may go…. E-Card

Copyright of Debbie Scalise 2008

Click the above image to visit my NEW e-card site or to send the above e-card.

It’s a publishing first!

This is a first for me….my first published full page news story featuring my own photography too! I’m always pleased when my contributions make it to press, but you could say I was just a little bit delighted to find my stuff taking up a whole page of the Diocesan newspaper last month :-)

(understatement of the century)

click to enlarge

Tomorrow/today ……(it’s gone midnight here and I’m recovering from a nightmare of a migraine - nausea, torturous eye pain etc)….. I have some more photos to take and (hopefully) a new story to write of another event and I ask for your prayers because in a freaky twist of freakiness, my ex husband/ex mother inlaw and other ex family members will most probably be present for the event, though for an altogether different reason. My camera doesn’t have anti shake and I have some scathing ‘ex’ relatives who will be tut-tutting at how I have let myself go and how fat I got over the years!

I would really appreciate your prayers as this will be really testing for me , and to get a few good shots with my story, will be nigh on impossible if I can’t stop the palpitations!

Thanks!

World Asthma Day 2008

I’m such a numpty..I wrote this a couple of days ago ready to post on Tuesday and then forgot all about it with everything else that’s going on!

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Today is World Asthma Day and as a chronic asthmatic…yes, i am both chronic and asthmatic…this is the day when we asthmatics get the bunting out and put on our party hats in celebration of, erm having asthma…

Nope. Scratch that…excuse the bleach blonde moment.

Let’s start again.

Today is World Asthma Day and this is what it’s about…

” World Asthma Day is an annual event organized by the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) to improve asthma awareness and care around the world.”

So what is Asthma?

Asthma is a chronic condition involving the respiratory system in which the airway occasionally constricts, becomes inflamed, and is lined with excessive amounts of mucus, often in response to one or more triggers.^[2] These episodes may be triggered by such things as exposure to an environmental stimulant (or allergen) such as cold air, warm air, perfume,^[3] moist air, exercise or exertion, or emotional stress. In children, the most common triggers are viral illnesses such as those that cause the common cold.^[4] This airway narrowing causes symptoms such as wheezing, shortness of breath, chest tightness, and coughing. The airway constriction responds to bronchodilators. Between episodes, most patients feel well but can have mild symptoms and they may remain short of breath after exercise for longer periods of time than the unaffected individual. The symptoms of asthma, which can range from mild to life threatening, can usually be controlled with a combination of drugs and environmental changes.

Source

Read more about Asthma on the Asthma UK website.

On a personal note, I maintain my asthma reasonably well all things considered, and that’s largely due to managing my condition with medication. I am prescribed a variety of medicines to help me, one is a combination formulation, which is 2 inhaler medications in one inhaler- this is much more convenient for me as I used to have to take three different inhalers throughout the day and night and it got awfully confusing as to which one I’d already had -and as you can imagine it could lead to quite serious consequences if I got them mixed up.

So now I use the combination formulation which contains budesonide and formoterol fumarate…this is a long acting, preventer inhaler known as Symbicort …in addition to this I use a Salbutamol inhaler as a reliever and i’m also prescribed Montelukast tablets (which I recently discovered has been linked with people having suicidal tendencies - fortunately I’ve not had any myself). Comes to something though when the ’side effects’ on the medication seem to outweight the health problem they are meant to be treating!

In the UK Asthma causes 1,500 deaths each year.

One of my fave actresses died of an asthma attack aged just 33. Read about other famous asthmatics here).

In the U.S.A, where of course, the population is far larger, there are 5,000 deaths from asthma per year. 90% of these deaths are preventable. It’s a necessity for an asthmatic to take their asthma seriously (this is a sore point with me as my son also suferes with asthma and his father doesn’t take it as seriously as he should, which I find infuriating and alarming). Failure to take an inhaler with you everywhere you are out and about, could mean the difference between having a fatal asthma attack, and a treatable asthma attack. We’ve all done it. Thought we were okay/had our medication with us, only to find that when we are out/when we realise we haven’t got our inhalers with us, we panic even more and this causes increased breathing difficulty, which could, if untreated, lead to a full blow attack or worse. Another problem is not regularly checking the actuations (puffs/doses) left in each inhaler. Some are clearly marked with dosage increments, some you have to take apart and shake to get an idea a to how much liquid is left in the inhaler.

Anyway.

On a lighter note, fellow asthmatics might want to join a couple of Asthma Groups on Facebook that I’m a member of, one is rather racily entitled ‘Asthma is Sexy!’ (it had me howling with laughter from the get-go) while the other is perhaps more boringly entitled ‘The Official Asthma UK Facebook Group’, but it is a practical resource tool.

Tony Blair singing ’should I stay or should I go?’

I tell you now, once you have heard this song you will be singing it for days! The humour element has had us all in fits of giggles since we heard it the other evening. It’s a stunner!

We are Family…

Isn’t if funny how sometimes when we use something frequently, we tend to not *see* it after a while ?

British readers will be familiar with Tesco no doubt, it’s a major supermarket chain in the UK….British readers who shop at Tesco will also no doubt be familiar with the Tesco Clubcard.

It’s a loyalty card that I like a lot.

I like it a lot because every time I shop at Tesco (which hasn’t been a very much lately as I’m waiting for their new store to be built in the area because the other store nearby is rather crummy and understocked) I get points added to my card.

The points are then allowed to accumulate so that 100 points turn into £1 fairly rapidly actually….and the best bit…the points an be exchanged for 4 times their value when used in conjunction with other offers, known as Clubcard Deals.

For example, a theme park pass that costs £33 in per person, can be purhased online with just 825 Tesco points. Last year this scheme enabled me to take 4 of us to Alton Towers for the day, and the good news is that I already have enough saved up to take us all again this year! I love a bargain and there’s no way I could afford to pay in excess of £100 for a day out on my budget. Not when you have to add meals, travel expenses etc.

So, the point of this post isn’t actually about Tesco’s really, I’m just getting a bit sidetracked as usual….but in a way it is about Tesco because I just had a new Tesco key fob and loyalty card posted through my letterbox and when I went to put the keyfob on my keys, it was like i was seeing *something* for the first time.

Another key fob I have on my house keys is one of the Holy Family..I knew it was there because I put it there, but I haven’t *seen* it in ages. Well, in my family things are really quite difficult right now, as you’ll know if you’ve been reading my blog for a bit….and it seems that each day is bringing another worry, another argument, another dilemma with it.

This morning was no exception….. on the school run I actually nearly drove into a bus and I swore the worst words at my daughter …all because she couldn’t get her own way about something and kept whining at me as I was driving. I was almost in tears with frustration with her! Not good when you are driving.

Anyway, I’m getting distracted again….so on the reverse side of the Holy Family key fob is a prayer, and it read…

Family Prayer

God made us a family.

We need one another

We love one another

We forgive one another

We work together

We play together

We worship together.

..and I just needed to read that today.

I needed the reminder that even when I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, and when I just don’t feel cut out for this single parent mullarky, God made us a family.

No matter if little miss horrorbags or little master ‘I prefer my Daddy’ try to make me feel like I am the most awful mother in the world…no matter that neither of my children seem to care about anyone else other than themselves….no matter if they are being stroppy and difficult and cynical about attending Mass and questioning their faith and not hearing me when I try to guide them….no matter if they think they know it all….no matter that I have worries and responsibilities that I pray to God they’ll never have to endure ….no matter that they continue to heap more worry, more stress upon me…no matter that one minute they can be loving and affectionate and the next scathing and completely unpredictable….we weren’t thrown together by accident.

Our bizzarre little family is all a part of God’s plan.

God knows what He is doing.

Cyber Anonymity

I was hoping to spend an hour or two catching up with your comments (I have read them and THANK YOU!!! for posting them) and do some blog visiting, but I’ve been trawling the archives instead, searching for my children’s names appearing in my (almost) 4 years worth of blog posts….some person, or perhaps persons plural is/are accessing posts featuring my kids photos and first names, with alarming frequency…and rather creepily, googling our names (it shows up in WordPress!) which is even more worrying.

My name is on here because I can easily be found online, my name is linked to the work I do for the parish, it’s published in the newspaper and on our parish websites, and it is clearly visible on my photography which for copyright reasons must bear it etc…. there is absolutey no point in assuming another name for myself.

But my children do need protection from possible threat and stalkerish behaviour, particularly in this medium. This isn’t a sudden decision, I’ve been keeping an eye on the searches/pages visited for a while now and have concluded that henceforth, I’ll refer to my daughter as Primadonna and my son as Wonderboy in subsequent posts, having changed their details in as many archived posts as possible.

(I’d really appreciate it if you would help me in this by a) pointing out any posts where there real names are given, if you happen to come across them and b) to refrain from posting their real names in comboxes - that’s the next thing I have to tackle. Many thanks in advance for your help with this)

I wouldn’t have thought measures like this were necessary considering that most of my regular comenting readers are family, friends, family orientated people, but I have been looking at some of the searches which have led visitors to my blog and quite frankly, I’m not liking what I have seen. After all, I might know aboutup to 50% of my visitors, but I don;t know a lot of you personally, and what about the other 50% of visitors who don’t leave comments, who don’t blog?

I’m trying not to be neurotic about it and believe I’m taking a necessary action here.

Anyway, I’ve got to go and stir the bolognese I’m cooking for tea and then I’m collecting the kids from school….I do realise that comments are overdue, and blog visits too, but it just never seems that there is a time when ‘nothing’ is happening of late…promise, I’ll get to it soon! Hopefully this evening!

Hope all is well in your part of the world!

GTA IV - What parents need to know (*NOT FOR KIDS)

Yet again I have been pitted against my ex husband in a game of ‘good parent - bad parent’, the cause of which is a small and shiny plastic disc, which while looking harmless enough actually contains a comprehensive content of vulgarity, violence, sexual depravity and well, to put not too fine a point on it….misogyny.

Yup, my 12 year old’s father actually bought my son Grand Theft Auto IV yesterday, in yet another senseless and idiotic moment of parental irresponsibility.

And my son thinks his father is better than God.

Winner of the Numero Uno parent of the year awards

….as per usual.

I’m so sick and tired of this Bull.

When my son bought the game home from his Dad’s last night…I was so angry I said I couldn’t talk about it…(I didn’t know about the game until the ex had gone home) ….today, I ruined our family Sunday lunch because I could not keep a lid on my frustraton and anger anymore.

After speaking about the game this week and telling my son that he must not get the game. He blatantly ignored me.

Of course, his Dad wants to spend money on our boy rather than give me a penny of maintenance (he does occassionally purchase clothes for our son but this is sporadic and he keeps them at his house usually) and so he indulges our son instead by buying expensive things for him, spoiling him in many ways…not merely by buying him pricey treats for no reason at all (when he knows I have little money and struggle to buy huge presents even at Birthday and Christmas time - this makes him Daddy Popular!)…but also he’s ruining/spoiling/informing our son’s moral judgement and by his irresponsible actions, desensitizing him to violent and depraved sexual behaviours.

Of course, as expected, my son did his absolute best to convince me that I was being unreasonable about not wanting the game in the house…despite the fact that the game is for 18 year olds and that he happens to be 12 years old….that the game is free roaming and allows your character to have sex with prostitutes and then beat them up with a baseball bat and then kill them and get your money back…that your character can visit a lap dancing club and have a girl dance sexually provocatively just for you, that your character can masturbate…oh and that’s before we get onto your character being able to shoot people in the face at close range and thanks to the ‘huminization’ of the characters…you get to witness and experience the victims reaction (yup, it hurts right??????)….. before your character proceeds to kick his head in…..

God, give me strength!

But still wonderboy tried to convince me that as it is a ‘free roaming’ game he didn’t have to do those things on the game…and so I asked him if he had…..and he couldn’t answer me.

So I said to him;

“Every game you usually play, you ask me to come and sit and watch you so you can show your skill….would you like me to sit and watch you play this game?”

“NO!”, he said.

“Well”, I said, “since you are saying it’s not as bad as I’m making out, I’d like to see for myself what this game is like, shall I come upstairs and play on it myself?”

“NO!!!”, he said

He went upstairs in a sulk.

Ten minutes later he came downstairs and said he has unplugged his ps3 ready to take it to his Dad’s house tomorrow…I told him I don’t want that game coming back here and that if his Dad is stupid enough to buy the game and let him play on it, then I have no influence over what his Dad chooses to do… (though you can guess that I’l be writing him a letter this afternoon!)…. but that as a responsible parent it is my duty to make decisions, set guidelines and rules acording to (in this case the law) our beliefs, to issues of morality and decency etc….and that I hoped he would one day understand that it isn’t my job to be his friend, but his parent.

I believe that I am the only one of his parents who actually will do this, who will attempt to teach him right from wrong, to lay down rules… and it is so frustrating when his Dad’s irresponsibility causes this kind of conflict between me and my son…my son says I over react that I am too protective, that his Dad is cool and I am not. That he would prefer to spend time at his Dad’s house. Well of course he would! His father indulges him!

His Dad has finally got his way then hasn’t he!

When I left him he said that he would do all he could to turn our son against me…that our son would prefer to be with him rather than me, that he would do everything he could to have our son think that he was the cool parent…it sucks. This job of single parenthood is difficult enough without having to constantly fight against the immature and irresponsible decisions, actions and influence of my ex husband.

It never gets easier. Just more complicated. More frustrating.

For information purposes I would advise parents of under 18’s to read the folowing articles, reviews and opinions as well as my own.

GTA IV Reviews that parents need to read before purchasing this game for their children

A concerned parent asks about GTA IV….

Beat a prostitute to death with a baseball bat on GTA IV

Prostitution and Masterbation in GTA IV

What parents should know about GTA IV

Catholic Mediew Review of GTA IV

Rosemary’s Post

The good news and the bad news

The lump on my son’s head appears to be getting smaller and the doctor thinks that it may be a boil or cyst that requires no further treament.

Hoorah!

Now the not so good news….the doctor is concerned about the blood test results…she said that Wonderboy has a borderline Iron deficiency, but more troubling still is that the tests revealed he has an abnormal amount of red blood cells in his body.

The doctor explained that this could mean that he was born with an abnormal amount of red blood cells, or more worrying, that there is an underlying cause for him now having more red blood cells than he should have.

So Wonderboy has to have another blood test in three weeks and if it is still the case that the bloods are causing concern, she will refer us to the hospital, more specifically, to a haematologist who specialises in blood disorders.

Well, I’ve googled ‘raised red blood cell count’ and the worst case scenario is about as gloomy as it can get, so I’m praying that this is something else, something that isn’t sinister.

The doctor says it could be something like polycythaemia, but that it is rare in people under 60 years of age….my son is only 12….still we have a long way to go before anything is confirmed.

Now there’s another month of waiting, and googling and worrying to come….y’know, when I asked God for an increase in patience, I really wasn’t expecting him to have me develop it quite like this…

Thanks so much for your thoughts and prayers, may I please ask you to continue to hold Wonderboy in prayer until his blood problems are diagnosed or have gone altogether?

God Bless you

p.s. Have any of you ever had any experience of having too many red blood cells, I wonder?

There’s nothing like getting a good kicking when you’re feeling down….

I can’t recall when I hurt this much over something I’ve read online … apparantly, a post on my little blog has put someone off their calling to religious life at Colwich Abbey simply because I posted a photograph and wrote on my blog, of my joy of my retreat experiences there.

A Colwich sister has just responded to this comment from an enquirer on the Colwich blog…

Here is the comment from the Colwich enquirer

Dear Sr. Marie Therese,

I saw a post with a picture on a blog that had a picture of your nun’s chapel with folding chairs up the aisle and the post said that a group of Union Catholic Mothers was attending a retreat or was there to hear a speaker or something.

I thought that chapel was for the nuns only. Do you have the public in your chapel a lot? Are the nuns there with the public when they are in the chapel? I thought Colwich had a public side to the chapel like other monasteries.

The blog page I saw is at: http://catholicconvert.wordpress.com/2007/09/24/union-of-catholic-mothers-retreat/

I was going to write about my vocation but I was strangely sad to see that picture and read the response the blogger gave to another woman with the same question.

But I do still love your blog and website and I will still write but I just wanted to know about this. Thanks, you do have a wonderful way of writing about your life, vocation and about Colwich Abbey!

Jenn

Here is how Colwich Sr. Marie Therese responds….

Hi Jenn, thanks for letting us know about this, i checked out the site and we are shocked and a little hurt at the intimations of this picture and the comment especially as it has put you off talking about your vocation - this concerns us. People come here, take pictures without us knowing then put them up for the world to see without explaining. I have to go to midday office now, but i am going to post about this later today and explain the situation.
I am really glad you like our blog and have been supporting us with it and i hope my post later helps to clarify things a little for you and others. For now i will just say that this group comes once a year, for the day, they have a talk by a Bishop they have arranged to come, they have mass alone - we have already had ours early in the morning before they arrive, they have adoration alone - the sisters are not part of this. The chairs are there because many more come than we expect and we feel we can’t then turn them away. This is very unusual for us, it is not part of our ‘ordinary’ life - and this particularly bad picture gives the wrong impression. The group does join us for midday office - but that may now be under consideration.
Thanks once again for letting us know about this,
pax sr marie-therese.

In addition to this comment, I have also read another Colwich Sr’s comment stating that they do not interact with those on retreat and that they were unaware of any photographs being taken…this is simply untrue, the sisters I met while on retreat there, did indeed know about the photographs….some of the sisters were even IN the photographs and I have more photographs of them sitting cheerily alongside our UCM mothers…they were completely unperturbed to be photographed…. and they did mingle with us on retreat. As for the comments about my photographs being ‘intimation’ and ‘poor’ …I would like to know what that means exactly.

I don’t know if my comment response to Sr. Marie Therese will be printed on the Colwich blog, so I’ll put it here for all to see…

Sisters,

I do beg your pardon, but what on earth have I done wrong but speak of the joy i had on retreat on both occassions I visited your wonderful Abbey. I’m horrified and deeply hurt at your reaction to this.

I apologise if I have caused distress by merely highlighting your beautiful convent on my blog, and of speaking of the experience I enjoyed while there. I shall not make the mistake of thinking myself welcome in future.

As for the ‘particularly bad picture’ you refer to…as a photographer who was allowed (and given permission) to take photographs while on retreat, and a professional photographer for years, I am offended. What makes the photograph bad….the angle, the pixels, that I photographed what I saw? And what, please do be so kind as to tell me, are the ‘intimations’ to which you refer?

Gosh, Adele spoke such beautifully kind words to me in a question I wrote on this very page…and now I find that I am under attack?

All you had to do was to ask me to remove the posts about Colwich from my blog and I would have given it serious thought….here is a link to the other post where one of your sisters was indeed interacting with the public on one of my previous visits!

I have had conversations with sisters at Colwich despite your stressing that this is out of the ordinary…. with Sr. Davina in particular.

I used to really enjoy visiting your blog, reading and partaking in the Q and A page, supporting your blog in the Catholic Blog Awards, visiting you when possible on retreat….in fact, this very day I was speaking with a friend about my wonderful Colwich experience and of how I have remained single from my annulled marriage for almost 9 years and that I suspect that I may yet discern a calling to religious life when the children are old enough to care for themselves and are living independantly of me.

I’m crushed quite frankly.

I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it. I just feel like quitting this whole blogging thing if I’m putting people off their religious vocations, or at least their vocations to certain convents. That’s a real pill to swallow.

How long will I get in Purgatory for that?

Seriously, I haven’t cried hard for at least a day or two so I’m just going to go and break my heart in the bath for a while and have a good think about what the hell I’m doing blogging anymore if sisters who have sat with me, talked with me, prayed with me….can speak of me as having been at fault for merely writing about my positive experience with them .

I have lost a lot of faith in the church (small c) over the last few months, but it now feels like I am losing so much more, that all that I thought was good and true isn’t as I thought it was at all. I’m not doubting my Catholic Faith folks, don’t worry…it’s just that things are difficult right now.

What did I do wrong?

Gordon Bennett Zenit…

After years of subscribing to Zenit email notifications I have well and truly had enough of recieving requests for money…I don’t doubt that they do a great good, but they are not the only Catholic News Agency in the world…and really, if i see another Zenit email like the one below, I think I would spit! I know they require funding, but do they have to ask for it in EVERY email?

If we divide our annual fund-raising goal of $380,000 by the 130,000 ZENIT’s English-edition private readers, the amount for each one a year is about $3 — about the price of three or four daily newspapers !

We already know that, in fact, it is not possible to receive $3 from each of our 130,000 private readers. But perhaps we can receive $50 from 7,600 of you!

Are you among the 7,600 who can send $50? Your generosity will benefit all Zenit readers.

As many readers have already done, could you cover the $50 for three or four or more missionaries?

Please, think about it!
Send your donation today!

Cyber Humility

Just some rambling and not entirely cohesive thoughts on things that are irking me somewhat…

Irk 1. Stats

I’m under no illusion whatsoever that as far as blogs go, my little blog is of fairly miniscule significance in the blogosphere in terms of ranking, site stats and status….and if truth be told, I am grateful for this and I’d like to tell you why.

There are many advantages to being stricken with cyber dorkiness…for a start it means that there is considerably less pressure to blog daily, or even as some bloggers do, hourly (we all know that increased blog traffic is a consecquence of carpet-bomb posting, don’t we?)

Another bonus to having ‘wallflower’ status in the blogosphere is that I don’t have to worry about my sitemeter statistics. I don’t lose sleep if I get a huge amount of visits (by my blog standards), or if I get relatively few visits (again, by my blog standards). I don’t even break a sweat when i go on holiday and my readership halves…in fact that’s when I know you read me because you want to, because you know that when I’m away I’m unable to post, you don’t bother to show up! Pretty cool eh? To clarify, I do get a warm glowy feeling that people want to pass my way in cyberspace… but it doesn’t validate me or my blog.

For the uninitiated in sitestats…never interpret what you see on a stat counter as being genuine human visits…there are many reasons for this that I won’t go into now, but hits are often made by spam crawlers and not humans…for example, I’ve had over 16,000 spam comments deleted since I’ve been with WordPress alone!…so you see, tehnically, a hit is not necessarily what it would seem, on this or anyone elses blog!

Perhaps my thinking on this matter is aided by the fact that I don’t happen to have a competitive bone in my body and that I can be so vague and laid back about things that I blog practically horizontally half the time. So I don’t mean to sound snarky, but I am not now and never will be bothered what your (read, anyone’s) sitemeter stats are. Full stop. Brag and you will annoy me so much I won’t even visit you!

So why am I blogging about this today? Because my dislike is growing for blogs/bloggers that boast about their site stats or those that post ‘look at me’ type posts…..usually these include images of a static sitemeter page showing a multitude of hits.

Where’s the humility?

As far as i’m concerned it’s prideful and it certainly isn’t going to persuade me to read their blogs more often (if at all) just because they tell me how popular they are, in fact I find it so distinctly offputting that in all likelihood, I’ll visit such blogs less and less until over time, eventually I won’t visit them at all.

I’ll be truthful here and now, because I always am (whether it makes me unpopular or not), even priestly/seminarian/’vocation discernment bloggers’ are not above this kind of behaviour - yes I know they are fallible human bloggers, but it doesn’t mean i don’t still find it distasteful when they do it.

(incidentally, I don’t refer here to those who mention their stats for a particular reason that is not intentionally boastful)

Irk 2. Self-Importance

It really irks me when I’ve taken precious time out of my day to visit blogs only to read posts telling me that readers are not to email the blog author unless we follow certain criteria, that readers are not to comment if they expect a response, and well, they’re not to ask anything at all really…. because, those particular blog authors are very busy and important people….

It makes me want to scream at the computer screen,

“Most of us have busy lives, quit being a pompous ass!”

Irk 3. Other Stuff

As a reader, speaking only for myself on a personal level, I enjoy developing friendships with reasonably likeminded people the world over, via cyberspace…I’m just a friendly kind of person who believes in the power of the internet to change lives for the better.

Of course, not everyone has the time or the inclination for cyber ‘friendships’ and it’s something I can appreciate. But for me it comes down to this….I know the power of online friendship (and it has nothing to do with how many friends I have in my day to day life or how sad you might think I am for writing this post) because well, let me give you a really good reason for why I believe in the power of cyberspace

…about 6 years ago God worked through the medium of the internet, through friends I made on an online Catholic forum, and God used the cyber friends i made, to introduce me to the holy Catholic Church…and if you know anything about me you’ll know that almost all my immediate family members converted either at the same time as I did, or fairly shortly afterwards. (Read my ‘about me’ page for more info if you haven’t already - the tab is at the top of the page). This internet thing, it’s an incredibly powerful tool!

So that’s how I know that there is grace working its way through cyberspace even as I type this…. I just can’t help but think that for some, blogging has become more about number-crunching and places on blogger-billboards than building up a genuine rapport with their readers.

And something else…

Irk 4. Cyber Sycophants

Another thing that bothers me increasingly is the sickening sycophantic behaviour that is prevalent in the Catholic realm of the blogosphere…it’s getting more like a ‘Who’s Who’ of Catholic Blogging everyday, and I don’t like it one little bit.

Anyway, we won’t get into that right now….

You might be reading this and thinking I’m having a bad day, that I’m really just an envious little sow who wants more hits on sitemeter…but you’d be wrong…I’m happy with my sitemeter stats whatever they say, because they tell me that people are reading this blog…that many of you are taking time out of your busy days to read, comment, email etc.

To put this in perspective….I know 25-30 of my readers (friends) personal home addresses/work addresses (that have been proffered voluntarily over the years, thank you) because some of us have developed a kind of friendship that transcends cyberspace…and that folks, is why I bother to blog…because I do believe that many of you, dear readers, have actually come to care about me and my family, just as I have genuinely come to care for you and yours. You’ve lifted me up, carried my big boned body on a tidal wave of prayers many a time, and I am thankful that you are not a statistic to me, nor I to many of you.

When worhipping in Wales…

When worshipping in Wales, this is the parish I attend, St. David and St. Helen’s.

This is a photo taken in the daylight while last there …

and this is a picture taken in the evening…

The Church is as beautiful on the inside as it is on the outside and over the past 3 or four years I’ve had the good fortune to worship there for about 5 weeks of every year…i’ve even been there for Easter Vigil ….although Holy Saturday (the first year we were there) was lovely, Dad and I could hardly breathe after a cheap ‘barbecue tin foil tray of charcoal’ was set alight for the pachal fire…thick black plumes of choking smoke were sent billowing through the little church and Dad and I spent most of Easter Vigil trying to not have an asthma attack!

When I first began attending Mass there Canon McNamara was saying Mass, I believe he is now in a nursing home/rest home and I alsobelieve he is now about 90 years young! I have a lot of good memories in and of this parish.

The sad thing about visiting a parish so infrequently though, is that there is very little opportunity to develop friendships, and the priests have changed a few times too, but then they had Fr. Jose for a couple of years, he was from India…and what a pleasant and joyful priest he was…he even began remembering my family whenever we visited…sadly for us, we discovered on our last holiday in Wales that he was returning to India and that Fr. Santosh would now become priest of the parish instead.

I have had the opportunity to attend Mass when Fr. Santosh has celebrated Mass and although Mass isn’t about the ‘enjoyment factor’ so to speak, i really do believe that the parish is blessed…well yes, obviously it is, but I mean something more…it seems to be a genuinely joyful parish. I dare say that if i attended Mass there weekly, that I would see things differently, but I rather like the impression St. David and St. Helen makes on me and I always very much look forward to returning once again….in fact the only thing i find unfavourable about the parish are the kneelers….but then we can’t have everything can we :-)

St. Anthony E-Card

© copyright of Debbie Scalise

Because we all ask for this great Saint’s intercession so frequently….