Quick Takes (14) It's been so long!

Remember to go to Jen's for more Quick Takes :) 

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We have been incredibly busy this last couple months! I have had clients most days of the week and Saturdays. JJ went back to work and there has been so much work for him :) I am on Creighton vacation until Jan. 3rd. I am still here for my clients if they have questions but I am not doing follow ups or intro. sessions. Well I am having one Skype follow up with a newer client who is almost 3 months postpartum, breast feeding, returned to cycles and is having continuous mucus; this is definitely an emergency follow up situation so we can manage her chart.

We went to a young adult talk a couple of weeks ago as we happened to have a Sat. evening free and this young gentleman we know of shared his story about being gay and Catholic. We originally were not sure if we wanted to go because of our busy schedule but I am glad we went. His perspective was so interesting! Just in case you are wondering he is chaste/celibate. I found myself identifying with him so much, not on the being gay part, but on carrying a cross that not very many people understand and everyone thinks they can "fix" by just doing x, y and z. We invited him over for dinner some time to dialogue more about this subject and how we as Catholics can do a better job at building community with our gay/homosexual brothers and sisters in Christ. 

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 I am very much looking forward to making Christmas cookies to give away as gifts to family and friends starting Monday. We are only buying gifts for our parents, each other, the white elephant gift exchange that we do with our family on Christmas Day and my goddaughter. A lot of our savings was wiped out due to JJ being off of work for so long so we can't afford to buy for all those we would like to. Since JJ and I exchange gifts with each other on Jan 6th I am looking forward to those after Christmas sales to get him and my goddaughter some things. I haven't decided what kind of cookies to make everyone. I am willing to try just about any recipe and make it work with the ingredients we can use. Any suggestions??? 

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We have been teaching RCIA since September on Sunday mornings which has added to our busy schedule. It has made us grow in so many ways to teach the faith! We have two students that wanted to come to RCIA but couldn't make it on the usual Thursday evenings so we volunteered to teach them. One is a man the other is a woman, we are going to be sponsors/godparents to the woman and our friends will be the sponsor of the man. They are both awesome people and we are so excited for their faith journey. One of our first discussions in class was about the difference in culpability between Dr. Kevorkian and a fast food worker who serves obese patrons. Needless to say it has been interesting and a good challenge to teach the class. Please keep our students in your prayers! The woman, J's story of how she came to the faith is so amazing because her religious background in non practicing Buddhist. I love when God just grabs people like that! 

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JJ and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary on Sunday! I was so sick that we didn't get to do what we had planned :( So we altered our plans and just went to Mass and then ate at P.F. Chang's since it is more local than the BBQ place we wanted to go and ended the day by watching Sunday night football then Once Upon A Time. We still plan on going to the BBQ place but we will probably go for our 8 year anniversary of being together on Jan. 6th. So we have been celebrating our anniversary a little each day this week, which has been nice. JJ got me flannel pajamas that I get to pick out myself which we haven't done because of our crazy schedule. We also haven't seen the new Hobbit movie yet which we want to do some time this weekend, not sure when hopefully tonight or Sat. night. The best part is that the movie will be free because we got movie tickets as a gift from our RCIA student J :) 

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Two of my friends gave birth this week. One of them I took two meals to this week the other I was going to call and see if I can take a meal next week but then I realized its CHRISTMAS next week so I am not sure if that will work. There is still a lit bit of that sting of "wow how is this so easy for some people and so hard for us?!" For the most part this Advent and holiday time hasn't been that bad regarding infertility. I really think it is God's grace that is allowing me not to stop and wallow in it too much plus focusing on our anniversary has helped.

 Sometimes I think about how Cecilia would be 15 months and probably a handful around the Christmas tree. During those times I ask God to help me not take this life for granted and to love my husband even more. My goddaughter helped me to decorate the tree a little bit yesterday which was such a blessing, what a gift that 2.5yr old is. She is getting into the defiant stage and asking "why" about almost everything but she teaches me patience and love. She said "Merry Christmas" and "I love you nina" before she left and that.just.melted.my.heart. 

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I started with spiritual direction this week! It almost didn't happen because Fr. was at the school and I waited in th office for over 1/2 hour. He texted me later that if I had time he was back at the office. I almost didn't go because I was just about to give up on spiritual direction all together because of all the times I have been turned down by priests to give me spiritual direction. In case you didn't know this is my 7th attempt in the last 10yrs. to get spiritual direction, that is just with priests I have tried with nuns and trained lay people too before. I have figured I need a priest or a nun, it's just too difficult for me with a lay person from the diocese. 

After my brief wallow in self pity that Fr. forgot about our appt. and that I can't find a spiritual director I decided to meet with Fr. when he text me he was back in the office. I am so glad I decided to go because it was so good albeit challenging to open myself up for spiritual counsel. Fr. warned me not to have too much of an agenda or ask God too many questions when I pray. He said that "the right questions will usually spring forth from prayer and they may be very different than what you were thinking of."  So the plan is to pray about adoption and foster care but to open it up to whatever God wants to do with it. My first plan from him is to finish my Christmas novena, then we will all pray a novena to the Holy Spirit (me, JJ and Padre). After that Fr. is going to give me some scriptures to focus on and pray Lectio Divina with and then we will go from there. I love the way Padre put his role, as a prayer companion with me and a springboard to bounce off some things that come up in prayer. We met for about an hour and JJ was so happy that I finally go to go. I will be saying some extra prayers for Padre as I know he is a busy priest and I am so thankful he is going to help me sort through the spiritual aspect of IF and adoption/foster care. 

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Well I ran out of stuff to talk about so I will leave you with some pictures of our tree and decorations that we have put up so far. Not much I know, but we still have until the whole Christmas season to put more stuff up! I am also looking for a Christmas outfit and will probably post my top pics Sunday or Monday. If you have any great leads let me know I am going shopping tomorrow. I was hoping to find something for JJ's work Christmas party on Sunday. Now I am going to relax, drink something warm and watch It's A Wonderful Life on tv after my 3 hour follow up!  Enjoy your weekend everyone!