A very special prayer request:Ave Maria Home

Did you know that there are thousands of pregnant women who are homeless?
Chris Bell knows this, and he collaborated with Fr Benedict Groeschel to form Good Counsel Homes in New York City. We here in the Quiet Corner of CT are not immune to the crisis of homeless pregnant women.
 In fact, as I was in the library preparing for the March for Life, I ran into a 20 year old pregnant woman who had just been kicked out of her parents' home in the midst of a snowstorm. I helped her find a homeless shelter, but if you've ever visited one, you know this is no place for a pregnant mother. My heart ached as I left her there, and I told her that she and others like her are the reason we are forming a home for pregnant mothers.
We at Ave Maria Home of Norwich, CT have formed a board of directors of which I am a member, and affiliated ourselves with Chris Bell's Good Counsel Homes, because we know they do things right, putting the Eucharistic Lord Jesus in the Tabernacle in every home. Their residents feel loved, as you can see in their video, and go on to lead healthy, fulfilled lives with their children. This is our goal; to reproduce the blessings of a maternity home here in Eastern Connecticut, an already depressed area, hit hard by the economic crisis.
For a year we have been spreading the word that we needed a house which 10-12  homeless pregnant women could call home. A place where they would be nurtured, body, mind and soul. A place to heal from the brokeness which left them pregnant and homeless,  and prepare for the great adventure of motherhood. A place to make up for what was missing in their lives, whether is is a HS diploma, a job skill, mothering or homemaking skills, or a spiritual life. Most of all, a home where their hearts can be restored by love. Love from staff and from their housemates. We want them to feel Our Blessed Mother's embrace at Ave Maria, and let her teach them how to mother their children through us.
We found a lovely antique Victorian home, restored with  love, and nestled among towering white pine trees in a quiet country village. Today we visited the home, took a careful tour, and voted unanimously, "this home is the answer to our prayers". Now we need two things, and for these I ask your prayers and sacrifices this Lent. We need our bishop's approval, and we need the money to do some minor repairs and fund the first years salary of our staff (about $200,000). This may sound like a lot, but it is the law in CT that the home meets the fire codes and that we have the first year's pay for our staff in the bank before we are open.

I can't tell you more about the home until we are officially the leasees, however, if you imagine a traditional Victorian home, warm with charm and a family atmosphere, with overstuffed comfy couches, and a sunny front porch perfect for rocking newborn babies on summer evenings, then I assure you, this home is all that . . . and more. And it's being offered to us for a $1 a year lease.
Please let me know in the comments if you will promise to pray for this home to be approved by the diocese, and if you are moved to share your Lenten alms with Ave Maria Home, email me at marysjoys@yahoo.com to make a tax-deductable donation. We will send you a receipt for your taxes.
If you belong to an organization like the Knights of Columbus, or another grant-giving organization, please help us apply for grants. It's a LONG way to our goal, but somewhere, there are homeless women considering abortion right now in Eastern CT. Help Ave Maria offer them a Mother's love instead.

Isabella is 12, Gabriela is sweet sixteen

Friday, May 29, was a whirlwind day, I was subbing at Bellas school, then we rushed home with her best friend Mary to change and go out to enjoy "Night at the Museum 2". We completed the celebration with pizza and ice cream sundaes before packing the car to drive down to visit Grandma and Grandpa.
On Saturday, we attended a Down syndrome activities day at St Anthony's High School with our Long Island friends. Afterwards I took Christina to a pro-life youth conference at Nassau Community College, where she enjoyed the food, and I tried to enjoy the speeches. We stopped at our friend's home for tea, then home for a big roast beef dinner cooked by Grandpa.

Sunday, after Mass in the parish I grew up in, St Philip Neri, Northport, I walked the girls home down Main Street, the same path I used to take to daily Mass the summers when I was a teenager. I showed them the bushes where I used to pick flowers to put in front of the Blessed Mother's statue, when I felt that I had a religious vocation at 15. Such tender memories were great to share with my girls.

We took my brother Rob's two boys out with Christina to the local farm to visit the animals, something we both did as children. Here is a photo of Bella looking pensive at the farm.

There we had some family time and a great big Baskin Robbins CHOCOLATE cake for both Bella and Gabbi who turned 16 last Tuesday. Please keep my mother Eleanor in your prayers, she is in pain and has surgery scheduled.

On June 2, after school, Gabbi invited two friends to a shopping trip to spend her gift from her grandparents and then to come home and share a meal and her birthday cake. The lively conversations lasted past midnight,


They are such beautiful, intelligent young ladies, with such vivacious senses of humor. I am truly blessed to be their mother. May God grant them a grace-filled joyful, healthy year.

My first day as a freelance writer. . .

Was a challenge. What else did I expect when writing assignments and household chores, and promises to get in shape all come crashing down on the head of a mom who finally has her youngest child safely in a school she likes, a lovely home in the country where it's quiet enough to write?
Pressure!
Oh, and did I mention the internet was on the fritz?!
Did I crumple into a pile of tears?
Reach for chocolate when I gave it up for Lent?
Yell and throw things at innocent dogs?
NO!!
I called my husband and yelled at him. . .
" help me fix the @#$% internet!"
Somebody musta been praying hard out there, he was able to help me reconnect it over the phone!! Hurray!!
Me, fixing a modem and a router when I first had to figure out which was which! Me, whom the tecchies on the helpline hung up on twice as impossible!
This is where I do the victory dance which embarrasses Isabella.

Thank you, Lord! I chalk it all up to making time for daily Mass this morning. See, it saves you time, because it keeps you from losing it, and being childish. At least in the morning.

Sadly, the rest of the day wasn't so smooth. I still have problems managing my time, with no living breathing boss over me. Maybe I shoulda gone to evening Mass too.
Read about it at the Mom Writer's Blog. The World's Worst Boss.

An early spring?

The other day, when it was a glorious 65 degrees and sunny, when we pale, weak things who have been suffering from the cold of a lifetime, crawled out to the front porch to feel the sun, we were rewarded with an extraordinary sight. Not one but three robin redbreasts!
And it's not even St Valentine's Day!
The big chunks of ice are melting in the driveway, and the ground is visible everwhere, so I'll be looking to see if my daffodils survived the hasty transplanting they received when we arrived last fall.
This may be premature, but I'm hungry for spring. We've had the snowiest winter in 20 years, and though I love snow, I love spring best of all.

Feb 22 UPDATE: Francisco made this video of the stream down the hill from our home. This is the first time I've seen the water flowing since New Year's and I realize how much I missed it's song. Sorry, you'll just have to imagine the sound!

Small Successes

This week everyone was off from school but recovering from three weeks of illness, so I was afraid that my plans for this week were not going to happen.
However we did manage to:

1. clear the dining room/office of the last of the moving boxes. (Don't tell anyone they're in the basement, at least we can see the floor, and it's clean!! )

2. Help the girls catch up with the schoolwork they missed while ill. They had time to have friends visit and see our newly clean home.

3. Send out those book proposals to the publishers.

Snow day

Since we homeschooled until this year, we never experienced the pure joy of a snow day. I got a call at 5:30AM before the snow started falling, since such a HUGE storm was expected, and since I was as excited as a little girl, I HAD to get up and enjoy not having to get up. I napped luxuriously at noon just because I could. Oh, forgotten joys of homeschooling!
I even made a run in the snow to the local grocery store in the snow, playing Christmas carols on the radio. I hated to bother God with a request for a White Christmas our first time in Connecticut, but He read my mind. Isn't He awesome?
People at the local IGA were cheerful. A remarked to a mother who had carrots, milk and Hershey's bars, that she had the essentials covered. "If I'm going to be snowed in with kids, I've GOT to have chocolate!" she said.
I was stocking up on dog food, dairy products and Christmas cookie supplies. It was such sheer pleasure finally spending time leisurely baking a Chicken Pot Pie with leftovers, and getting to light my Christmas candles, and play my new favorite CD, "The Priests", as the silent snow buried us in quiet. We had the fire crackling, and I finally felt that Christmas feeling in my new home.
I had felt it plenty at school. St Joseph's had a wonderful Christmas pageant, and the Acadmy did their more sophisticated, but beautiful tableaux earlier this week. Though the entire cast were young women (even Baby Jesus was played by an infant girl) the fact that the Wise Men were played by an Asian, an African American and a Mexican teenager was very moving. The Academy had representatives of all races in the nativity play. Yes, Christmas had definitely visted the schools, but we had so little time at home that I was looking forward to Francisco's coming up this weekend to feel like I was "home for Christmas". We will be spending Christmas Eve and Day with his parents and mine on Long Island. Such are the sacrifices of moving. BUT the girls have two weeks off, and we can spend plenty of time as a family up here enjoying the snowy woods.

This nativity was on sale at the store today, so I bought it for under $5 to remember our first "Country Christmas".

Update on the Girard Exteme Home Makeover

From the look of these demolition photos they're going for a Medieval Knight Theme. This no doubt, was inspired by the Knights of Lepanto in which Thom and Marc were deeply involved.
Here is the blog for updates on the Girard Family.

The Sacred Heart Statue in our new yard

The magnificent setting of the towering woods and rustic hillside are such a beautiful setting for our Sacred Heart statue. If you look closer, you can see the stalks of 'wheat' to the left of the statue.
It gives me comfort every time I see it.




Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us!

It's not a cat and it doesn't fish

We have been discussing the flora and fauna of our new neighborhood in rural Connecticut with the locals. We live in the Quinebaug-Shetucket River valley, dubbed the last green valley on the over developed East Coast. Gabbi, who is my city girl, said, not without a bit of irony, "leave it to you, Mom to find the last green valley".
It's a beautifully rural area which seems to have escaped the ravages of modern development, colonial era farms dot the landscape and tiny rural villages surprise at the bend of a meandering road. We are getting excited as fall colors begin to tinge the leaves, thinking of the joys of discovering a new pumpkin farm, and pouring over pamphlets about October harvest events and nature walks. This little corner of New England is one of those areas of this nation which has retained it's unique regional flavor, and I am often surprised at how different it is culturally from Long Island, which is only an hour south of here. But that's another post.
I was asked by a friend to discuss the animal which is reputed to prowl the woods beyond our home; the Fisher Cat. Reintroduced to cut down the Porcupine population (was that a problem?) this ill-tempered member of the mink family is a threat to domestic animals like cats and small dogs. I had heard of them from friends in Northern Vermont and New Hampshire, but now they are down here in Eastern Connecticut, and I was not happy to hear it. They are particularly aggressive, and don't seem to be frightened off easily by humans or dogs.
My girls are afraid to let the cats out at night, since Fisher Cats are nocturnal, and our neighbor described a deep wound one of his cats received after an encounter with one of these 'weasels with an attitude'.Yikes!
We may be overreacting, but we are suburbanites, after all, the country life is new to us!

Happy 16th Anniversary to my husband

Since I have the flu, and today is my 16th wedding anniversay, I'm going to link to my article in Celebrate Life magazine as an anniversay tribute to my dear husband, and to God who has done great things for me. (you can see our wedding picture there)
Happy Anniversary Honey!

Finally a snow day!

I hate to start looking forward to spring until we've enjoyed a good snow. Already the daffodils near the front porch are making progress. . .

Last two years, we couldn't coax Christy outside in the snow, she was so frustrated by the snow gear, it made her grumpy and she couldn't enjoy the snow. It's great to see her having fun, even for a short time with her sister Bella.

Before a mother can lay herself down to sleep tonight. . .

I got this from a friend by email, do you see yourself here?
Mom and Dad were watching TV when Mom said, "I'm tired, and it's getting late. I think I'll go to bed." She went to the kitchen to make sandwiches for the next day's lunches. Rinsed out the popcorn bowls, took meat out of the freezer for supper the following evening, checked the cereal box levels, filled the sugar container, put spoons and bowls on the table and started the coffee pot for brewing the next morning.
She then put some wet clothes in the dryer, put a load of clothes into the washer, ironed a shirt and secured a loose button. She picked up the game pieces left on the table, put the phone back on the charger and put the telephone book into the drawer. She watered the plants, emptied a wastebasket and hung up a towel to dry. She yawned and stretched and headed for the bedroom. She stopped by the desk and wrote a note to the teacher, counted out some cash for the field trip, and pulled a text book out from hiding under the chair.She signed a birthday card for a friend, addressed and stamped the envelope and wrote a quick note for the grocery store. She put both near her purse. Mom then washed her face with 3 in 1 cleanser, put on her Night solution & age fighting moisturizer, brushed and flossed her teeth and filed her nails.
Dad called out, 'I thought you were going to bed.' 'I'm on my way,' she said. She put some water into the dog's dish and put the cat outside, then made sure the doors were locked and the patio light was on. She looked in on each of the kids and turned out their bedside lamps and TV's, hung up a shirt, threw some dirty socks into the hamper, and had a brief conversation with the one still up doing homework.
In her own room, she set the alarm;laid out clothing for the next day, straightened up the shoe rack.She added three things to her 6 most important things to do list. She said her prayers. About that time, Dad turned off the TV and announced to no one in particular. 'I'm going to bed.'And he did...without another thought.
Now, look at this lovely painting of the Blessed Mother and the child Jesus. That's what keeps me going at the end of a long day. She did all this and, remember there was no running water, refrigeration, or electricity in Nazareth.

Great Backyard Bird Count

I thought about participating in the great backyard bird count, see the website

However, there are two problems with my bird feeder (it's attached to the outside of this window, above the cat's head, so I can see visitors while working on the computer.

The birds found it a bit crowded this weekend!

We have a few pets

One thing I have not mentioned in my family stories here, is that we are a household with pets. Lots of them. I grew up with a cat and a dog, and a small yard. We have a big yard, and soft hearts, leading to more that your average count of pets. I think it helps me feel like I have a large family. They add to the fun, to the work, and to the character of our home. Cookie, he black lab, and all the cats are rescued. We take the dogs to the beach round the corner, and they keep us actively walking. The affection is mutual.

Isabella the animal whisperer, took these portraits of the cats, Sammy, Noel and Fritzi. Max is seen above playing with Molly the Retriever.

Ten Things I am Thankful for This Week

1. I am thankful for anti-biotics. For all their bad press, after all is said and done, they are a miracle drug. Nothing else can take a miserable, feverish pre-schooler and make her bounce back to health in 48 hours.
2. I am thankful to live on the East End of Long Island, near the beach. I get to drive by such beautiful scenery every day, and the traffic's not so bad, now that the tourist season is over.
3. I am thankful that my parents are well, enjoying retirement, and live near enough for weekly visits to enrich the lives of my girls.
4. I am thankful that we own our home, and that I have been able to re-decorate it according to my own sense of style. I truly enjoyed the creative effort it took (and live through the slow renovations!)
5. I am thankful that, so far, our country has been spared a terrorist attack since 9/11. Let us continue to pray for this nation's security.
6. I am thankful for my gorgeous church, St. John the Evangelist, Center Moriches, brand new, but so traditional with all the 100 year old windows, statues, altar, altar rail, etc. from the old church beautifully re-furbished. The Adoration Chapel, adorned with ornately carved walnut paneling is my favorite spot to pray. I feel like a nun in a Rennaisance monastery when I go to adoration there.
7. I am thankful for a husband who asked me to homeschool while we were still on our honeymoon, and hasn't yet taken it back!!
8. My daughter Isabella is thankful for her family that takes care of her.
9. Isabella is thankful for living in a safe home where there are no hurricanes, tornadoes, or earthquakes.
10. Best of all, Isabella is thankful for her Catholic faith which gives her the hope of Heaven.