I’ve been reading “Death on a Friday Afternoon”, by Father Richard John Neuhaus, this Lent, and I wanted to share one of his very insightful thoughts.

The book is a reflection on the 7 last “words’ of Jesus on the Cross, which include “It is finished” and “Behold your son; behold your mother”. On the chapter entitled Dereliction, he speaks of how we humans try to escape from the fact that we are creatures (created by God) and make ourselves our own gods:

Our gnostic consciousness-raising flights, our attunement to “the inner child”, our following of our bliss, our pious sensations of at-one-ness with the All–these are soaring escapes from our creatureliness. We are not little sparks of the Divine who have by some cosmic mishap fallen into the mud and matter of creation. We are the very stuff of creation. We are not God.

Yes! I realized back about 7 years ago when I had to truly face my atheism that I am not God. It was a painful but liberating realization, and my life since then has been a continual effort to become recentered on Jesus Christ, who is God.

more…

After hanging out at Doug’s house and working with his bees, Katie and I came home and were inspired to prepare more for our bees.

The frames that go inside the hive have to have something called “foundation” in them, which is some material, usually wax, with hexagon-shaped imprints on it, that the bees then draw out into their honeycomb, in which they lay eggs and store pollen and nectar.

Katie and I have read about natural ways to keep bees that can avoid using antibiotics and chemical treatments against mites and diseases, and one of those is using “natural cell” honeycomb, which means you let the bee build the honeycomb themselves by just giving them a small “starter strip” of foundation inside the frame.

To accomplish this, I melted some wax we bought inside a double boiler that Katie obtained (just two cheap pots from the grocery store), then, after pouring really hot melted wax on my hands accidentally, I dribbled the wax in the groove of each frame where we had put a “starter strip” of foundation.

Here is the double boiler with water in the lower pot and hard wax in the upper one:

The box contains plugs of wax, then we used the pizza cutter to cut the foundation into 1 inch strips.  Finally, the two odd-looking pieces (one metal, one black wood) form a wax-tube fastener, a device which is supposed to let you dribble the wax into the groove of the frame without burning yourself with melted wax, but which didn’t work for me:

Here is an empty frame with no foundation in it.  Eight of these fit in a row inside each super (aka the hive box):

Here are the frames with the starter strips in them and the line of yellow wax gluing them in:

Outside, I set up the 5 supers on the hive stand and put the top on them.  i put cinder blocks and wood beams to form the base.

Close up:

Side view

Other side.  Note how the entrance faces the tall fence, which makes the bees fly up and over everything:

My coworker, Doug, keeps bees.

Naturally, he and I have become friends over the past few months, and we have been talking often about bees and their keeping.

Well, he invited me and Katie over to his house to give us some on-the-job experience before our bees arrive in two weeks, so on Saturday we packed up our bee gear and headed up to Liberty Hill!

He and his wife Debby live on 22 beautiful acres that include a stream, a big pond, hills, and lots of cedar trees. They built their house all by themselves, from the ground up, which is quite amazing.

Doug and Debby helped us with our bee suits, lit up two smokers, and then took us down to their hives. Here are the pictures we took:

more…

(This post was made by Katie, but the silly blog thinks it was Devin.)

You see, I received the super fun and creative gift of 80 tulip bulbs from our friend, Jenny Andrews, at my bridal shower last July. I was in the midst of planning a wedding and painting our future home, so I decided that I would wait to plant the bulbs later. Well, later came and went, and, amidst getting married, having Thanksgiving and Christmas, honeymooning in Italy and so forth, Devin and I didn’t prepare our flower garden until February. Too late to plant tulip bulbs.

So, I decided that I would simply let the bulbs sit until October ‘07 and plant them then, giving them many month to establish roots and so forth.

Right?

Except, the only problem is that the bulbs decided to sprout anyway, in their gift bag, in the garage. I noticed the first sprout coming from the side of the bag on Tuesday, when I was in the garage doing laundry. It actually looked pretty gross, with this greenish shiny pointy thing coming out of the side of the bag, like an alien finger or something.

When I saw the baby tulip peaking its head out of the bag, I looked inside to find that ALL of the bulbs had sprouted and were, in addition, covered in mold. Eww! Apparently, it’s more humid in our garage than I realized.

Thus, I am forced to plant these poor confused tulips in March, which is quite a break from their usual timeline. Let’s see if they bloom, in light of all the neglect they’ve received. (This does not bode well for my nurturing skills as a mother.) I’m going to plant them this afternoon, so they can catch some of our lovely rain, and see what happens.

Thanks, Andrews, for this adventure–you’re part of it!

Thank you all for your kind birthday wishes to me–I am blessed indeed.

I didn’t get to make a post yesterday and missed St. Joseph’s feastday!  Fortunately, Katie made up the slack for me.  Yesterday, one of our friends from church, a daily Mass goer, passed away.

She had Lou Gehrig’s disease but only acquired it late in life, thanks be to God.  If there is a good day to die on, St. Joseph’s feastday, patron of the dying, is certainly it.  May Jesus welcome her into Heaven in his great mercy!

This past month, two of our good friends from church have passed away, and it has turned my mind to the fact that we are not here in this world forever.  I just assumed that these dear women would always be going to daily Mass, always praying the Rosary afterwards, and always helping with St. Vincent de Paul society, but it is not so because this life is fleeting–only Heaven is forever.

Someone at work asked me what St. Joseph was the patron of a few days ago.  I told him, among other things, he is patron and protector of the Universal Church.  As he faithfully watched over the Holy Family, God the Father has given him the entire Church to watch over now.

May he pray for you and your family in this year of grace, and may you turn to him often when you find yourself in need.

Everybody, today is the birthday of Devin Sean Rose! He is 29 years old today, and I am proud to be his wife. Today was the first birthday in his life that he was awakened by a kiss from his wife, the first birthday that he will receive grapevines (it’s okay, he already knows–I had to ask his permission to buy grapevines, since they mean more work for him), and the first birthday that he’s just a year away from the big 30.

Is it a coincidence that today is also the solemn feast of St. Joseph, the “just man”, the Guardian of the Redeemer? I think not, my friends. Devin is a true son of St. Joseph, and I am blessed to be his wife.

Would you please comment on this post to offer him birthday congratulations? Let’s let my amazing husband know how glad we are for his life! YKC!

Whoop!

Katie and I spent a truly re-creational weekend in College Station.  Just before we left Austin on Saturday, we planted our front yard plants after many weeks of digging up the weeds and ground:

The drive to good ol’ College Station was beautiful, full of vibrantly green grass and trees.  We went directly to Messina Hof for the wine tasting and tour and had a great time.  We talked with an old Aggie, class of 1949, who was visiting from Houston with his “RV group” (no, not Ross Volunteers, but Recreational Vehicle, for you die-hard cadets).

more…

I haven’t written in quite a few days. Life has been so busy with work and Adoration and gardening and being a new bride! As all this has been unfolding, my mind has touched many topics. Here’s a brief recap:   1. Why is the media pushing this “global warming” agenda so strongly? What is the strategy behind it?   

2. The embryonic stem cell push is quite strong at the Capitol right now. There are five or six cloning bills in the House and Senate, and they have the big guns lobbyists from the hospitals and universities on their team. These bills are so blatantly deceptive, claiming to ban cloning, which they define as implantation of a cloned embryo into the womb; thus, they advocate for creation of embryos through cloning (which is currently humanly impossible) and then their subsequent destruction through “research.” At times, I catch myself calmly answering questions at the Capitol about embryonic stem cell research, and I want to vomit. Am I seriously discussing “research” upon little human beings? So much of the language in this debate sounds reminiscent of Nazism.   3. I am so excited about our little flower and vegetable gardens. Yesterday, I turned ground for a little herb garden, next the the kitchen door. I going to plant herbs like shallot and fennel, just to feel gourmet.    

4. I went on a Regnum Christi silent retreat three weeks ago and had my world deeply rocked. I’m amazed at our Our Lord’s goodness!     Have a blessed Laetare Sunday–the vestments are rose, not pink. YKC!   P.S. Here are two pictures of our front yard lavender and daisy plants!

 

 

“I’m mad about you
You’re mad about me babe…”
–Belinda Carlisle

Katie and I are heading to College Station, Texas tomorrow, home of the Fightin’ Texas Aggies! Whoop!

It will be her first visit there, to the place where I converted from atheism to Jesus Christ and his Church. We can’t wait to see the road lined with bluebonnets and lush, green plants growing everywhere.

We’re going to stay at a bed and breakfast and take a tour of the Messina Hof winery.

I have only read the excerpts from the Catholic New Service summarizing the exhortation, but it looks awesome!

My highlights from the adoration section of the exhortation:

• One of the most moving moments of the Synod came when we gathered…for eucharistic adoration. In this act of prayer, and not just in words, the assembly of Bishops wanted to point out the intrinsic relationship between eucharistic celebration and eucharistic adoration.
• In the Eucharist, the Son of God comes to meet us and desires to become one with us; eucharistic adoration is simply the natural consequence of the eucharistic celebration, which is itself the Church’s supreme act of adoration.
• Receiving the Eucharist means adoring him whom we receive. Only in this way do we become one with him, and are given, as it were, a foretaste of the beauty of the heavenly liturgy.
• Wherever possible, it would be appropriate, especially in densely populated areas, to set aside specific churches or oratories for perpetual adoration
  

I really like Pope Benedict’s straightforward and clear communication style. His statements are brief and yet illumine beautifully the reason for Eucharistic Adoration and its connection to the Mass. more…