24 years ago today...

at a 10:30am Nuptial Mass, I was wed to my sweet hubby.  It was such a wonderful day.  There were three priests concelebrating; the priest who was at my Baptism and First Holy Communion, the priest who concelebrated, with the Archbishop, at my Confirmation, and the priest who was the current parish priest at my church.  My great aunt, after the Mass, said it was the most Catholic wedding she had been to in years.  I took that as a great compliment, because my mother and I went through great pains to make sure it was a very joyful, but still reverent, Nuptial Mass.

We've certainly had lots of ups and downs throughout the last 24 years, not in our relationship, but in just the general circumstances of life, i.e. jobs, finances, etc.  It has all been wonderful though, with my sweet hubby by my side! :)

Here area couple of pictures of us.  The first is obviously us at our wedding, and the second is one my daughter took of us not that long ago, much older and plumper! LOL!

Absolutely beautiful day!

I am feeling so blessed today!  The weather is gorgeous.  I have the windows open, and the curtains are blowing gently on the breeze.  The birds are all chirping merrily as they go about their business.  I can hear the neighbor's animals making their sounds.  There are people doing their weekend chores outside, making all kinds of wonderful sounds.  

My children were so excited today.  They have new friends that live just down the road from us.  The woke this morning, finished their chores quickly, and happily ran out the door to go have fun.  They are sure to have great adventures today, with the temperatures so nice and the sun so brightly shining!  They've been so blessed to have these new friends.  They have not had friends in our area for quite some time.  The children are either very young, or are young adults, or they are troublemakers.  It's nice they have some very nice, polite kids to hangout with now.  

Last night was wonderful too, as I had the windows open quite late.  The cool breeze was so lovely.  The night sounds out here are so fantastic to listen to.  You can hear all the nocturnal animals starting to move around, calling out to others, etc. You can hear both the frogs near the ponds, and the tree frogs, all making their various chirping and croaking noises.  We have owls out here too, and they make such fascinating sounds.  

Here's a picture of one of our tree frogs, a bit displaced from his normal habitat.  My daughter helped get him back to a more suitable place.

 Here is a picture of the bottom part of our property, during a previous spring or early summer.

A beauty my daughter found after last winter, blooming under one of our trees. 

I've been away again...

We've all been trading the "sickies" back and forth.  My son was hit first, then my daughter, and then me.  We've been keeping my hubby well at all costs.  As you'll see in the next paragraph, we need to keep him in very good health.

I do need all your prayers.  My poor hubby was laid-off, yet again.  This time it was not only him, but apparently 1499 other employees as well, company-wide.  There still wasn't any notice to it, just as last time, but at least he wasn't singled-out this time.  That makes it sting a little bit less.  He had a really, really good lead into another job, but it mysteriously fell through, just as they told him they wanted him really bad.  Very strange, but obviously the Lord did not want him in that position.  The job search is such a horrible thing.  You put your all into it, and people just cast you aside, most of the time with absolutely no reason given as to why you weren't chosen.  Sometimes they let you know you weren't chosen, sometimes they just leave you hanging, but very rarely, if ever, do you receive and explanation as to why you weren't chosen.  I don't think that's very polite, but then again, no one asked me. 

Well, other than the sickies, and the job search, we're all doing fine.  I've said many a prayer of thanksgiving for that. I hope to try to pay attention over here more often, especially now that I am feeling somewhat more on the side of human now, with my bout of the sickies almost done.

These pics are from my daughter's 15th birthday, and my son's 11th birthday.  They were born just a month shy of 4 years apart.