Sydney Harbour Bridge

Originally uploaded by CadyLy

We walked down to the harbour to get some pictures of things lit up at night.

Day One

Originally uploaded by CadyLy

No matter how last minute your shopping trip — don’t run in the parking lot!! 🙂

Isn’t she cute?!

And her mom just recently opened a restaurant serving prepared food which is 100% gluten free, specifically tailored to individuals with celiac disease and autism.

Their restaurant is called G.F. Cucina’s.

Please stop by and check them out. Click on their name above for the link to their website.

It’s Holy Week!  Yippee!  I love this time!

I’ve been finding God everywhere lately.  Most recently on my iPod driving into work this morning.  I’m not sure if this song is supposed to be about God, or something else, but this morning when I heard it, I couldn’t help thinking about Jesus.

Ordinary Day by Vanessa Carlton:

Just a day,
Just an ordinary day.
Just trying to get by.
Just a boy,
Just an ordinary boy.
But he was looking to the sky.
And as he asked if I would come along
I started to realize
That everyday you find
Just what he’s looking for,
Like a shooting star he shines.

He said take my hand,
Live while you can
Don’t you see your dreams lie right in the palm of your hand

And as he spoke, he spoke ordinary words
Although they did not feel
For I felt what I had not felt before
You’d swear those words could heal.
And as I looked up into those eyes
His vision borrows mine.
And I know he’s no stranger,
For I feel I’ve held him for all of time.

And he said take my hand,
Live while you can
Don’t you see your dreams lie right in the palm of your hand
In the palm of your hand.

Please come with me,
See what I see.
Touch the stars for time will not flee.
Time will not flee.
Can you see?

Just a dream, just an ordinary dream.
As I wake in bed
And the boy, that ordinary boy
Or was it all in my head?
Did he asked if I would come along
It all seemed so real.
But as I looked to the door,
I saw that boy standing there with a deal.

And he said take my hand,
Live while you can,
Don’t you see all your dreams lie right in the palm of your hand
In the palm of your hand,
In the palm of your hand.

Just a day, just an ordinary day
Just trying to get by.
Just a boy,
Just an ordinary boy.
But he was looking to the sky.

Now, I know that this isn’t perfect (especially since I don’t know in what intention it was written); however, elements still speak to me.  Jesus was certainly *not* ordinary, but when it says, “…take my hand…. Don’t you see all your dreams lie right in the palm of your hand…,” I think that can be seen as saying that it is Jesus himself, who fulfills all your dreams.  And the way that it says, “I saw that boy standing there with a deal.”  This could be taken as His gift of salvation, freely offered to us — but it is up to us to cooperate with that gift.  He have to take His hand.  “Looking to the sky,” I see as Jesus always looking and pointing us to the Father.  And the part about it being real or a dream?  That is your faith.

And *that* is my penny insight/interpretation.  🙂

(From What Privileges Do You Have?, based on an exercise about class and privilege developed by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University. If you participate in this blog game, they ask that you PLEASE acknowledge their copyright.) 

Unceremoniously ganked from Kasia….

Bold the true statements.

1. Father went to college (Nope!  I’m the first!)
2. Father finished college
3. Mother went to college
4. Mother finished college
5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor
6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers.
7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home.
8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home. (I read *a lot*.  My mom would bring home romance novels from work because I was always running out of things to read.)
9. Were read children’s books by a parent. (I am not sure about this one, as I learned to read quite early – around age 3-4 – so I don’t know if my parents read to me previously. I’ll have to ask my mommie.)
10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18.
11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18.
12. The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively. Um, yeah, no, not really, but not perhaps as bad as it could be.
13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18.
14. Your parents paid for the majority of your college costs
15. Your parents paid for all of your college costs
16. Went to a private high school
17. Went to summer camp
18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18
19.Family vacations involved staying at hotels (when we went on long car trips, at age 10 and age 13)
20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18
21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them.  (1986 Firebird:  Chase-me red; boy, was that a fight.  Dad wanted me to have a big car with steel I-beams, so I would be safe, and preferred large cars like a Monte Carlo SS or a boat like a Ford LTD (although he wouldn’t buy a Ford, at least then); I wanted something small like a Beretta — he said absolutely not.  As a general thing, I don’t usually argue with my dad; however, I was stubborn on this point and we were at an impasse.  Until my uncle Jim found this car, and called my dad on it.  If we didn’t want it, he was going to get it.  It had 106,000 miles and the V6 and not the V8, but we took it anyway for $1000 from a med student at U of M named Tom.  I had it for a year and a half or so, and then sold it before I left for the Navy for $1000 to my dad’s friend who was a Detroit cop and wanted a cheap car to go to work in.  It lasted about 2 weeks, then the engine blew.  It must have been heartbroken that I didn’t own it any longer.)
 22. There was original art in your house when you were a child.
23. You and your family lived in a single-family house.
24. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home.
25. You had your own room as a child.
26. You had a phone in your room before you turned 18. (Even my own line, since my dad didn’t want to answer the phone when it was for me)
27. Participatedin a SAT/ACT prep course.
28. Had your own TV in your room in high school
29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in high school or college.
30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16.
31. Went on a cruise with your family
32. Went on more than one cruise with your family
33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up.
34. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family. (Nope, I got to make out the bills when Mom had poison ivy.)

10 out of 34…more than 29% privileged.  Mommie always said I was spoiled, but not rotten.  🙂

Ah, Clammish as she is, she is not announcing, loudly, the anniversary of her birth!

Here’s a little song for you:
“Happy birthday to you!  Happy birthday to you!  We missed you at chur-urch!  But we prayed for you, too!”

It’s an occasion to rejoice!  Yippee-skippee!  The Clam was born!  On the baptism of Jesus this year, too — how cool is that?  As we are all called to a renewal of our baptismal promises, does this also mean that The Clam, as this is her day, too, must seek inside herself to discern Christ’s calling of her life and the meaning of that?

Okay, first the Archdiocese of Detroit refuses access to my LiveJournal account.

THEN, in an effort to combat the large number of spam accounts that have been created in the past 72 hours, my blog was deleted by Stblogs.com!

I’m feeling repressed!  Hug me and support my little blog!  I’ll try to re-create what I had, but it will be difficult….