Good Morning and Happy Friday to all! 🙂 There’s just something about a long weekend that just puts you in a good mood, right? 🙂 Not to mention when you get to start your day with a chat with your priest and a large iced caramel macchiato from Starbucks!

— 1 —

I am at one time annoyed and guilty for turning down vague charities, but really, it’s their fault. For example, I was feeling lazy yesterday and decided to drive through Taco Bell for dinner. After ordering, the woman asked me if I’d like to give a dollar to help a local teen graduate from college. What? Let’s look at what was going through Jenn’s mind at the time:

Which local teen? Is this for someone specific? Like Lisa or Jospeh who lives on 17 mile?

What do they need money for to graduate? Do they mean help in paying for a cap and gown?

Don’t I already support helping kids graduate with my property taxes? Or do they mean like charter school/private school/homeschool? What are the fees involved with graduation for those kids?

If they mean help pay for supplies so that kids could get a quality education and eventually graduate, why don’t they just say that?

Sooo…. Since I had about a billion questions about this that I’d prefer an answer to before I gave my dollar (Sad, I know, but I’m trying to be a good steward of my meager resources), I realized that the Taco Bell employee would have no patience for my questions, so I just said, “No.” I’m pretty sure she thought I was a big jerk, since I didn’t get any sporks, napkins or mints in my bag.

At the drive-thru window, I found out that she was asking for a charity sponsored in part by Mark Wahlberg called Graduate To Go. At least now, I can look on their website and be able to make an informed decision the next time I’m at the drive-thru! 🙂

— 2 —

A friend of mine is pregnant, and I am hoping for a blond, blue-eyed little boy. I am calling him James, Jamie for short. In addition to the usual prayers for a healthy pregnancy and baby, I’m also praying that this baby will be called by God to the ordained priesthood. Don’t ask me why; I’m not really sure, but there you go! 🙂

Watch, my Jamie will end up being a girl, and then you will know that I DO NOT have the gift of foresight… 🙂

— 3 —

I went to an appointment yesterday for a Wellness Screening, sponsored by work. If I go, I get $50 in my paycheck. Sweet! They check a few things there like height & weight, cholesterol, and blood pressure.

As far as weight goes, after a weekend vacation where I got to stuff my face, I was expecting bad news from the scale. Not so! I got to eat out and STILL LOST WEIGHT! I know, I know, I suck. You can hate me now!

What’s even cooler, in my nerdy eyes, is the fact that I had the most even number possible for my weight. It was xx0.00! The digital scale measured down to the hundredths position, and it was all zeros! That never happens!

For my cholesterol, I had low overall cholesterol and low “bad” cholesterol! YAY!

My blood pressure, on the other hand, wasn’t so good. It was strange that the systolic and the diastolic were so close together: 116/92. I wonder what that means. Other than my heart has to work harder at rest. What’s going on in there?

— 4 —

I got to see the movie For Greater Glory with a couple friends on Tuesday. This was an amazing movie. A breathtaking movie. Definitely not one to eat popcorn at. After it let out, I was a little stunned and shocked, and a little queasy. It’s based on real-life events that occurred in Mexico in the mid-20s. I *highly* recommend that everyone see this movie. Religious freedom is SO important. We cannot afford to be complacent in this matter. Particularly when our own government is increasingly passing laws and regulations which are restricting our freedom in religious matters. People died for these freedoms! How can we now say that it doesn’t matter? How easy might it be for a situation similar to what happened in Mexico happen here? Easier than one might think, if everyone claimed the attitude of, “It’s not *my* problem.”

— 5 —

Our team at work has moved into new office space at the NCAC. There is a room at the end of the hallway where the boys live,

a small cubicle where Noel and Rolanda will work, and I have a desk in a room at the opposite end of the hallway that I share with two other women who are part of a different training team.

It’s pretty nice to have actual office space, and not be in a cramped training room, where all the computers are right on top of each other and we have no desk space. 🙂

— 6 —

Speaking of my team at work, I am continually amazed at how close-knit we are. Just this morning, Nick came into my new office to ask if I wanted any breakfast, while he was going out to get some, and offered that I could come down into the “boys’ room” any time. A couple hours later, after finishing a project, I did just that. Because I was feeling lonely. And with Brian and Justin out of the office, maybe Nick was too. See, we are more than co-workers now. We are family. And we siblings do not like being split up! 🙂

— 7 —

Happy Ordination Anniversary to Fr. John! I have certainly been blessed in so many ways by his friendship and his ministry. May God continue to bless him, strengthen him and help him, as he strives to do God’s work in equipping the faithful and seeking after His heart. Please join me in praying for him in a particular way today.

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

— 1 —

Consumers Energy handles my gas utility. I had to have someone come out to turn the gas back on to the house. Okay. So I call and they can only give me a 24 hour window. Really? I work, so this isn’t really feasible. And I don’t have someone who can stay at my house. The best they could do was say that they’d give me a 20 minute heads-up phone call. So, at 3:30 pm the girl said she’d enter the ticket. I was hoping they’d come sometime before I had to leave to go to work the next morning at 6 am.

I was more than surprised when the guy called at 3:50 pm to say that he was on his way to my house! That never happens! Unfortunately, I was still at work in Ann Arbor, and there was no way that I’d make it home in time to meet him. I called customer service (as I had just missed his call) to see if there’s a way to reach him to see if he could stop by a little later in the evening.

They were *so* unhelpful. They just said that they would have to wait until he closed the ticket — marking me as a no-show, and then reschedule for a different day. Frustrating, because I had told the initial girl that I wouldn’t be able to be home until after 6 pm.

Luckily, the guy called back while I was on the way home. He said he’d try to make it at 5:30 pm. Well, by 7 pm, he wasn’t there, so I went to Bible study. He called a little after 8 pm, so I left Bible study and met him at my home. At last, I got gas restored to the house, although he said sad things about the age of my water heater and furnace, and suggested that I get a carbon monoxide detector since my stuff was so old. 😦

Donations to the Jenn-needs-appliances fund gratefully accepted! 🙂

— 2 —

Speaking of the water heater… It’s older than I am.

— 3 —

I may never go to the grocery store again! Okay, that’s probably not true. But I did find a place where I can have fruits and veggies delivered to my door! 🙂 I found Door to Door Organics, and on Wednesday I will be getting corn, lettuce, tomatoes, potatoes, green beans, mangos, apples, lemons and avocados! Yum! I can’t wait!

— 4 —

I lost my phone charging cord. I can’t imagine where it could have gone, since I use this thing *every day*. St. Anthony, please help my find it! In the meantime, I’m using the cord for my Kindle.

— 5 —

For Greater Glory is a new movie coming out which is being strongly recommended by friends in my Catholic circle. I got tickets to an advance screening and am excited to be able to go and check it out! 🙂

— 6 —

I have a lot of blogs. At least, it seems like a lot to me. I’m never sure if it is the best idea to parse them out according to style and content, but that seems to be what I’m doing. Unfortunately, I always seem to get distracted and never manage to update them as I would like to. I know a lot of you out there are busy also, do you have any recommendations on how to keep up with your blog posting?

— 7 —

Homosexual “marriage” is an issue that has come up for me lately. Someone I love a lot is vehemently in favor of this and says that they should have the “right” to marry. There are many different issues here, but the thing that I want to clear up at the outset is: what exactly are the rights that homosexual couples are looking to secure? Is it the label of being “married”? And what does that mean, exactly? Is it some sort of supposed tax/financial benefit? Something to do with death benefits? What exactly is at stake? I’m sure this is a very complex issue, and I’d like to hear coherent arguments on both sides about why this is so hotly contested. I understand the religious reasons against this, and this argument makes rational sense. I would like to hear the rational arguments from the other side. Thanks for taking the time to help me understand the issue better.

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!