Seven Quick Takes this Friday eve!

— 1 —

Have you ever thought about doing something for a few weeks, but then, in a fit of adrenaline actually bit the bullet then sat back and thought, “Did I really just do that?”

So.

As of last night, I have a ticket to Colorado the first week of April.

For a silent retreat with our friend Father Ryan. Excited because: Colorado. Happy because: Father Ryan is my friend. Terrified because: SILENT RETREAT. (Oh, and I don’t know, confessing to friends is actually way weirder than confessing to strangers).

What have I done???

— 2 —

Remember that yesterday I was going to cut out a skirt last night? Swept the floor, laid out the material…then realized I needed to measure myself. Well, we were so close,but it looked like the pattern was maybe a half-inch or an inch too small in the waist. It was a vintage pattern, see, and only came in one size.

Small matters, right? I can adjust. I’m a clever woman.

So I dumped the pattern pieces out of the nearly dry-rot, one-size pattern envelope from-the-fifties. As fate would have it, somewhere in the past sixty years, the pieces I needed wound up missing.

Gah. So I placed the envelope and the contents in the recycling bin. I’ve got two yards of lovely corduroy, if anyone has a vintage skirt pattern with pockets on hand. 🙂 (Maybe I’ll thrift one later this weekend).

— 3 —

This point is dedicated to the fact that I dressed like a five-year old today.

Case in point to follow–Julia Patton, shamelessly stolen (but politely referenced) from the fantastic Camp Patton:

Le me:

All I know how to do is layer and layer hard in the face of more Polar Vortex.

— 4 —

HERE’S AN ALL CAPS IDEA FOR YOU TO CHEW ON: TWELVE-HOUR THEATER. I’ve been tossing this around my brain for the past few WEEKS and I finally had a good idea about when to stage it.

Back idea: I have all these disgustingly talented friends, and I just love to get them together and be like, “Now. Be creative.”

So. We gather one morning around, say, 8 a.m., and by 7 p.m. that evening we put on a show: original content, original songs and costumes and dances and whatever else we imagine. Wouldn’t that just be the most fun? It would, it would, I know it would.

And this morning while getting ready the thought popped into my head for the perfect day: the Saturday of the weekend when John Paul II is canonized. John Paul II who loved all things love and theater and community. So I looked it up on the calendar. That weekend is also “Holocaust Memorial.” Just like my St. Max, who initially inspired the idea with his, “Love alone creates.”

If anyone is interested in acting or passing out programs or watching a show made-in-a-day that weekend…you know where to comment.

Or I’ll just keep updating you.

On my blog. 🙂

— 5 —

What starts next week? LENT! Scream it from the rooftops, party people. Make it a meaningful Lent and it will undoubtedly be a meaningful Easter. Catholicism, yo. We’re all about the prayer and the party. And it’s prayer/ sacrifice time up in this liturgical calendar.

Fun things: I’m helping host a retreat next weekend with some of the most astounding young women I know. Really. (There may be 2 more openings, too). To keep it on track with the excited/ happy/ terrified theme: I’m so happy that they’re going to be in close proximaty to a one Nell. And I’m so excited to hear from them and learn from them. I’m also terrified that I won’t provide a good enough experience…yikes! Please pray for me. If you want, beg the intercession of Ss. Perpetua and Felicity on our behalf.

Quick aside: isn’t it THE COOLEST that our retreat, for women, starts on their feast day? Ss. Perpetua and Felicity were friend-Christians, martyred together in the early parts of Christian history. Stunning. And here we are, about to gather and pray together under the same banner of Christ-crucified.

Enough to give you goosebumps, really.

— 6 —

If you want to read something stunning, here’s something one of the guys I walked the Camino with this summer:

“Any young man or woman who has felt called to a vocation and then hesitated, wondering if the call is genuine, knows the agonies of such second thoughts and how powerful the counter arguments can be. Reasons and rationalizations boil through your mind. There are present and future responsibilities toward family and friends to think of, thoughts of the good to be done at home or in other possible ways of serving God and man, mistrust of motives swaying the mind now this way and now that, doubts about one’s abilities to live up to the call (and even the call itself), vague fears for the future and very real fears of making a mistake right here and now, knowing a decision must be made and yet knowing, too, that it involves a commitment from which there can be no turning back, something that will change the whole course of your life…

God’s will can be discerned by the fruits of the spirit it brings, that peace of soul and joy of heart are two such signs, provided they follow upon total commitment and openness to God alone and are not founded on the self’s desires…

Movement of God’s grace must always be accepted and understood in virtue of the life of faith, because ultimately the truth of every mysterious action of his grace is discerned in the light of faith rather than by the powers of reason or intellect.” – Fr. Walter J Ciszek, S.J.

If you need to read it today and then return tomorrow, I understand. That’s what I had to do, too.

— 7 —

Yesterday someone who is pretty cool had an outpatient surgery and stopped by my house afterward. Said-person looked at me, pointed a lone finger and said with a drug-induced shaky voice, “I know who you look like…Ru-Fi-OOOOOO!”

And I couldn’t stop laughing.

If you’ll excuse me, I need to go grease my skateboard…Philipino young man with belly-button shirt and crossbow that I am. 😉

Happy weekend, all.

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