Liebster Award! Everyone's a Winner!

Christine at Splendor in the Home tagged me for the "Liebster Award," reminding me that oh yeah, I have a blog! And she's right, it's exactly like what we used to write on Xanga back when that was a thing.  So here goes:

1. What's one thing you do really well?
I'm really proud of my quilting.  I don't do it nearly enough because it is so very time consuming and there is always so much that seems more urgent, but I love being able to make something beautiful.

2. What's your favorite blog post you've written (include link)? 
Snappy Comebacks on Family Size for the Rest of Us: Because the big families aren't the only ones who get comments in public!

3. What is one blog post or article by another writer that has stuck with you for a long time (include link)?
 In which Auntie Leila gives me permission to do "an hour a day".
 So, I may have interpreted this in a different way than intended, but I would get majorly stressed out if I couldn't end a day "ahead" of where it began.  Also I had this feeling that since I was home I had to be working all the time, to earn my keep or what have you.  If a room was dirty, I wasn't doing my job.  But reading this I was like, "An hour?  That's it?  That's good enough for the day to day cleaning?"  What a relief!

4. Are you a "cat person" or a "dog person"?
Neither, really.  I've never had a pet.  I would like to have both, but the dog would be more for my son and the cat would be to keep the mice away from the coop!  I expect I wouldn't be the type to ever let a cat or dog sleep in my bed.

5. Show us your favorite internet meme or cartoon.
I don't have a favorite, but I made these recently as my contribution to an e-mail discussion among friends.  It started out with sharing an article and asking for responses.  It predictably became a very long exposition on the nature of equality among persons, feminism vs. chivalry, and blaming the whole mess on the French Revolution.  So summing up:

6.  Do you subscribe to any publications?
Urban Farm magazine.  I doubt we'll keep renewing it after this year, because my sister Teresa is about to graduate from high school and won't have to sell magazine subscriptions any more.

7. If your house was on fire, and you had time to grab ONE object to save (assume all other people and pets are already out safely), what would it be?
Probably this painting we received as a gift from our wedding party:

They commissioned another friend to paint it for us.  It's derived from a photo Katie took of us on Piazza Navona in Rome.  That's a very special place for us, and we simply have to go back there some day. Piazza Navona is where St. Agnes's church is, and she was patroness of our courtship, along with St. Raphael.  That's also where I first felt sure that I would marry Ryan.

8. Are there any kids' toys that you suspect you might enjoy playing with as much as/more than the kids?
When I get into it, I really enjoy figuring out the Brio train setups with Anthony.  It's a puzzle to figure out how to make the track as elaborate as possible while also making sure all your male/female ends match up, AND that your train is capable of accessing all parts of the track smoothly, without turning around or getting stuck in one loop.

 9. What kind of candy will you be handing out for Halloween?

Reese's for Ryan and that mini Hershey's mix for me. Because you know we'll be hoarding a few! (I pick out all the Special Darks.)

10. Have you ever seen or experienced something you suspect was supernatural?
Something I KNOW was supernatural.  When I was a teenager I had a fainting disorder, POTS.  (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, if you care to know.) You know how if you get up too fast you might get a bit dizzy for a moment? Yeah, well POTS was like that, but on bad days if I got up at all I'd pass out completely. I was on all sorts of drugs to keep my blood pressure up enough to keep me conscious, but it wasn't easy to live with.  I would still have dizzy spells and pass out on occasion. I was miraculously healed of it my freshman year of college.

It was at a praise-and-worship night at Franciscan University of Steubenville, not far from my school in Pittsburgh. I was praying for my then-boyfriend to be healed of his chronic Lyme disease. A girl went up to the stage and said she'd felt the Holy Spirit was asking us to pray for ourselves as well as others.  Well, I'd never prayed for my own healing before!  I don't know why but it just never occurred to me to do that! So I did, very simply, and immediately I was "resting in the Spirit." I had a vision of myself as the woman in the Gospel who had hemorrhaged for twelve years.  When I saw Jesus passing through the crowd, I knew what I was supposed to do.  So I reached out and touched the hem of His robe.  He turned to me smiling and said, "Daughter, your faith has made you well."

The next morning in my dorm room, I prayed the Rosary standing perfectly still in front of the full length mirror.  I was watching for the blood to pool in my hands and feet, as it always did if I stood still for any length of time. It never did.  My blood pressure was about 150 instead of it's usual 90, so I didn't take any medicine that morning.  I never needed it again.



So there you have it folks!  Some random things I bet you were all dying to know.  Part of the Liebster thing is you have to tag more bloggers to answer some questions.  I'm tagging:

Emily at Mama Holi
Stacy at My Life is a Comedy Show for God

It's taken me a week just to answer these myself, so rather than come up with new questions at this point, just answer the same ones!  If you haven't been tagged yet and feel like playing a long, go ahead and I'll add you to this post.