It confuses me beyond measure; the arguments, craziness and down-right meanness I see online about face masks. I know that wearing a face mask sucks. It’s hard to breathe, it fogs up my glasses, the elastics hurt my ears.
But I understand there is a reason for the ruling. And I understand that my actions (or inaction) can have powerful implications for those I encounter.
My son works at a grocery store. He’s an essential worker. He wears glasses and has to wear a mask all day while he works. His glasses fog up and it’s hard to breathe. All the essential workers going out and about have to wear masks all day long.
I deeply dislike wearing a mask when I am out in public, but I do it because it’s the right thing to do. Embrace the suck, do the right thing and wear the darned mask.
Wow, what a discovery! It’s all new to me, though it’s been around for thousands of years…. a system of understanding personality types and how each of those types can impact not only how we interact with one another, but also how we habitually fall into negative habit patterns or get caught in our own “cognitive errors” which leave us spinning in circles.
I am diving deep into studying the Enneagram as a prepare to apply to the Spiritual Director program at Fairfield University. I will keep you posted on what I learn.
Sometimes thinking about it, I say “No, can’t be. Superpowers!?”
But when you learn more about the Charisms – special supernatural gifts given by the Holy Spirit to every person for his or her personal Mission, for their Calling to perform his or her task in the Church and in the World. These special gifts are given for the benefit of others, not for ourselves. But when we are exercising our Charisms we feel “in the flow” and as if the action “fits us” in a special way. The other wonderful thing about Charisms is that when you are exercising yours, you are effective in a remarkable or extra-ordinary way: when a person with the Charism of Teaching teaches, people learn as if God were teaching, when a person exercises the Charism of Healing, people are Healed as if God were healing.
Interested in learning more? Check out the Catherine of Siena Institute: http://siena.org/
I am hoping to be able to offer a small group workshop soon for the Discernment of Charisms at St. Rose of Lima in Newtown. Stay tuned.
I am not an artist…but I appreciate good graphics and love it when I find a tool (especially a FREE tool) that lets me get creative with words and photos. FotoJet has a bunch of really creative collage formats and styles and includes pre-formatted templates like: Facebook Post, Google+ Cover, YouTube Banner, Instagram Posts, Pinterest Graphics… the list goes on!
This afternoon I played with creating Magazine Covers (Time Person of the Century!?)
I had a challenging time finding this information until I hit upon the right search phrase, so I thought I would publish a quick reference to Special Education Age Limits by State. This is one of the areas that is not mandated at the Federal Level, so if you are planning Transition services for your child, you need to know the age limits in your state.
There’s a Bible Study at our church (Walking with Purpose at St. Rose of Lima) that last year only took place on Wednesday mornings, but this Fall will have an evening offering on Tuesdays. It’s a study just for women and is transformative to say the very least.
Frequently when I would mention it to people to invite them to the Connect Coffee sessions they would respond “I’d love to, but I work.” or “Sounds nice, but I work during the day.” Now, maybe it’s me, but I always heard the implication that I, who also “work during the day” but have a flexible schedule was being seen as a “woman of leisure” who spent her day eating bon bons and reading books instead of working for a living.
I am very grateful that I do have a flexible schedule, that I can work evenings and weekends to make up for any time I take during the day for something like a Bible Study. I hope that in the future more people will have the option for flexible schedules. Schedules that allow them to take that elusive afternoon or morning off to spend time with family, or in a Bible Study, or just appreciating the great outdoors.
I mostly limit my gardening to my organic veggie garden, but I do love the look of flowers around the house. I love petunias for their bright, happy looking flowers, but somehow mine always end up looking leggy and ragged a few weeks after I bring them home from the nursery. I did a search on the web to find the answers to the burning question of how to properly care for and prune petunias. Here is what I found.
This article from SFGate has a good basic step by step for cutting back petunias.
Locate a node or point at least half way between the tip and base of the main stem where smaller stems or leaves branch. When petunias produce long stems with few leaves and stop producing flowers, trimming them back improves the overall look and promotes new growth and flower production. Make these pruning cuts in mid-summer.
This video has a nice demonstration where to clip the stems (at about 1:57 seconds he shows the part of the stem that you should remove behind the spent flower).
And this article from gardenlady.com does a very good job of explaining how to keep your petunias full of flowers and bushy vs. “stemmy”
If you look at your petunia plants you will notice that they only form flowers at the END of the stems. So as the stems grow longer all the flowers are at the edges of the plants, with bare stems leading up to them. This is the case if you are growing the Wave, Super Petunias or regular ones.
In order to keep the plants full, bushy and not “stemmy” – you need to clip some of the stems each week.
And here’s some really great advice for rejuvenating a stemmy plant and even rooting the cuttings that you take from the plant… and who doesn’t love MORE plants for FREE??
What should you do if your plant is “stemmy” or has stopped flowering? Clip the stems back by 2/3 and fertilize. You could clip all at once, or do a third at a time (randomly over the plant – clip a third every week or 10 days) so that the plant isn’t cut back all at once.
You can also root the ends of the stems you clip off – cut them to 8″ long and put them in fresh, damp potting soil after coating the stems with rooting hormone.
Lastly, don’t forget to fertilize! The GardenLady recommends every three weeks. Always water first, never fertilize a thirsty plant.
