Sacrament of Reconciliation ~ Much Needed

March 13, 2023March 13, 2023 LadyEm63Leave a comment

Comfort Zone – Post 2

Dear Ones,

I’m making my way back to full-union with the Church. Sigh. It’s a process y’all. And I’m trying to be honest about it, so that others know it is ok and you can always come home.

After the Pandemic, we didn’t have a set Priest here in our MIL Parish. Lack of Confession (Reconciliation) and such created the perfect storm of “why bother?” And “Let’s just stay away.” The new Priest has been here for a year or so – maybe 18 months. I can’t remember. And I sent him an email, literally titled, “Worst Catholic Ever?” I’ll spare you the text, but suffice to say, I set up Confession for my husband and I. Neither of us had been for at least 18 months. In our defense, it’s NOT readily available. And the Parish here has not been well-manned. But – we could have arranged it, so I shall step off that broken record.

We worked to get on his calendar, and it ends up, we confessed our sins on Fat Tuesday. What a great way to kick off the Lenten season. On a related note, we have a Parishioner who has a very sick child, and they will make their way back to the states soon. In the meantime, I have taken over their CCD Class. You see, during confession (here in Italy, a lot of times you are looking at the Priest. It takes some getting used to.), the Priest and I also spoke about my not feeling like I belonged here at this Parish. So many things happened within the Command Chaplaincy, and rude parishioners… that many of us backed off. It’s a strange thing to come from being so active and fairly respected in your home Diocese, to being treated very poorly and disrespected by folks. I’m not the only one this happened to, and it’s in the past… but you now have a little background for when I say “feeling like I didn’t belong”. I mean it was to the point, I was doubting my faith.

So back to Father. He said, “we may need you to teach a CCD Class”. HA – how could I say no! I wouldn’t have anyway… it’s just funny. He’s done so much good for this little Military Parish. Including recruiting a teacher for CCD. I had taken this year off as I was truly unsure if I was going to be able to manage my son being so far away (5018 miles, but who’s counting?!). And my husband and I just thought we needed a break this year. God knew what I needed, and I am excited about the next few months.

I got a little head’s up about extra confession coming up this coming weekend, and I decided that after my class and I met, and chatted through introductions, we’d pick up one of my favorite children’s confession booklet and talk about Examination of Conscience as it pertains to the Ten Commandments. It’s by TAN Books, and it’s called My Confession Book (click on it and it will take you there). First published in 1958! Old school. The kids really enjoyed it. And Father stopped by to talk to them about confession and invite them to partake this weekend. YAY

During our discussion in class, one of the children said when he went to confession it was like a huge weight was lifted and he was floating. Y’all – it’s so true. My head was so chaotic as our life got crazy here in Italy… and being away from Sacraments during the Pandemic and after – it really took its toll. We are already feeling so much better about things here.

It’s now the 3rd week of Lent and we are enjoying being involved and going to Mass/Being in full union again. The first weekend of Lent I was in Assisi with a group of Catholic Women (Yes, I do owe you a post or ten). We have been participating in the meatless Pot Lucks on Friday evenings (I will share my recipes used soon). We will hopefully go to Stations of the Cross this weekend. Sunday I am bowling with children from a local Orphanage here in the Naples Area. I love kiddos, so that will be fun.

Because of anxiety and depression, I had honestly let a lot of things go… and I’m also purposing to be a better and more joyful home-maker, and make the house more pleasant for my husband too. It’s not like I was horrible to him, but I don’t have a full-time job here, and I could do more… so I am. Today, I am baking corn bread, and organizing a few things at home. We also have a guest bed here, and the tech is coming to put it together this evening and then we will officially have a guest room – YAY.

Signing off for today. Tomorrow, I should have a Gospel Reflection going live. I will share it then.

Love, Hugs & Blessings,
LadyEm

Fridge or Pantry · Good Cheap Eats · Homemaking · Pantry Challenge · Perseverance

Pantry Challenge – Thawed Out

January 9, 2023January 9, 2023 LadyEm633 Comments

Happy New Year Y’all.
On New Year’s Day, I posted about the yearly Pantry Challenge. I had meal prepped, and menu prepped…and I was excited to get back to it and use what I have over the next couple months. If you don’t know Jessica of Good Cheap Eats, get to know her – she is amazing. Regular mom logic. AND here is her info about the Pantry Challenge. But as life does on occasion – we came home to a change of plans. Our electricity was off and we lost all our frozen/fridge food.

We cleaned up the mess, cleaned out both fridge/freezers, and then washed our pups (who were with a sitter whilst we were gone, who has other animals and watches lots of dogs) and finally got to bed about 2am. I have not given up though.

January 5th was my hubby’s 63rd birthday, and by this past weekend, we were semi stocked up and ready to participate again. We only replaced parts of what we lost and didn’t buy new pantry items… and though we won’t technically save money, we have pledged to eat at home for the next few weeks, and were creative with our purchases.

Speaking of Creative… I wanted to share with you how I made my kitchen bigger by extending/creating a wall. Here, I extended the living room wall with bookshelves and a hutch (it needs painting and was free):

These pics show the pantry (aka the backside of bookshelves) and the refrigerator behind the red piece. The meal calendar was what I’d done before I left.

Our Second fridge/freezer is on our enclosed porch. I will be contacting our insurance company today about how to recoup anything we can. And later on this evening, I will post pics of our apartment we moved into in September (not duplicating today’s pics). Other than power outages, we are really enjoying it.

Don’t let anything sway you from your plan. Regroup and get back to it.

Love, Hugs & Blessings,
LadyEm

Emily (Me) · Fridge or Pantry · Good Cheap Eats · Pantry Challenge

New Year – New Pantry Challenge

January 1, 2023 LadyEm632 Comments

It’s the most budgeting time of the year! Are you singing it with me? Uh… my husband says, “everything is NOT song.” I beg to differ.

This year for New Years, we visited The Netherlands. I will post a few pics, but you can click on the link, “The Netherlands” to see the album on FB. It’s public.

So for the past 10+ years… I have participated in the Pantry Challenge, hosted by Good Cheap Eats. You can read Jessica’s thoughts on it by clicking the link. But for me – and everyone, it can be adapted to your own goals. I use Pantry Challenges to work through the pre-cooked meats in our freezer, as well as foods that may expire in the pantry. But more than that, I also challenge myself to only buy peripheral goods during this month – six weeks. For me, that means dairy, produce, etc. Let me lay it out in bullets:

LadyEm’s Pantry Challenge Goals:

Use Pre-cooked meats.
- And meats that are dates November or earlier in 2022.
- The reason behind this is that in Italy, meat and foods don’t have preservatives, and you can’t keep them, even in the freezer, for more than say four months.
Use soon-to-expire goods.
Shop my pantry/freezer.
- Cans of tuna/veggies
- Pasta/rice
- Flours, etc.
Bake my own breads and muffins, etc.
Only buy dairy and veggies…ok, maybe paper goods.
Participate at least six weeks.
- Many only do 30 days, but we have things to get through.

I get home late tomorrow, but I knew the challenge was coming, so – I have two weeks meal plan done, and a list of items to buy. In this way, taking Jessica’s classes on organizing my kitchen and knowing what’s in my freezer/pantry is an amazing way to live and not waste in my kitchen and in many ways have helped my family and I be more creative.

Now that we are empty nesters, we are even more creative because no one is saying “I don’t want to eat that!” Ok yes, we miss them all. But you know what I mean.

I hope, if you are reading this, that you will do the challenge with me. Check out Jessica’s Blogs and her Good Cheap Eats FaceBook page.

I will post more of our plan on Tuesday.

Until then…. Enjoy the beginning of 2023. My word of the year is PEACE. I intend to seek it, through faith and surroundings.

Love and Hugs,
LadyEm

2021 Goals · Emily (Me) · Fridge or Pantry · Good Cheap Eats · Homemaking · Pantry Challenge · Recipes · Repurposed Food (Leftovers)

Join Me For Pantry Challenge 2021

January 2, 2021January 3, 2021 LadyEm632 Comments

One of the ways I’m kicking off 2021 is to participate in the Pantry Challenge with Jessica at Good Cheap Eats. The dates are January 1-31! I’ve been doing this for at least a decade. I love her blog because I get her logic. She helps me see what I am doing right, wrong, and what I can do better. The Pantry Challenge is a fantastic season that my family looks forward to twice a year.

I would love to invite you to go to her blog, read about it, and subscribe. When you subscribe, Jessica will send you the tools you need to participate. It’s been different for us here in Italy. My pantry and fridges/freezers are full because of extra holiday purchases, and we have set some attainable goals for this Pantry Challenge!

We will stick to our meal plan.
We will only grocery shop every 2 weeks…
- When we do, will will only buy dairy, produce, paper/personal items.
If we don’t have it, we will make it! That happened today!
We will repurpose food and use up our frozen foods.
With the exception of Marque’s birthday, we will not eat out…

All of the things on my list will either save us time or money. In the states, there are coupons, and sales fliers, etc. here in Italy, not so much. We did find a store called AdHoc, which is similar to Costco. That has helped with meat costs, etc.

Here’s a pic of my pantry:

Beside my fridge (to the left of this pantry), I have a dry erase calendar where I place my meal plan, and a dry erase empty square where I write my grocery list. During the Pantry Challenge, we take stock of the meats and dry items we have… and we use our imaginations to make it all last at least a month, sometimes longer.

January 1st we had our traditional New Years Meal. Pork roast (because a proper ham is not common here), black eyed peas, greens/cabbage. Leftovers today, the 2nd, and tomorrow (the 3rd) we will have shrimp tacos.

Earlier, I said we needed something we didn’t have, so we made it. So here’s the story. We love the Pioneer Woman’s Shrimp Tacos, and they call for Mexican Tomato Sauce. Usually we use El Pato, but we ran out and they don’t sell it here. So we made it from this recipe – Mexican Tomato Sauce.

One of the things I have learned from Jessica @GoodCheapEats is that you can make just about everything from scratch… and it’s such a benefit. I’ll let you know how the shrimp tacos turn out.

We’re excited! Come play along… get organized, use what you have…and save money! AND let us know how you do!

Tomorrow, I’ll tell you about the Bible In a Year with Father Mike Schmitz. Pray for me. I’d really love to read the Bible in a year!

Love, hugs & Blessings,
LadyEm

Catholic · Catholic Faith · Counting Blessings · Davis Family · Italy · Lent · Uncategorized

Walk With Me… I'm In the Desert…

March 23, 2020March 23, 2020 LadyEm632 Comments

desert

Dear Ones,

Can I ask you a question? And it’s a DOOZY… How’s your Lent going? With all this Coronavirus stuff and living in Italy, I can tell you – It’s not the best… OR IS IT?

When I started this post, my husband was laying asleep recovering from colon surgery (I’ll get to that). My child is knee-deep in virtual school – which he’s stressed about, but we’re both thankful we homeschooled before, so he’s ok. Sure, he misses his friends and being able to leave our Parco (neighborhood), but he’s doing ok.

February 25th, Marque went in for routine colon surgery to remove a bad area of his colon. We were told it was precancerous, but because there was a visiting surgeon with a colorectal specialty, we could do it sooner rather than later and she’d help out. The surgery was supposed to last three hours and lasted twelve. One of THE absolute longest days ever. People sat with me, comforted me, my child was there. And finally after 10pm, we headed home.

On the first day of Lent, I walked into the hospital room to my husband writhing in pain. It was no one’s fault. The way they laid him during surgery was slanted, and arms pinned by his side, and his shoulders were so pain filled he could not even lift his arms. The visiting Priest (ours is in California having serious surgery near his family) brought us prayer, blessings and Jesus in the Eucharist. Lent in a Day, y’all. Ash Wednesday. We got our Ashes too. Sigh

My husband was in the hospital for 23 days. I’ll spare you the details on the ups and downs, but there were some very scary moments/days where the desert FEAR causes was very real. As the days turned into weeks, the coronavirus got serious. A friend of ours, a surgical tech, warned me and made sure I understood late one evening that I would need supplies to last a month and that when I took Marque home, I should not venture out so I wouldn’t catch it. I remember being irritated because no one thought it was very serious – and then all of a sudden, Italy was shut down.

If you can imagine, here in Italy, we have to carry legal paperwork (in Italian) letting whomever might stop us know WHY we are leaving the house. We can leave for necessity, for medical needs, proven work requirements, and for returning home. Only grocery, pharmacy, a few hardware stores, and maybe a few other places are open. When the Italians decree came out that their people could no longer visit family in hospital, I asked permission to see my husband daily. AND I had to be home by curfew (6pm).

What if I told you that my husband did have cancer but it’s all gone? It never spread beyond his colon, not in his blood stream, not in his lymph.
What if I told you that yesterday, on Gaudete Sunday, as frail as he has been whilst healing (he lost nearly 50 lbs and is weak for now), he taught our son to grill chicken and shrimp and we watched a family movie?
What if I told you that this scary time has brought us closer, and helped us all appreciate one another more?

Before Marque had surgery a Priest told us we’d had our Lent laid out for us, he didn’t think we needed to give up anything else. And you know what, he was so right. The list of people I need to thank is long. I gave up sleep, my ego, and so much this Lent. We have all given up Christ in the Eucharist, and aren’t even sure if there will be Easter Mass. In my 56 years, I’ve never seen or experienced ANYTHING like it.

There were moments that I really didn’t even know if my husband would live. The fear in the desert is real. But I rejoice for this walk in the desert and the ability to be a light for others, and let others do for our little family.

I look forward to the day when quarantine is over and I can be in front of Jesus again. Until them I will adore him at home, with my little family, in our sweet desert.

Praying for you all.
Air Hugs (social distance mandate).
Love and blessings,
LadyEm