Create in Me A Clean Heart: My Lenten Goals 2015

By bobbi
February 18, 2015
10 Comments

Happy Ash Wednesday! I already posted about things we will be doing as a family for Lent but I haven’t shared what I’ll be doing. To be honest with you, I usually don’t buckle down until a couple weeks into Lent but I want to break that cycle!

I went to the morning Mass at the kids’ school and the theme of Prayer, Fasting and Almsgiving has been on my mind. How can I apply that to my busy mommy life?

Prayer

Prayer is what I need the most now, especially with the stress our family has been under lately. I am still having trouble being less like Martha and more like Mary. But Lent is the perfect time to get serious about making improvements.

My prayer plan is pretty much already in place. I have my Blessed Is She prayer journal and I joined Elizabeth Foss’ online workshop Restore. I’ve got the tools now all I have to do is make sure that I USE them in more than just a pretty photo! I arranged my schedule so I could have 15-20 minutes in the morning to pray. Then in the evening after the kids go to bed, I’ll spend 20 – 30 minutes on the workshop. I did it last year and it was sometimes hard to carve out time and I was always behind the scheduled days, but it made a huge difference in helping me get through a difficult season of life with Brian’s cancer.

Fasting

In order to accomplish the prayer time for Lent, I need to cut back on screen time – the computer/ phone in the morning and TV at night. I’m not going dark like some friends, but there will be some black out stretches during the day. I’m hoping the increased prayer will also help me to fast from impatience. In the morning of this holy Ash Wednesday I was yelling at one of my kids to stop fooling around and get their school shoes on. That is a logical request but yelling it like a lunatic is not the same as saying it like a sane parent. I could hear God whispering to me, “Yeah, you see that there? That’s what you need to give up for Lent.” Oh, man. I think it would be easier to give up the chocolate.

Almsgiving

This one was a no brainer because since Christmas I have been walking around the house, stepping over toys and moving piles of junk from one corner to the next saying, “Ugh! We have too much stuff!” So it’s time for the annual 40 bags in 40 days. We’ll be sharing our possessions with friends or St. Vincent de Paul. I would really like it if I could also get back to my 31 Day to Clean: Having A Martha House the Mary Way cleaning challenge. I started it a month ago but when Brian’s dad had the stroke, my normal routine went out the window and I put it aside.

I share these things with you, not to brag or “blow a trumpet.” Quite the opposite, I know my weakness. I am prone to start strong then give it up. I want to hold myself accountable. By sharing this with you, I know you will be there to offer encouragement when I am feeling discouraged and there to give a swift kick in the rear when I am being a stubborn brat. I know there are some moms that spend Lent like John the Baptist with a locust snack. I look at them and think, “Damn, girl! How do you do that?!” I’m still working on things like… not saying, “damn.”

We are all on different paths and at different levels. Some of you can accomplish a lot. Some of you forgot today was Ash Wednesday. Some of you don’t need to give up anything because you are living Lent in your current family situation. However, all of us are seeking to cross the same finish line. We want to grow closer to God and love Jesus more at the end of this Lent. So to you, my fellow sisters, let’s take this journey together and encourage one another.

Is there something you want to work on this Lent? Do you have a special intention you’d like me to pray for during Lent? Do share. (And say a prayer for me too.) 🙂

PS – You can follow RoL on Bloglovin, Feedly or another news feed. If you are a social media fan like me, we can stay in touch through Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, GoodReads, Letterboxd or Instagram. 😉

Pinterest Party & Link-up (vol 35): The Lent Edition

By bobbi
February 4, 2015
16 Comments

Welcome to the RoL Pinterest Party. Normally we would link up and share how we made, cooked, baked, crafted, planned, organized, followed or created one of the pins on our Pinterest boards OR share something original that others can pin onto their boards.

This month we will be sharing our Lenten and Easter crafts, ideas, meatless recipes, posts and reflections.

Not on Pinterest? No problem. Link-up your own creation to inspire us so we can pin in to our own boards.

Don’t have a post ready? The link-up will be open until Easter Sunday so there’s plenty of time. Plus, feel free to link up a new post or an older post that hasn’t had much traffic lately. 🙂

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It’s hard to believe that Lent starts in a couple weeks! I saved all my items from last year and I actually remember where I stored them so I’m ahead of the game. 😉

I have been wanting to incorporate learning about the saints with the kids and I thought Lent would be a good time to start.

I purchased the Happy Saint flashcards and I thought they’d be perfect for a simple introduction.

Each week we will take one saint, read about them, and ask for their intercession that week. Week 1 we will start with A for St. Agnes.

I’d also like to order the Happy Saints Way of the Cross.

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As for our other Lenten activities, we’ll be doing some of our usual family traditions. I am reposting them here for new readers.

I love putting wreaths and welcome signs on our door. For Lent, I made a simple Lenten wreath to mark the season.

***

We have our regular family altar in the entryway of the house and that stays pretty much the same all year. However, we have a shelf in the family room by the table where we eat that we decorate according to the season. Here is where we keep our Lenten things.

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We set up a candle centerpiece using a long rectangular tray filled with six votive candles for the six weeks of Lent.

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I purchased tiny wreaths from Michael’s that fit around the candle. We add a wreath to a candle on each Sunday of Lent.

***

We printed off Catholic Icing’s Lenten Calendar and I placed it in an inexpensive frame from Ikea. I use a dry erase pen to mark a cross on each day as it passes. It is great for the kids, who have no sense of time, to see how many more days until Easter.

***

One of the kids favorite activities for Lent is their Act of Love and Prayer jars. The Act of Love jar has different things they can do each day such as share a toy with your sibling or be extra nice to someone at school or do an extra chore. The Prayer Jar has a special intention for each day. With our evening schedules, we have found our best prayer time to be before dinner since we are already gathered together. Since the altar is right next to our table, we light our candle, Brian leads us in prayer and then we chose an act and prayer intention for the next day. (The morning of the following day I remind the kids what our act of love and prayer intention is for that day.)

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This year we also added Kendra’s idea of using Sacrifice Beans. Every time the kids complete one of their Acts of Love or makes a sacrifice they put a dried kidney bean in the bowl. On Easter Sunday the dry beans are changed to jelly beans or some other treat. (I’m thinking a visit to the library or the Aquarium.)

UPDATE: Last year, this was the kids’ favorite activity. They loved collecting those beans!

* * *

In case you think we are a holy family with heads bent in prayer, let me also give you a dose of reality. I also had to add a “prayer helper” of the day sign. When it comes to who gets to offer their prayer intention first or who gets to blow out the candle or who gets to choose the Act of Love that day, we have had the boys literally come to blows and screaming, which ends in me yelling at them and Brian sending them to their rooms for misbehaving. (Aw, peaceful prayer time.) Since they are used to having a “Student of the Day” in school so we took that same concept with the “prayer helper of the day.” The name rotates and we have greatly reduced the yelling and body blows. (Now if we can just get John-Paul to stop praying for things like “more Star Wars toys” as his prayer intention. 😉

Lastly we added our Stations of the Cross pictures to the altar. If we say the Stations of the Cross as a family, we follow this book The Way of the Cross from Magnificat/Ignatius. (Reality check: we actually have yet to do the stations. We’ll try again this year to do it at least once…)

Here are some other Lenten activities we will be doing as a family.

Turn off the TV and the computer/iphone more. I have a basket of religious type books that the kids can look at or we can read together. I am also using the Lenten Adventure Activity Books from Holy Heroes, which are great! There are activity pages and coloring pages for the young ones for each day of Lent up until Divine Mercy Sunday.

Visit Jesus – Make more visits to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Let the kids light a candle before they kneel and pray.

Donate – Spring clean the toy box and donate toys they don’t use anymore to our local St. Vincent de Paul thrift store.

Crafts – Make Lenten crafts such as one of these Resurrection Crafts. (Reality check: Yeah, this never happened last year. I’m not sure if we’ll do it this year but I’ll leave the link for you more creative moms. 😉 )

For more ideas for your own family, check out these sites.

Lenten Calendar for Kids – Eyes on Heaven

Liturgical Living at a Glance: March – Carrots for Michaelmas

40 Simple Lenten Activities for Kids – CallHerHappy.com

Lenten Activities for Children – CatholicIcing.com

40 Ideas for Lent from Joe Paprocki

My final note – Don’t let the sheer number of activities available overwhelm you! Chose just one (or maybe two) things that your family can realistically do. It is better to do something simple and well, than to try to do too much and feel like a failure because you couldn’t possibly get it all done! (Believe me, I’ve learned that the hard way!)

Okay, that was my idea for the month. You can find me on Pinterest here – Pinterest.com/bobbi_rol

Does your family have a favorite Lenten tradition? A favorite meatless meal? Maybe you wrote a reflection about Lent. If you have a blog, link-up! If you don’t blog, share in the comments. We’d love to hear from you. 🙂

* * * * *

Now it’s your turn!

1. Choose your creation, recipe or Lent/Easter related post and snap a photo if you can.

2. In your post, link back the original blogger/idea, rather than your Pinterest pin. That way credit goes to the proper person. 🙂 (But feel free to add your Pinterest profile link so we can follow you!)

3. Add a link back here so others can play along.

4. If you want to use it, here is the html code for the logo:

5. Link up below. Make sure you’re sending us to your actual post, and not to your general blog address.

The link up will be active until Easter Sunday. Have fun!

PPS – This post may contain affiliate links.

An InLinkz Link-up

Lenten Journey 2014: Part 1

By bobbi
March 9, 2014
6 Comments

Happy first Sunday of Lent! Since I shared with you what we are doing for Lent as a family, I thought I’d also share what I’m working on in my own Lenten journey.

I was reading Erring on the Side of Love/Amanda’s blog post Lent: My Little Fat Tuesday and I swear I could have copied word for word what she wrote and signed my name to it. Listen to this:

Joy. Somewhere between marriage and having babies I feel that I’ve lost the sense of joy in my little day-to-day happenings. Or, if I am in a joyful spirit it can go from laughs and fun to a lost temper real quick. I really want to work on that. I want to keep joy in our home not only for myself but also for my boys and husband.

Diligence. I know I desire it, but I struggle with it. It’s very easy for me to get caught up in my tendency to feel frazzled if things don’t go according to the little plans I have in my head. I want to try to overcome that and be more diligent in my daily duties as a wife, mother, and CEO of our little home. I want to be diligent in not only making our home a home, but also in readings and meeting with my Lord. I want to be diligent in making time for him daily. Even if it’s reading just one verse from scripture so that I can grow to know Him more. And, I pray that I am able to share this daily with my husband and the boys.

Omg, yes. I feel like Gru from Despicable Me when he was falling in love. He was so happy making the girls their meal and being playful with them. He walked down the street and his happiness was contagious. Then when his romance was thwarted he was a mean grouch. These days I am too much like that. I have a harder time holding onto my happiness. The slightest thing can just set me off and Mrs. Nasty is back. It’s not really a new fault. It’s been there as long as I can remember. Once, many years ago, I went to confession and told the priest that I get so bent out of shape when things don’t go how I want them. The kind priest asks me, “What makes you so special that you shouldn’t have little crosses pop up throughout your day.” Ouch. But it was just what I needed to hear. Two decades later, I am still thinking of that comment.”

So I want to work on getting that happiness back. I want to be a good mom but one that also knows how to be playful. It’s one of the things I love the most about my mom. She is wise and prayerful but she can be playful and laugh in life. That always brings joy to my heart. I want my kids to see that in me. Not the grumpy mom that blows up at the slightest mishap. I want to be a mom that is flexible enough to roll with the punches and find the humor in the inevitable craziness that comes with the territory.

This is going to be my Lenten soundtrack. 😉

There are a couple of things I am doing to help me achieve that.

1. Morning prayer and little talks with God. Lately, I have been doing my short prayer reflections at the end of the day but I don’t like the timing of it. I think I am better when I start the day off with my prayer time and get that grace I need to get me through the day. Since my saint of the year is St. Benedict, I found this book of Lenten reflections – Lent and Easter Wisdom From St. Benedict.

It has been good for me and helping me to keep my focus on Christ. I have also been trying to turn my mind to Our Lord and Our Lady throughout the day…to ask for their help…to guide me in my work. That way when I feel my temper rising or when I am about to get frazzled, I can turn to them to put out the fire before it starts.;-)

2. Spend more time doing fun things outside the house. We live in a ridiculously gorgeous part of the earth and there is no excuse not to go out and enjoy it. This afternoon we went hiking at Point Lobos Preserve and it was rejuvenating to get outside and be physical. We all had so much fun and I could taste that happiness once again. Sure when we got home there were some meltdowns and mishaps but I was able to keep my cool and just deal with it.

3. Remember that it’s more than just giving up treats. On Thursday the kids were off school so I took them to the library, which a a HUGE treat for them. They love the library! Then we came home and made smoothies and popcorn and watched one of the DVD’s they borrowed from the library. Afterwards we read books together. They asked me why they were allowed to have these treats during a Lenten day. I told them that although we got to do something special, we are also learning to love one another and to be kind to one another. I pointed out how Bella and Andrew helped the younger ones at the library, John-Paul shared his book with Matthew and each of them were speaking kindly to one another. Plus Mommy was spending time with them instead of being too busy in the kitchen or the laundry room or on the computer. I told them that is really what lent is about. Learning to love God more and to love one another more. That is what we had been practicing that day. They smiled and put a their beans in the sacrifice jar for the acts of kindness and love they displayed. (That bean jar has been a huge hit in the house!)

Frankly, I was a little shocked myself that they were acting so well. For one brief moment I felt like one of those holy mom bloggers that I envy that have the six kids in matching outfits as they sit quietly at the dinner table and do math problems for fun. That proud feeling was gone once Matthew hit John-Paul on the head with his light saber but it was nice to know than in between the chaos we can have moments of peace and harmony. 😉

4. Take better care of myself. When my mom was visiting us two weeks ago, I asked her, since she has been watching me interact with Brian and the kids, what would be the one thing she thinks I need to work on in my mommy life during Lent. I thought she would say something like – you need to discipline the kids more or don’t get so grouchy or be a little more patient with Brian and caring for him etc. Instead she said, “I think you need to get more sleep.” Ugh. I knew she was right. The problem is that I am a night owl. I HATE waking up early and I LOVE staying up late but with the kids’ school schedule I have to be up around 6:15 AM. That is fine but when I don’t get to bed until 11:30…12:00…12:30…that makes for one grouchy mama. She pointed out that I needed a good night’s rest in order to take care of my rambunctious boys and do all the things I need to do each day.

I told Brian what my mom said and he replied, “It’s true. You go to bed too late. And you know, I think you also need to drink more water… and eat more fruit… and be more consistent about taking your vitamins.” Whoa, whoa, whoa. What is this? Gang up on Bobbi Day? But, dang it, he’s right. Then he hugged me and says, “I need you, love. I need you to be healthy to help me. I can’t get though this cancer without you by my side helping me and taking care of the kids. What would we do if you weren’t here?” OMG, hand me a kleenex (and my bottle of water and an apple and my multivitamin while you are at it.) Okay, God. I get your message loud and clear.

So, that is what I have been working on for Lent. I actually had a few other things on my mind that I was going to work on too but as I am typing here I feel like God is telling me not to make my plans too ambitious. There is already enough here to keep me busy. Besides, I know what my tendency is…I run strong and fast at the beginning but I have very poor follow through. I am not diligent. I am more of a “is it time for recess yet?” gal. Hopefully, blogging here about my progress will help me be accountable. (Cue my mom’s phone call saying, “So I read what you wrote on the blog…”) 😉

Have a good night. I’ll be in bed early. I promise.

Lenten Ideas 2014 – Bringing Lent Home

By bobbi
March 4, 2014
2 Comments

FOR THE UPDATED VERSION OF THIS POST, PLEASE GO TO – Pinterest Party & Link-up (vol 35): Lenten Activities for the Home (2015)

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It’s hard to believe that Lent starts tomorrow! The only good thing is that I’ve actually prepared for it now instead of two or three weeks into it. I know, right? Shocker. We are doing many of the same traditions we did last year. Here are the main ones.

I love putting wreaths and welcome signs on our door. For Lent, I made a simple Lenten wreath to mark the season.

***

We set up a candle centerpiece using a long rectangular tray filled with six votive candles for the six weeks of Lent.

***

I purchased tiny wreaths from Michael’s that fit around the candle. We add a wreath to a candle on each Sunday of Lent.

***

* * *

Lastly we added our Stations of the Cross pictures to the altar. When we say the Stations of the Cross as a family, we follow this book The Way of the Cross from Magnificat/Ignatius.

Here are some other Lenten activities we will be doing as a family.

Turn off the TV and the computer/iphone more. I have a basket of religious type books that the kids can look at or we can read together. I am also using the Lenten Adventure Activity Books from Holy Heroes, which are great! There are activity pages and coloring pages for the young ones for each day of Lent up until Divine Mercy Sunday.

Fasting from Eating Out. Instead of eating out we will eat whatever left overs we have in the house. We will use the money we saved to buy food to put into the food boxes at church for St. Vincent de Paul’s ministry. The kids get to pick out food and take it to the church. (My sacrifice is letting them “help” me.) 😉

Visit Jesus – Make more visits to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Let the kids light a candle before they kneel and pray.

Donate – Spring clean the toy box and donate toys they don’t use anymore to our local St. Vincent de Paul thrift store.

Crafts – Make Lenten crafts such as one of these Resurrection Crafts.

We can add more as we go but this is what is planned so far. For ideas for your own family, check out these sites.

Lenten Calendar for Kids – Eyes on Heaven

Liturgical Living at a Glance: March – Carrots for Michaelmas

40 Simple Lenten Activities for Kids – CallHerHappy.com

Lenten Activities for Children – CatholicIcing.com

40 Ideas for Lent from Joe Paprocki

Today I focused on things we do as a family. Next I’ll share what I’ll be working on myself this Lent. 🙂 In the meantime, share you favorite Lenten traditions in the comments. 🙂 If you have a blog, leave your link!

Lenten Ideas 2013

By bobbi
February 28, 2013
4 Comments

FOR THE UPDATED VERSION OF THIS POST, PLEASE GO TO – Pinterest Party & Link-up (vol 35): Lenten Activities for the Home

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Today is the second week of Lent. How has it been going? Are you making progress? Or were you too ambitious? Or maybe you still haven’t gotten your act together. The latter was probably closest to me. I was a little late in getting the kids Lenten projects together and barely finished our Lenten altar this week. (We have a regular family altar in the entry way of our home that stays the same year round but in the family room/eating area is our seasonal altar/shelf.)

Here are a few things we are doing this year.

I love putting wreaths and welcome signs on our door. For Lent, I made a simple Lenten wreath to mark the season.

We printed off Catholic Icing’s Lenten Calendar and I placed it in an inexpensive frame from Ikea. I use a dry erase pen to mark a cross on each day as it passes. The kids love using it to countdown the days even though Andrew says it will take “fooooooooooorever” to get to Easter. 😉

I adopted some of the ideas my sister posted in her Lenten Ideas for Kids. I particularly loved the jar idea so we made ones of our own. Each day we pick out one prayer intention and one act of love/ sacrifice we will work on that day. (ie. Share a toy with your sibling or be extra nice to someone at school or do an extra chore.)

I also loved her Lent wreath idea but I didn’t have a wreath so I used a rectangular candle tray I had instead. I purchase a pack of small dinner candles from Target and tiny wreaths from Michael’s that fit around the candle. We add a wreath to a candle on each Sunday of Lent.

Lastly we added our Stations of the Cross pictures and talk about one station each night. Our Lenten altar is right next to the table where we eat so we light our candles and say our prayers before dinner, when we’re guaranteed to all be together.