Shower of Roses giveaway

There is a lovely Catholic blog called Shower of Roses.

This week, the author has compiled an incredible list of Eastertide products and resources, and she's also put together a beautiful collection of things which are being drawn for in a giveaway.

Go on over and visit.  The way to get entries into the drawing is to go to each of the links, and then verify that have done so.  There are etsy shops, retail sites, Facebook pages galore (YES, please clutter my news feed with Catholic goodies!), and a few other odds and ends. 

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Speaking of social media, I've decided that there is enough going on in my life here at home that I actually kind of need the outside link to the world.

Here's the thing: in a typical week, I leave my house once.  Definitely once.  Mass on Sundays.  Before Mass, I rehearse the week's music with the choir and maybe a little bit of next week's music, too.  After Mass, I stand in the narthex with lots of other people and try really hard to give my attention to at least one dear friend for more than 2 minutes.  Usually, I end up sitting with Honey Bee on one of the two stretches of pews to give her a little milkies.

I don't get to go to choir rehearsal.  Rehearsals are on Thursday nights.  Frog works most weeknights.  Pickle and Reepicheep are in the school musical, and have rehearsals on Thursday nights.  It's a good thing I have an incredibly gracious choir director who lets me sing with the choir even though I am not able to be at rehearsals.

Date nights used to be a regular thing, but with the increasing number of musical practices (impending performance and all that) and the Frog's evening job, there just isn't anyone to watch the four littles.  We don't do babysitters--they're scarce, I'm not terribly trusting, and our budget is very limited.

So......social media is back in.  There are Mamas there.  There are people with fibromyalgia there.  There are Catholics there.  There are a huge number of priests and seminarians there, and even several religious sisters.  It's not an entirely bad place to be.

This last week, especially, was not one of my favorite.  For about a week preceding, there was a cough going around the family, and then my Honey Bee popped a fever.  It topped out at 103.5 under her arm, and I felt solidly good about medicating that fever.  (I am one of those Mamas who doesn't reach for the meds immediately: until it gets to be about 101 or a little above, I would rather let it do what it's supposed to do.  Tepid baths and cool cloths are great for comfort.  Obviously, if one of my little ones is in pain, I do what's necessary for comfort.)

Hence the visit to urgent care (because the clinic could not get us in for a few days, even though I said, "My littlest one has an ear infection, and I think my eldest has a scratched cornea.").  Five hours.  Six of us seen.  Lots of meds being juggled.  And we're on the upswing now, thanks be to God!

But when a Mama's buried beneath a pile of coughing babies, Mama sometimes needs to be able to connect with other Mamas who know just what that's like.   And those Mamas are there on the social media, the facebook, the place where we meet people on a regular basis whom we might not ever meet in person.  It's an interesting time in which we live...today I'm glad for the facebook.