Eternal rest grant to Pope Francis, oh Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace. Amen.
As my husband so aptly said, this was not the news we expected to awake to on Easter Monday. Now begins the period of mourning his passing, but also celebrating that God has called him to his eternal home. Even more exciting, now begins the process of electing a new pope, a process I am not well-versed in, but know can be very grueling and politicized. This time around I am going to try and pay better attention to the process!
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Today's Bible readings are a great example of how the Church tries to connect the dots between the Old and New Testaments with the daily readings! The first reading from the Acts of the Apostles takes place after Jesus is killed, and Peter, Jesus’ right-hand man, points out to his community that they are responsible for allowing an innocent man to be killed and a felon with a rap sheet (Barrabus) to be released. He quotes Scripture as well, pointing out that King David in one of his Psalms (which is sung at today's Mass) illustrates Jesus’ own experience: “Therefore my heart is glad and my soul rejoices,
my body, too, abides in confidence;
Because you will not abandon my soul to the nether world,
nor will you suffer your faithful one to undergo corruption.”
When Jesus rose, he was coming back from the dead, and at the time, until he rose again, there was only Hell. He literally went to hell and back, and no worse for wear, because even after three days, his body showed no signs of decomposition, he did not look like a reanimated mummy or a zombie from The Walking Dead. He is truly alive. Then, the Gospel reading goes on to describe when two of his female followers encounter Jesus after he rose and he tells them to go and tell the rest of his friends.
Why doesn't Jesus go to his friends himself? He eventually does, but in my non-Bible-scholar opinion, I think it was a test! If your best friends don't believe what you have been telling them for months about being the Son of God, why would anyone else? And then, he has to rely on them to spread his teachings. I feel like he was testing their faith first, and then he reveals himself so that they can truly believe.
I think Jesus does this in our lives, too. I think that is why he gives us challenging moments and dark times. He tests our faith, takes us to those lowest lows, and then when the time to reveal himself is right, he reaches out his hand and pulls us up so that we might believe. My husband and I have been through that ourselves, and it even resulted in my husband joining the Catholic church!
What we have left as remembrances of our daughter, Evelynn.
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I made devilled eggs for the first time this morning at the request of my second child. I asked what he wanted for breakfast and he kept saying “double-sided eggs,” and I asked,”you mean sunny side up?” And he became very annoyed that I had no idea what he was talking about. Then I asked for him to give me an example and he said “The eggs we ate yesterday!” So then it clicked!
I am thrilled my boys love eggs because they are nature's powerhouse for healthy protein and fat. Despite old advice to avoid eggs because of the cholesterol, we have now found that dietary fat does not translate directly to cholesterol in the bloodstream that contributes to atherosclerosis, the precursor to heart disease and stroke (Soliman GA. Dietary Cholesterol and the Lack of Evidence in Cardiovascular Disease. Nutrients. 2018 Jun 16;10(6):780. doi: 10.3390/nu10060780. PMID: 29914176; PMCID: PMC6024687. This is just one of many sources explaining this).
I try to prepare eggs as often as possible, and just recently I thought I would be brave and make “pickled” eggs using the leftover brine from a jar of olives, another favorite food in my house which is also incredibly nutrient-dense. We have not cracked into those yet but I will let you know how that experiment turns out!
Pickling is not the same as fermenting necessarily although you can do both simultaneously. I am very much into fermentation with my kombucha, but after reading more about the benefits of live cultures for the gut, I have decided to up my game. I love kefir (fermented milk) and have started making my own dairy cultures from it. Apparently, store-bought yogurt with “live cultures” is only fermented for 24 hours for the sake of mass production, and this does not provide as extensive a variety of bacteria as might be possible with a 3-or-more-day fermentation process. This is my attempt to try something new, different, and better for my family's health. I have only tested it on myself so far but plan to have the boys try it soon! I will have to make much larger batches at the rate they eat yogurt, that's for certain!
My cultured dairy and pickled eggs on the shelf, busy building flavor!
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Keeping with my attempts to clean a little bit and tidy every day, I am trying to do some general pick-up of trash and junk as I walk around the house doing random tasks. I find it really overwhelming and stressful to say, OK I’m just going to clean the dining room today. For some reason that just feels really overwhelming and disincentivizing. But when I tidy and declutter in a sort of organized-chaotic fashion, I find it much more enjoyable and satisfying. So, we’ll go with that for now.
Of course I conveniently avoided any deep cleaning around the house. But that is OK, I am taking small measures to do whatever I can whenever I can.
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I had the opportunity to go on two walks outside today and play in the backyard with the kids, so that was some much-needed time outside. My second walk after dinner with my mom and the baby proved to be a good workout, since I carried the baby on my chest and he weighs over 20 pounds, so that was a pretty good workout in and of itself, like carrying a rucksack! He enjoyed it too, so much that he fell asleep with the warm breeze on his back.
Tomorrow the boys are back to school, and I am hoping that my oldest does well since he is still recovering from his pneumonia. He still tires out a little faster than he normally would, so we shall see if he is able to make it through school and feels like going to soccer practice tomorrow. All in all, it was a nice day off from work after Easter, and I am hoping that the good habits I have been fostering will continue even after today. I am trying to be extra cautious about my diet, since now that I have the grain-free concept down, I need to work on my portions and calories, because at the end of the day, this girl still likes to eat her desserts!
In all seriousness, though, I had a moment of true frustration looking at my diastasis in the mirror today, bulging from the accumulation of food and water throughout the day. This is a completely normal physiologic change, but in this postpartum body it is so much more exaggerated. I am feeling frustrated and disheartened, but I know it is because I have not kept up with my abdominal and pelvic exercises. I suppose I had better add that to my list of new habits to work on….