All Souls Day

Today is All Souls Day, and we remember those who have died and gone on.  At 1:00, we'll have a Mass and all those from our parish who lost a loved one will have the chance to especially remember them and light a candle in their memory.  It will be a guitar Mass.

Then tomorrow the Bishop comes to officially welcome and install our new pastor, Father Kevin McCaffrey.  Kids from the grade school that make up their "choir" will be singing and three of us from the 10:00 folk group will play guitar to ensure a nice, full sound. 

Then tomorrow, our littlest grandchild, Drew, turns six.  Already.  He is a delightful small person, funny and honest and interesting.  His crop of blond hair and the beautiful blue eyes are going to melt some girl's heart one of these days.  But right now, he is quite content to notice that boys are better than girls at baseball, for one thing.  He notices what the other kids bring to school for lunch and drinks, and he wants to fit right in.  He is really proud because he has started to learn how to read.

I've still got to make a cheese ball, make a card, wrap presents, and all sorts of things, so today we're not going to dilly dally around on the blog too long. 

Ever have one of those nights when you just don't sleep very well?  Last night was one of them for me.  I started nodding off down the basement while watching TV after dinner, and that started the whole process.  Then I woke up at around 4:00 or something like that and just couldn't get back to sleep.  When I finally did, I overslept (for me) and now everything seems messed up.  The best cure is to try hard not to fall asleep at any time today and to make it to bedtime without a nap. 

Funny, when I was a kid I wanted to be able to stay up and watch TV until late.  When I was a teenager, we had the typical pajama parties and we all went home exhausted from staying up.  When the kids were little, it would have been so nice to sleep in once in a while, but the couple of times that I accidentally did that, I paid for it.  Once my older son took some pills that he got into by climbing onto the counter via the stove door and getting into a cabinet.  Fortunately, it was his own vitamins that he ate; my pills were in child guard bottles and he couldn't get them open.  Poison control said he'd flush the vitamins out of his system just fine.  One other time I overslept and I literally ran down the stairs to see if everything was all right.  They were too quiet.  As I made my way into the kitchen, I thought I saw something on the floor under the kitchen table and chairs.  I did.  It was a pile of blond hair.  My older son gave his brother a haircut and cut his own hair at the same time.  He also plucked one half of his brother's eyebrow.  They looked just great for their Christmas pictures that year!!

Now that I'm retired, it would be wonderful to have a really good night's sleep, but sometimes that just doesn't work out!!  Crazy, isn't it?

Have a good day despite the gray skies and the rain.  See you on Tuesday morning.