Quick Takes #269 September thoughts

1. Happy Fall ~ after what has felt like a lot of rain the sun is finally shining which is definitely helping everyone's mood as fall activities ramp up and quizzes and tests start coming more frequently.
2. Caitlin is enjoying Kindergarten; though points out that there is a lot more rules than in Pre-K. Her first Daisy meeting went well and as did her first couple of gymnastics classes.
3. Liam is enjoying his soccer team; having even taken a couple turns as goalie.  His new Cub Scout den/pack also seems a much better fit then last year and he is starting on his first Wolf merit badge.  School is also going well with him meeting the challenge the increased work load of second grade well as well as having fun trading Pokemon cards with several classmates.
4. Elisabeth having made the move to the top floor is learning to juggle multiple teachers and changing rooms for classes. Gymnastics got off to a bumpier start, but hopefully have her coach with a better understanding of her skill level (aka front handspring not front roll).
5. During my mom's visit last week we returned to a wonderful museum we had last visited my freshman year of college. My dad was a huge Wyeth fan and so on Parent's Weekend he dutifully visited my college house and School of Nursing; and then suggested we head to the Brandywine River Museum.  Now 20+ years later it was just a wonderful if not even more so. Known for its excellent Wyeth family collection, there is also paintings by his sisters and his brother-in-laws; as well as currently wonderful exhibit on portraits including sketches and portraits by Norman Rockwell and Mary Cassatt.
6. Adding a bit of sadness to these past couple of weeks is the knowledge that the Penn Newman Center will soon be demolished. The news of the sale came out during the summer so it is not a shock but I know it will be a bit of gut punch when I see it actually gone.  The building was built in the early 1970's and apparently not well; but given that the center is not only where I met and began dating Charlie but in the chapel where we made our marriage vows it is hard to see it go.
7. Have a good weekend!!

Please head over to Kelly's for more 7QT's!

Our Backstory; The Wrap-up

Part 1
Part 2

   So we finished out the school year and I headed home for the summer; Charlie visited me and learned how to change a diaper (I was working as a nanny), I went with him to visit his parents and learned to build the most amazing bookshelves (he and his parents are amazing DIYers).

   My junior and senior years pass as you would expect; lots of hard work, seeing each other when we could.  During this time Charlie's lab closed and he had to find a new one but luckily found another at PENN.  So as my senior year moved past the halfway point and I started planning for life after graduation; talk of marriage which had largely been theoretical became much more practical.  Charlie felt strongly that (perhaps because of our age difference) it was important that I live on my own for awhile, first job ~ first place.  And the whole married/priestly vocation question was still lurking around the edges.  I went along mostly because it seemed very important to him (totally glossing over the many, many discussions where I described our lives as wonderful and was convinced that at 22 I had it all figured out) and knowing that even if engaged we would mostly likely not get married until he was closer to finishing his degree.

So began our almost five years of long distance dating;

• from May'95 till February '96 I was in VA at my parents studying for nursing boards and looking for a job and Charlie was in Philadelphia in graduate/medical school.
• from February'96 till Summer'98 I was in CT working as a Labor and Delivery nurse and Charlie was Philadelphia finishing his MD/PhD
• Fall 98 found me at Georgetown University getting my Master's and Charlie in Houston, TX starting his residency.  (Had applied to graduate programs up and down the East Coast but never expected the residency match system to send him to Houston!!).

   Lots of emailing, late night phone calls and visiting when we could.  Luckily during the CT-PA years once I had finished orientation I had a fairly predictable schedule as far as weekends off.  And it seemed as if those years prepared us for the year and a half when the distance was much greater and the visits were months apart.
   In February 2000 having completed my Master's and taken my midwifery boards I moved to Houston to join Charlie, and what followed was a wonderful year of seeing each other regularly, joining a wonderful church where I made friends I have to this day.  What it didn't include was a job in midwifery or a proposal.  Charlie had accepted a fellowship in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology back in Philadelphia and while I promised to look nearby job wise I also said that unless we were engaged I felt I needed to move wherever I could get a job.
 
   One of the things both of us wanted to do before moving back East was visit San Antonio and the Alamo so one day in April of 2001 we head out to drive the three hours.  About an hour into the drive Charlie started in very serious tones a SOTR (state of the relationship) talk and as he was very serious and seemed a bit sad all I could think was "Please don't break up with me now, I'm trapped in a car with you and we are headed away from home!!"  He wasn't, but felt obligated to point out the years of study ahead of him, the challenges of being married to a physician and whatever else he felt I should consider before deciding to marry him.  As if dating a med student and resident over the past eight years  had not made those things evident!  ANYWAY... I said Yes! and it put a certain rosy glow to the day which is good because by the time we got to San Antonio it was pouring ~ but we were happy and so like two drowned mice we walked around the Alamo and up and down the RiverWalk and then had dinner where they got our orders completely wrong.  The rain did stop in time for us to drive into the loveliest of sunsets heading back to Houston.

Packing up for leave TX and head back to PA

Epilogue: Our Wedding was December 28, 2002 and was to be in the parish bordering the PENN campus because it had been decided way back in 1993 by the Archdioceses that daily Mass could continued to be held at the Newman Center but Sunday liturgy could only be offered at the Church (I was actually the last Liturgy Chair after me it became the Spiritual Committee).  Except that two weeks before the wedding a huge piece of the ceiling fell and the church was closed until deemed structural sound ~ and since we were having a small wedding we married in the Chapel at the Newman Center where we had met ten years earlier.

Our Backstory Part II

Part 1 here

  On a bit of a steep learning curve I started my 'chiefship' and help plan some of the remaining liturgies before the school year finished and I headed home for the summer.  My take on Charlie; kind, soft spoken, very smart ~ and (according to a couple of friends) well suited for the priestly vocation he was considering after medical school.

   Sophomore year finds me with tough classes but enjoying our meetings often held on an enclosed bridge between two buildings as Charlie and another committee member worked late in their labs.  Early in December Charlie and his housemates hosted a Christmas party for the music group he sang with and other Newman friends.  Deciding that there were not enough meat-free options for me and another friend who was also a vegetarian he quickly made a dish of meatless stuffed peppers, I thought there was plenty of options but the peppers were delicioius.  We then spent much of the post-dinner/gift exchanging talking together.

   Since most of our student community went home for Christmas but still wanting to celebrate a bit of Christmas together it was the custom to hold a CAMC (Community Mass in Anticipation of Christmas) at the end of finals.  As it happened the Mass was on the day I was leaving to go home, so after Mass I gave my fellow committee members Christmas/thank you cards since I was well aware of how much I still had to learn and how much I appreciated their hard work.  When I gave Charlie and thanked him I received one of the best compliments of my life "Thank you for being you".  I was late but had no trouble running the whole way back to the dorm to meet my mom.  I then spent part of the drive home and my Christmas break wondering if perhaps something romantically was starting between us.

  Late January found us on a retreat together where hugs came easily and even hand holding, I rode back in his car and thanked him for the ride with a kiss on the cheek.  Then in February a party thrown by my roommate for her then boyfriend now husband's birthday that I invited several Newman friends but only Charlie came and the yearly med school Spoof where we sat together and talked for a long time after became in retrospect our first two dates.  After which we purposely and exclusively dated and on the 3rd date kissed!!

   Shortly after we had started dating I went home for Spring Break at the end of which was a blizzard and my train back to Philadelphia from Alexandria was cancelled, however trains were running north of DC so my dad drove me to a station in Maryland to see if I could find a seat and my mom (speaking with him for the first time) called Charlie who was to pick me up at the train station to tell him of the change in plans and that I would call for a ride when I got back to the city.  So I arrive back and got into line for the phone (oh those pre-cell phone days) and looking back up from setting my suitcase down what should I see but HIM walking across the train station towards me.

And across a crowded train station whatever doubts I had about being with someone eight years older and considering the priesthood vanished; I was in ~ wherever this was going ~ I was in.

the tale from here to proposal last eight years and spans fours states; and so is for another day.

a rare one of us together

Our Backstory Part 1

    Am late to the how we met/married party largely because I keep talking myself out of trying to write it down ~ so long ago now I worry this is either going to be pages and pages or two paragraphs.

    Some backstory to Our Backstory: Someone or something was clearly leading me to PENN. Despite moving to the Mid-Atlantic (MD & VA) when I was five I have always considered myself a New Englander; I love the food, the geography, the spirit ~ everything! So 80% of the colleges I was planning on applying to were up there, a couple in VA where I was living and PENN. Which is Ivy League and in the city and everything I thought I didn't want ~ and one of the top nursing programs in the country.  I then as I do now often underestimate myself but some small part of me was curious and did not want to ten years later be curious if I could have gotten in if I had but tried. 

    Given the cost it was recommended to me that I apply Early Decision ~ and I did and it was the only school I ultimately applied to because they accepted me.  So I went to PENN where in the Spring of my freshman year I met Charlie.

    Having come from a wonderful parish with a great Youth Group one of the things I did at PENN was find the Newman Center (Catholic Student Center) and joined in; I became an Extra-ordinary Minister of the Eucharist, joined the Adoration Schedule, etc and in the Spring found out that I had been nominated to the Student Council as head of the Liturgy Committee.  I pointed out that as a freshman I thought I was too young to then President, he told me to run anyway since I might not win ~ turns out I was running unopposed and won.  So that March after a joint council meeting (outgoing and incoming) up walks this nice guy (Charlie) who simultaneously tells me it will be fine because there was a structure in place and I must have looked in shock and then threw me for a loop by asking when I wanted to schedule our first meeting. (Charlie claims we had met before but I have no memory of this and am the one writing this so there.)

   So I took a deep breath, scheduled a committee meeting and discovered exactly how over my head I was when at the meeting I learned that the committee was rising Sophomore me and 4 PhD students. Eep!

to be continued

Blessed John Henry Newman ~ Feast Day

        
         As I have written previously being involved at my university's Newman Center had a great and wonderful impact on my life and faith journey (not the least of which ~ it is where I met my husband) up to and including this weekend when C.and I presented at a Pre-Cana Day hosted at the Center. The following quote was on a plaque given me at graduation:


“God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons.
He has not created me for naught. I shall do good; I shall do His work.
 I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place,
while not intending it if I do but keep His commandments.
Therefore, I will trust Him, whatever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him, in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him. If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends. He may throw me among strangers. He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me. Still, He knows what He is about.”
― John Henry Newman


And the following is an excerpt from Pope Benedict's Homily at the beatification this past year ~And indeed, what better goal could teachers of religion set themselves than Blessed John Henry’s famous appeal for an intelligent, well-instructed laity: “I want a laity, not arrogant, not rash in speech, not disputatious, but men who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold and what they do not, who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it” (The Present Position of Catholics in England, ix, 390). On this day when the author of those words is raised to the altars, I pray that, through his intercession and example, all who are engaged in the task of teaching and catechesis will be inspired to greater effort by the vision he so clearly sets before us.


Blessed John Henry Newman pray for us
"Cor ad cor loquitur"