This is what's up

- Nun Visit: Sr. Myriam Caritas of the Lamb of God has been in town this week. She's home from her convent in the Bronx and I have been able to hang out with her several times. I always love getting Fr. Benedict stories from her, and partaking in a Lebanese feast at her mom's house.

- New Job for me: For almost a year I have been working for the Newman Center I worked at my first 2 years after college. I've been working from home creating newsletters, brochures, and other documents. Recently I have also taken on the job of Alumni Development / Fundraising. This basically means it's now my job to grow our contact lists and ask people to give to Newman. (Which, by the way, Newman really needs because our funding was cut by 66%!)

- NFP Training is going well, though somewhat slowly. We've been trying to accomplish one lesson a week.

- Pregnancy Dreams have been crazy lately. This week I've dreamt about Travis cheating on me, a tornado and vampires taking over the world. I guess I'm just working through all the worst case scenarios that could happen in my life. On the positive side, though, I did have another dream that the baby in my womb is a boy.

- Baby Boy Names: We were going to go with Bennet Mark, which was our boy name left over from Lydia. Bennet because it is a combo of Benedict (our beloved Pope) and Benno (my beloved Grandpa). Mark because it's a family middle name on Trav's side, including his. BUT we now know 3 other couples who either just had a boy or are about to have a boy and will be naming him Bennet. We thought the name was a little more unique... New possibilities are: Dominick, Benedict, Elliot, Kolbe, and Blaise.

- Dr. W: My cousin Jamie graduated this summer with her doctorate in psychology. She's the first doctor in the family and I am so incredibly proud of her. She's worked her butt off for a long time and has already accomplished a lot of good.

- Responsible Journalism: I am so tired of the news covering Michael Jackson and Jon & Kate. There are many, many more important things happening in the world - could you please cover those things?! Archbishop Chaput (one of the best the US has!) has a very good piece on this very thing. Imagine how affirmed I felt when he said what I was thinking - just you know, more intelligently and thoughtfully than I ever could have done.

- Travis' Masters Program: He got accepted, enrolled and then we got a bill. It turns out that what we had been led to believe would be tuition-free, wasn't. 2/3 was paid for - which is a HUGE deal and an awesome opportunity - but wasn't enough for my husband, who really had little interest in the program besides the fact that it would get him his masters from a good school for very little money. (We probably sound like ungrateful jerks.) As we discussed it we also realized that while we had prayed that he would get into the program we never once prayed about if he should do it. Turns out that his alma mater has a masters program he's much more interested in that will only cost $200 more a class, and he'll be enrolling with one of his best friends. It'll start a little bit later, but that will give us time to finish up NFP training and get used to the new baby.

- My Birthday is coming up!!! I'm going to be 28. I think I'm celebrating by going to the new Harry Potter movie with my husband and, hopefully, drinking a HUGE iced chai at Barnes & Noble while I illegally copy recipes from magazines and cookbooks. Livin' it up!