PodTech: Techie Sister

Just to make it easier to get to, here is the actual video with Sister Judith, for your viewing pleasure!

Telus backs down, and vatican.va goes Mac

Good news this morning, as Telus has backed down from its recent decision to offer pornographic images and videos for sale on their cell phone service. Archbishop Roussin and the BC Catholic took a very strong stand against Telus this past week, and it seems that between that press and the many complaints from customers, the company has reversed its position. Praise be to God!

I’ve been following this a little bit over the last week, and it’s fascinating. Sister Judith Zoebelein is the editorial director of the Holy See and runs the website team of vatican.va - Robert Scoble has a fascinating interview with this very sharp woman, and Whispers in the Loggia has some great info too. The coolest thing? They run Linux and use Macs. Aside from that, Sister Judith is intelligent and very well spoken. A must see.

(*I’ve posted a link to the video in a post on its own, so you can watch it right here!)

Also from Whispers in the Loggia (which is becoming one of my fave blogs, I have to say) is a beautiful video clip of the Allegri. What a fantastic way to begin Lent.

Public Speaking

This weekend, I had the dubious pleasure of giving membership drive presentations at three of the four Sunday masses, on behalf of our Catholic Women’s League council. I’m a Lector, and have gone through a year of Toastmasters, so I am not entirely without some skills in the area. However, I have to admit the last day and half were a little gut wrenching at times.

I tried to give a little bit of a personal spin to it, and I think it all worked, but man - I was nervous! Hard to catch my breathe, and my stomach was churning terribly.

I tried to get a bit more help to cover some of the masses, but most people are simply terrified of public speaking. So, I hoofed it through and I’m glad I did. The benefit for doing a CWL drive like this is that I got to go to masses I don’t normally go to. We’re fairly regular (98% of the time) at the 8:00 am mass. If we are taking a Sunday drive somewhere, we’ll go Saturday evening, but that’s pretty unusual. I got to experience the 5:00 Saturday, my regular 8:00 am and then the noon. The most interesting was the noon - it was very packed, and I had a number of ladies approach me afterwards to inquire about our meetings. 8:00 am was good too, but subdued - pretty normal for that mass. 5:00 yesterday was not bad, but people really looked like they wanted to get out of there and get on with their weekend plans.

The other benefit was hearing three homilies; yesterday it was our Assistant Pastor, Fr. Yeung, and I am happy to report that his new priesthood is settling in. His homilies are getting better and he looks more comfortable in his skin up there. I think he is a deeply devotional person, and I am sure we will be hearing lots of great things from him. My favorite part was when he was explaining the rules of fasting and abstinence for Ash Wednesday and the Lenten season, and he threw in a little joke about “even abstinence from ice cream”, which I know to be his favorite dessert. Fr. James was the celebrant at 8:00 am and at noon, and it was interesting to see how his homily was the same yet different. The youth choir did the music at noon, and they did a great job. I felt like I went to three different churches this weekend - how amazing is the Body of Christ?

The next few weeks are going to be interesting. I’m going to go hear Immaculee Ilibagiza speak on February 27th at our local Catholic high school. She is survivor of the Rwandan genocide and has written a book called “Left to Tell” - I have the book here now (just arrived on Friday) and am hoping to read it and have her autograph it. She has an amazing story of survival to tell. Also coming up on March 3rd, Fr. Tom Rosica from Salt + Light TV will be coming to our parish to give a Lenten reflection, something to do with media I believe. Definitely going to that - what a great opportunity.

Speaking of Salt + Light, Fr. Rosica has a great interview with Rocco Palmo of Whispers in the Loggia. Definitely worth a look - I can’t believe how young Rocco is. And I have to admit, I’m jealous of the number of hits he gets. However, he works 16-18 hours a day so I’m not that jealous : )

Lent is coming quickly; one of my favorite seasons in the liturgical calendar. Either I’m a glutton for punishment or I’m just reveling in the newness of this refining opportunity. Maybe when I’m 20 years into being a Catholic, the novelty will wear off. In any case, I am excited about this year, and walking these 40 days with Jesus before entering the Easter season. What are you doing to prepare yourself for Lent, and in essence, Easter?

Catholic Blog Awards

I must apologize! Due to recent “IRL*” activities, I have been remiss to mention this year’s Catholic Blog Awards. There is a registration to see and to vote (and to nominate… that’s what I was remiss about!) but it’s quick and painless. I had no idea there were so many Catholic blogs - I have some new reading to do. The categories are plentiful, and the candidates are many. Your humble blogmistress has been nominated for “Best Designed Catholic Blog” - I am flattered.

Both Curt and I have been struggling to get our blog postings back to days of old, where it was a daily or at most, every other day, habit. Maybe our Lenten journey this year will see us giving up coffee (again!?) and adding in more blogging. We’ll see. We still have a few days to figure that out, but it is coming up quick! Lent is my favorite time in the Liturgical Year. Walking 40 days in the desert with Jesus is a truly grace-filled opportunity for personal refinement, and each year I’ve participated in Lent, the interior changes are profound. Sometimes it even comes out in exterior changes, like more time exercising (which will be a Lenten observance for years to come, I think!) and more charitable acts.

Most importantly, my confidence in Christ (and in myself) is growing each year, and that is an amazing gift. When people don’t “get” Lent, I try to explain it but the depth of opportunity doesn’t always come through. Catholic or not, I think all Christians should experience the desert with our Lord in preparation for His death and resurrection at Easter. And it just happens that the Catholic Church has been doing this for a long time now, and the system works. Highly recommended.

Finally - Happy Valentine’s Day! May St. Valentine bless you and your loved ones today.

*IRL=In Real Life. I’m pretty sure you knew that.

Getting things done

First off, thank you for all who were here and read my request for prayers - very appreciated, and as usual, they worked. The situation is still not resolved, but I left my anxiety at Jesus’ feet as I received Holy Communion on Sunday morning, and I’ve been feeling loads better since.

I’m slowly working my way through David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” book, which has been helping me put my “stuff” in its place, and streamlining everying else. My job is growing increasingly in complexity and responsibility, which is great, but it does sometimes feel like I don’t have enough time. Part of stewardship is making sure we do the best with what we have, and then some. I’m working on the the “then some” right now.

For those of you not familiar with GTD, the ubiquitous Merlin Mann has a great round up over at 43folders, which is one of my favorite sites about personal organization out there. And Merlin is just outright funny too. Curt and I both laughed at this snippet:

I think Getting Things Done appeals to geeks for a lot of reasons. Overgeneralizing for effect:

• geeks are often disorganized or have a twisted skein of attention-deficit issues
• geeks love assessing, classifying, and defining the objects in their world
• geeks crave actionable items and roll their eyes at “mission statements” and lofty management patois
• geeks like things that work with technology-agnostic and lofi tools
• geeks like frameworks but tend to ignore rules
• geeks are unusually open to change (if it can be demonstrated to work better than what they’re currently using)
• geeks like fixing things on their own terms
• geeks have too many projects and lots and lots of stuff

Ummm… I have nothing more to add!

PS: I’m super excited today because I was able to step up and ask for a Wacom Intuos3 pen tablet at work, and got the go-ahead. I got it last night and tried it out here at home - I LOVE IT. I can’t wait to get going with it, I think it will open up a whole new level of creativity for me, and maybe even help me do some of my tasks faster because of it. Woo hoo!

Because it’s been a rough week

It’s been a very rough week; can’t go into details but if you are a praying person, prayers are welcome. Nothing to do with me personally but I am affected and affect me it has. I’m on my way to mass shortly, but I thought it would be nice to post a couple of pics taken recently with the new camera. I am so itching for longer days with clear skies so I can really get out there and “learn by doing” with the Sony. For now, you will have to be happy with incredibly cute dog pictures : )

To consider today

From this morning’s Magnificat reading:

“Faith is a breaking out of the isolation that is the malady of my ‘I’ … Faith means resisting the brute force that would otherwise pull us under.” ~ Pope Benedict XVI

Have a good day all. The days are getting brighter outside again; spring is coming!

What I love about Sunday

Even though our busy day yesterday means we have to do some Saturday house chores today, it’s still Sunday and it’s sunny, to boot. We snapped a few pics of the pups hanging out in the sunshine on our bed. Even the dogs know it’s the weekend; they’re even more relaxed than usual!

Sarah and Darwin goofing around. Darwin looks like he’s trying to figure out if he should jump on her head or just give her a good bite. There’s a few more fun pics of the same ilk over at my Flickr page - just click any picture in the Flickr badge on my sidebar, and off you go.

Back to the rest of the leftover Saturday stuff. Almost done and then real Sunday relaxation can commence.

There’s Something About Mary

Curt and I traveled to neighbouring Langley today, to St. Nicholas Parish to attend a seminar sponsored by Redeemer Pacific College. The speaker? St. Blogs’ favourite son, Mark Shea. We’ve been reading Mark’s blog, Catholic and Enjoying it, for about three years now. As we journeyed towards the Church, reading blogs like Mark’s helped both Curt and I along tremendously. While we didn’t get a chance to chat with him (Sorry Mark! We were rapidly running out of fuel and had to find lunch fast right after the session wrapped up), his talks were edifying and enjoyable. I personally learned a ton, especially during the first talk: “Behold your Mother: Discovering the Blessed Virgin Mary”; as a convert from a scattered evangelical past, I have had to unlearn some things about the Mother of Christ over the past few years. I will try to work out my notes that I took and post my thoughts here in the next few days. I haven’t been here much lately for a variety of reasons, but I will try to fix that. There’s lots going on, both in my life and in the lives of people I “know” online, and I need to keep in touch a little better. It’s good to keep connected. It’s also good for me to get some of my jangly thoughts and musings out of my head and out to where they can’t keep nagging at me.

Mark had a little trouble at the beginning with an uppity microphone, but all was well when he moved up to the lectern near the altar. My camera had a few problems knowing what to focus on because of all the fantastic sunshine streaming in!

Mark’s second talk was on “101 reasons not to be Catholic. There are a million reasons not to be a Catholic, and only one reason to be one. You be the judge.” This talk was not quite as theological and had quite a bit of Mark’s personal story, which was very interesting to hear. We have much in common, and I think he and my husband even more so. I’ll let Curt tackle that on his own blog, though, if he so chooses.

It’s always a joy to visit with Redeemer Pacific College students and staff. RPC is a small Catholic college attached to the much larger Trinity Western University, an Evangelical University in Langley. The arrangement is unique, and is exciting. RPC students receive a Catholic education while also attending classes at Trinity, and can choose from many undergrad degrees. Both Curt and I wish we were about 10 years younger and able to choose this type of education, but the fact is we’re well into the workforce with a mortgage and other responsibilities, so we do what we can. A couple years ago, we did the same trip and heard Dr. Janet Smith speak. That was before we were received into the Catholic Church, and was a real experience. I remember those days as being somewhat anxiety ridden as I wasn’t sure if my request for a declaration of nullity of my first marriage would be valid or not. The waiting was very hard, but I had determined even then that no matter what, I still wanted to be Catholic, even if I couldn’t participate in the Eucharist. My thoughts on that day with Dr. Smith are here, for all posterity. See? Blogs are awesome. You can dip back two years in your archives and see that you actually do know how to string a few coherent words together after all.

Anyway, we came away from today very grateful that we are part of a Christian community that has depths to plumb like nothing either of us have ever had. The intellectual goldmine is one thing, but the real treasure is in the deposit of faith that is being protected, loved, and handed down now and until Jesus comes back. Thank you to Mark Shea for being yet another apostle of common sense; his hero, GK Chesterton, would be proud of what he shared with us today.

Five days in

So, we’re five days into 2007! Belated Happy New Year to all. I was working between Christmas and New Year’s, unlike most of my coworkers, so I was a little preoccupied and not in the mood to blog much in my free time.

Overall, it was a nice New Year’s Eve. We spent most of the afternoon and evening at my inlaws, and we all had a great dinner and enjoyed each other’s company.

And of course, January 1st rolled around and it’s time to pull up the bootstraps, especially in the healthy eating area. December was a wash - everyone was sick and we all ate pretty badly. Lots of chocolate, lots of other tasty things, but not all of it was very good for us.

I had some success a couple months ago with an online food tracker, and I found another one with more features and a nicer interface. It does have a monthly subscription fee of $9US, but for now I think it’s worth it. That’s two Starbucks coffees.  If you’re so inclined, try out www.myfooddiary.com and take the guided tour. I like it so far, and I appreciate that it gives me a running total of how much I’ve eaten plus how much room I have left in my calorie budget for the day.

I’m also amazed at how many calories there are in fast food meals, even the so called “healthy choices!” It’s cool that most of the big chains are listing all of the nutrition info (www.wendys.com is very neat - you can customize your meal to give you an accurate idea of how much you’re really eating, handy for people like me who shun most condiments.) However, most of the fast food meals are easily more than half of my daily caloric budget. Not worth it.

In my wise old age (34 now, I’m certainly getting on, aren’t I?) I’ve come to the conclusion that a calorie is a calorie is a calorie. So I’m going to watch them like a hawk and see how things go. My food diary told me that I was over the limit by about 300 calories, but I hadn’t exercised (I slept in this morning instead!) So I went and rode my recumbent bike for 30 minutes after dinner and that brought me back in line again. And I’m just going to take it one day at a time.

When I went to confession during Advent, I had to confess my laziness and my general lack of concern for my health. I have to say that actually admitting it to the priest, and in effect to God, really struck my heart this time. Not to mention that I love my life and want to enjoy it as long as possible. I used to think that I didn’t overeat, but in retrospect I can see that I’ve made some regrettable food choices, usually emotionally based, and I think (I know!) I can do better. I’m so grateful for my Catholic faith in this, because it is so understanding of our fallen human nature. We try, we fail, we get up again, and on it goes. There is such gentleness and love in Christ, and I need to hold fast to that as I struggle to bring “healthy back.”

To any of my readers and friends out there, I wish you a blessed and joyful 2007. I think it’s going to be a wonderful year; even though the weather here has been most frightful lately (flooding again just a couple of days ago!) we can be thankful for friends, family, God’s love, health, work, and everything that brings us peace and happiness.