Reviews

 OK, oh, my gosh!! This movie might be a new favorite for me! This movie was awesome!
Tom watched it first and told me I would love it. I trust my husband, but I doubted I would love it.
I should never doubt my husband. He was right. I loved it.

                        1950's version                                                                            2016 version

I didn't even know they did a re-make of the old Ben-Hur. Not that I saw the first version, in fact,

it is probably the first version that made me think I would not like the new version. I know lots of people love old movies. I am not one of those people. (I do like some old movies, just not many)

So, it's a story about 2 brothers. (they are actually friends like brothers) Think of Joseph, King of Dreams meets Gladiator. It's a movie about betrayal, and revenge and forgiveness. It takes place during the time of Christ. Jesus is in the movie, a few times and in the end, it comes full circle and Christ wins. Forgiveness wins. I promise, it's good. I let my oldest 4 kids watch this with me and they all liked it.

My one complaint is Morgan Freeman. I mean, couldn't they find any other old, black actors to play his part? Why does it always have to be him. I know, he probably needs the work. He was fine.

This movie I'd also never heard of, turned out to be a great movie. A movie just like the cover says, a movie about true friendship. I really enjoyed this one. I liked seeing Eddie Murphy in this more serious role.

A favorite anytime. I could watch this one over and over and over and....well, Tom bought one online for me and it was only 1.99. That's it. Shipping costs more.

We found this one on Feeln. Liked this one. Twists in it and you know me, if I like it, it had a good ending. Check it out.

This was a show I watched this past year via Netflix. I liked this one. I didn't like that he smokes pot quite often and the show makes it seem like it's something a lot of people do. I don't think that even needed to be in it at all. Why do they do that? Interesting show though.

Ben-Hur. You've got to watch Ben-Hur.

That's all.

Nineveh 90

 Have you heard of Nineveh 90 yet?

I found out about this about a week ago.

This starts Monday, February 13th, 2017

If you are reading this late, you can still do this--just start when you can!

(I right-clicked on this image above, printed it and put it on my fridge)
 This is what I saw. I immediately responded to the person that posted it, "I'm in!"

I have been wanting to do something special for the 100 year anniversary of Our Lady of Fatima

for a while now and thought this sounded perfect.

At first.

Well, it sounds HARD!

As I read through it,

I thought to myself, "OK, this works, yes, I can do this, ummm, this would be hard,

this I could do if I didn't have a husband, this would be easy if it were just me.

Wait a minute! I have to get 7 hours of sleep?

AND

My coffee?  I have to give up my coffee? (my breakfast) I cannot give this part up.

I don't know if this is for me."

Then, I went to the website

HERE

I looked around, watched some of the videos,

and talked online with other women that want to do it.

I have a friend, Nicole, that started a Facebook group

HERE

(if you wish to join that group, please email me first! jamiejo99 (at) gmail.com)

Talking with other women, we are just taking it as a way to come closer to Jesus,

to bring our hearts and souls closer to God, through prayer and sacrifice.

We need to do the things we think we can.

Now to look at it all, to do it all, well,  it looks very overwhelming and a sure-fire way to fail.

No one wants anyone to fail!

I'm picking some of the things that I'm going to do.

(or at least try to do)

Over this past week, I've realized the biggest and hardest thing for me

is going to be getting to bed early enough to get up early enough.

Because, you see, my problem is I stay up way too late,

and then sleep in way too late.

The problem with that is,

If I get up when the kids are already up, (8am)

then, I won't exercise, even if I put my exercise clothes on right away with the

hopes of exercising.  I won't make it to daily Mass because if I get up late,

I won't have time to shower and teach school all before noon Mass.

See how my day really needs to start early in order for this to work for me?

So THIS WILL BE MY FOCUS.

GOING TO BED EARLY ENOUGH TO GET UP EARLY ENOUGH.

I think I'm going to call it,

"Early down, early up"

Wait a minute. I think there is already a saying that says something about

birds and worms and something about rising....oh, well.

EARLY DOWN

EARLY UP!

Again, this is just what I'm doing!

YOU can do what works for you!

• Wear Brown Scapular--Check!
• Monthly Confession--Check!
• Accountability partner? (this one kind of goes with the next one!) 
• Support group? I've got these in the Facebook Group HERE but if you want to join, please email me first (jamiejo99 (at) gmail.com)

The NO's

• no sweets or eating between meals
• no alcohol
• no soda (this means Diet Cherry Coke Zero....I'll try! I'll try....which gives me an out, right?)
• no sweet drinks (if this means my coffee, then I'm not doing this one)
• no television (we don't have any) or movies. This one will be hard. Tom and I watch a show each night, I'm just going to not watch anything extra. Just with Tom and just family things with the kids.
• no music that does not lift the soul to God--this I can do, but, there's a "but" to this one, I'm going to use my music on my ipod to workout with, because working out is in the "YES" section. All other times, I can listen to Christian music no problem!
• no unnecessary computer time. Hmmmm.....bye-bye to Facebook. Except to check my Living Rosary Group, the Nineveh 90 group, check messages and maybe post some inspirational posts. I also get my daily Mass readings online in my inbox, and Bishop Robert Barron Gospel reflections, and a few other things that are Catholic and prayer involved. See how sometimes we pick the wrong "good"? It's good to pray and it's good to pick prayerful things to do online, but, going back to the way it was before online resources might be better.  I think I will definitely need to maybe set a time limit on my online time. That will work too.
• no meat on Wednesday and Friday. Easy. On the Nineveh 90 site, they suggested fasting on those days on bread and water or doing maybe a liquid diet that day. I'm going to try to do the liquid diet thing on those days. Coffee in the morning (see above picture), with my V-8 and then a smoothie for supper. I can do this.

The Yes's

• yes to Daily Rosary
• yes to the Angelus I'm going to try to do this one 3x/day but not necessary at the specific times, the traditional times, you see, this is where we get nit-picky and end up failing and feeling bad about ourselves. I'm going to try to pray this beautiful prayer 3x/day, morning, noon (lunchtime) and night. Angelus is HERE
• yes to the Morning offering:  O Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer You my prayers, works, joys and sufferings of this day for all the intentions of Your Sacred Heart, in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world, in reparation for my sins, for the intentions of all our associates, and in particular for the intentions of our Holy Father for this month.
• yes to 20-60 minutes of mental prayer. This I can do before/after Mass or in Adoration. Now here is one of those things that we can't put so much pressure on ourselves, we lead busy lives. It is a sacrifice but if, for some reason, I've driven kids to, I don't know, piano, choir, unicycling, and work all in one afternoon, well, maybe my work that day, as a mom is my mental prayer, my offering. We need to be flexible and not give up. If I fail on this, I have tomorrow to try again. I think this one might prove to be one of the harder things.
• yes to daily exercise. On the Nineveh 90 site they encourage this to be more intense during the 90 days, but, for me, if I'm exercising daily, well, that is intense enough for me. Period.
• yes, and this one hurts to say and I cringe, because I know it will be hard, yes to 7 hours of sleep.
• yes fast on Wednesdays and Fridays, liquid diet, see above in the "no's".

54 day rosary novena February 13 to April 7.

This is the book I use for this, HERE 

33 day preparation for Consecration to Jesus through Mary. April 10 to May 12
Marian Consecration on May 13th, 2017, The 100 year Anniversary of Our Lady of Fatima!

I'll be doing this consecration. It's simple, only need to read a couple pages daily.

What do you think?

Do you want to join me?

If you don't want to join the Facebook group, you can bookmark this post and we can discuss in the comments or you can email me! (jamiejo99 (at) gmail.com)

One question that has been on my heart though, is, what will I do for Lent?

What will I be able to do that puts Lent in its proper place?

How can I make sure this Nineveh 90 does not take away from Lent, but that it adds?

So far, my answer is The Divine Mercy Chaplet daily at 3pm if possible.

Another thing I have been thinking is maybe adding reading every day

to the little kids. I admit, it doesn't happen every day anymore. life gets busy.

Lent might be the time to get back to what's most important.

My 10 year old has wanted me to teach her how to sew on my sewing machine for months now.

Lent might be the perfect time to do that.

In a prayerful spirit, I ask, what are your thoughts?

EARLY DOWN
EARLY UP!

January Thankful's

 Thankful for these littles that love the snow!!

 Thankful for good friends. They've been friends since they were 5!

 Thankful for warm enough weather to make several snowmen this year!

(the temps need to be in the 30's with melting snow in order to make snowmen)

 Thankful for our beautiful backyard to sled and play in!

 Thankful This middle child loves to play outside and she has such a playful spirit!

 Thankful my kiddos get SO excited when mama goes sledding!!

 Thankful for long shadows at the top of the hill

It reminds me of these shadows from last year this time....

 OK back to winter wonderland!

 Thankful my grandma had her Christmas party and I got the chance to see lots of

my cousins! My beautiful grandma will be 95 this summer!

 Thankful for new Science for littles

(Borax snowflakes)

(old Science for the big kids)

 Thankful for fun winter crafts and fun kids that like to do them!

 Thankful for paper snowflakes

Thankful for our winter craft door

Thankful for beautiful fresh flowers in my window and the hope for Spring.

 Thankful for my entry room dresser

(the 2 littles' clothes are in there)

 and my simple red-berry bouquet

(is this a Christmas only thing or can I have this out all year?)

 Thankful for big kids and string games

The same games I played when I was a kid.

 Thankful for January sugar cookie baking!

 Recipe HERE

 Thankful for a new way to curl the girls' hair!

You take a pencil and wrap the hair around it, then,

flat iron it, it took about 45-60 minutes per head, depending on how thick the hair was.
I got up really early this particular day!

 These curls lasted 2 days.

We've also tried straw curls, but those don't last as long.

(curling on a straw, tying it and sleeping in the "straw curlers")

 Thankful I've been hosting some teen nights!

My goal is to do these 2x/month

The kids just come here and hang out for a few hours.

I've done it twice now and had over 30 kids total, including mine.

Love how the boys arm wrestle!

 Thankful for our old air hockey table in the basement!

 Thankful for the pre-party party!

(some of the kids came early to hang out before the party)

 Thankful for the HUGE coat pile! This makes me smile for some reason!

 More arm wrestling!

 They all hang out in the basement and my littles LOVE the big kids!

 Thankful some kids bring younger siblings!

These 2 have been friends since they were babies!

 Thankful I needed some ear plug things and found these great over-the-ear ones!

They do not fall off when I workout!!

Thankful for my favorite medal of all, the one I wear all the time

(except when I try to be cool and wear a decorative jewelry, then I just add other medals to those)

(see my recent posts)

I've had this medal for probably 23 years

Thankful for piano recitals and our piano teacher!

Mary has taught all 4 of our oldest kids.

My oldest son is working now and taking college classes and decided after 9 years

of piano, to take a break.

My oldest daughter was in a play this past fall and had to take a break from piano.

(she is back at it though now)

My 2nd oldest daughter decided after a year, piano was not for her.

This is my 4th child playing.

 Thankful for kitchen tables.

Yesterday my in-laws had their old table delivered to our home.

They are so generous to us.

This table is HUGE!

Every time I've been there, I've thought what an awesome table this is!

It's a 9 foot, one whole piece, extra-wide top, solid board-room type table.

(I think we can fit at least 14 around it with more chairs)

The table is over 40 years old.

My father-in-law saw it being disposed of out a window of a business building in

the Twin Cities and asked if he could have it.

Last night when I was wiping it after it was delivered,

it brought me to tears.

Thinking of all the family time that was spent at this table and

how hard it probably was for my mother-in-law to give it away.

(they need something smaller for my FIL to be able to get around easier)

I can only promise her that thousands of meals, games and prayers will take place around this

very special table.

Trying to be Thankful wherever I am, even though I dream of warm weather.

Our life is no where near perfect.

It's messy, loud, crazy and sometimes sad.

But it's our life and I'm ever so Thankful for all of God's blessings.

Thankful you made it to the last picture!