7QTs about the Christmas spirit and duct tape

1 - L had her school Christmas concert earlier this week. The seventh graders always learn to sign a couple of songs in ASL instead of singing them. "Hey Moon" by Sidewalk Prophets was one of the songs they signed and it was beautiful. I thought I'd share it here because I really enjoyed it.

This is my super cropped photo so I don't show anyone else's kid's face. But I still wanted to share it because L is holding her candy cane the right way. She had told me that morning that she was nervous because during the "J is for Jesus" part of their "Candy Cane Song" she held her candy cane so it made a J for her, not the people watching. Right before she went on stage I even prayed to her Guardian Angel and asked that he make sure she did it the right way. After the concert we both celebrated she had gotten it right. She was so proud and so was I. 

2 - They other day at my mom group someone mentioned how expensive bras can be. I piped up in agreement and mentioned that my bra's underwire had just started poking out and was hurting me. "I wonder if I can duct tape it?"

My friend Jen - without being the teeniest bit condescending even though she could have because, seriously? Duct tape, Bonnie? - said, "Why don't you just stitch it up?" 

Since the rest of the bra is in really great shape I saved myself $60 or a a trashy duct taped bra and stitched those suckers back into place like a real domesticated lady, which I am actually, obviously not.

3 - The Feast Days. On Monday I spent a lot of time gazing at this image.

(The Sisters of Our Lady of the Mississippi Abbey sell it.)

There's so much I love about this image: the shame in Eve’s face and the love in Mary’s, the way Mary holds Eve’s hand on her womb, like she's saying, “He’s kicking; here, feel. He will make all things news. It’s okay. It’s okay.”
We also ate rice krispie treats for dessert, after the kids did fairly well at the 6pm Mass. Fr. Julius said they were good, though, and so that was good enough for me. I'm not sure who started the tradition of white food on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, but it sounded like a great reason to have rice krispie treats. 

On Tuesday the Church celebrated St. Juan Diego but in our home we celebrated Venerable Fulton J. Sheen who died on December 9^th 35 years ago. L and Ben took chocolate chip cookies to school to celebrate; JF took rice krispie treats. At our moms group we ate tortilla chips and Old EL PASO salsa since Sheen was born in El Paso, Illinois. For dinner we had a hearty Midwestern meal of venison meatloaf, smashed sweet potatoes, biscuits, green beans.

Tonight we were hoping to have some friends over for a mini fiesta in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe but then poor Resa got sick. She doesn't look very sick, does she?

So we'll be having beans and rice for dinner and drink Mexican hot chocolate all by ourselves. Then we'll pray a rosary in Spanish. I’m just dreaming, we won't pray a rosary, let alone in Spanish.

Saturday we’ll possibly have Santa Lucia rolls for breakfast and then head out for a tree farm. We’ll put up our tree and then possibly drive around, looking at Christmas lights.

4 - Usually we put up our tree on Guadete Sunday but this year I’ll be speaking in Park Forest, Illinois that day. If any of you guys live in the south suburbs of Chicago it would be great if you could join me at St. Mary’s Parish in Park Forest on Sunday at 2pm. I think they’re having light refreshments afterwards and Travis and our friend Mia will be with me so there's three more good reasons to come! I'm pretty excited because we get to have lunch with our favorite bread makers ever - the Marconis!

And hey! If you read the blog and will be there let me know. Leave a comment here or on FB so I can be on the look out for you. :)

5 - So my friend Katie is amazing. Her cousin sent her a picture of a silly Christmas hairdo and dared Katie to wear it to work one day. Katie, who works at a Catholic school, said No. Her cousin came back and said she'd make a donation to charity if Katie did it. 

As Sherlock would say, "The game is on!"

Katie opened it up and said that anyone who made a donation to her parish's St. Vincent de Paul food pantry (money or canned goods) could make a request. I asked for gaudy earrings.

In the end she raised $327 and a box of canned goods. Here's the hairdo that started it all

And here's the whole look.

I am so impressed with Katie and her humility, generosity, and good spirit. I'm pretty sure that I'm too vain to look this ridiculous. 

6 - Last night we were driving and the kids wanted to sing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. So I started singing, "Rudolph the red nosed reindeer had a very shiny nose..." and then L cut me off.

L: We need to start at the beginning.
Me: This is the beginning.
L: Not in my book.

Travis and I laughed, even harder because she meant what she said. She has a book with Christmas carol lyrics and that begins the song with the list of reindeer names.


7 - I know I already posted pictures of my mantel but I wasn't very happy with it so it got  a little make over. The nativity that sat there was moved to the bookshelf in the living room and the one that was on the bookshelf in the living room was moved to our home altar in the dining room.

Then I tucked some garland behind the stocking holders and ran some pretty star lights through it. I added some silver ornaments that were used to decorate for my December wedding 8 years ago.

Then in the void above I started taping up Christmas cards. So far I've got three from family members, two from blogger friends, one from a woman I've been friends with since kindergarten, one from a friend at my old parish, and two from friends at my new parish. I hope it grows!

I love it. By next year I hope to have a large white frame, probably made from scrap lumber, that has twine or lights running the length of it in 3 rows, which I'll hang the cards from. Something like this.



Thank you, Kelly, for hosting!

It's Craft Sale Season, People! Bring it!

This past weekend I attended a craft sale and intentionally left my wallet at home. We don't have cash to spend on anything but groceries and gas and while I found some really awesome stuff none of it was groceries or gas. I did collect some business cards and looked my favorites up online. I thought I'd share them and a couple other awesome crafters with you today. 

- 1 - 

My friend Alicia makes the. most. adorable bows. Oh my gosh I could gobble them up! You can check them out at Polka Dot Boulevard's FB page and oogle and oogle because: how do you deny the cute?

- 2 -

Speaking of bows: I saw the cutest, greatest thing - a bow board made by Anna and Cindy, the ladies behind Bowlicious. There was a super great My Little Pony one that I wanted to buy for my girls' so, so badly. 

- 3 -

Angie is the woman behind Simply Grace Designs and she had some really beautiful necklaces, bracelets, and earrings. She's just starting her website so there's not a lot of pictures online of her handmade goods, but I loved these earrings.

- 4 - 

I've talked about my friend Katie a whole heck of a lot. She's the one who created the Halloween catechesis book for me, helps me make all my kids' birthday invitations, and created the Sheen curriculum. She also works with two of her friends on a project called [Un]common Workbasket. I'm not sure which of the three made these headbands but I am enamored. Which one do I even like the most? I don't know. How do you decide?!

- 5 -

I learned about Her Bunnies Three from a This Inspired Life podcast. So technically this one isn't at a craft sale in my neck of the woods, but I still had to share it. Oh my goodness. Can you even handle the the adorableness?

Linking up with Jenna at Call Her Happy for Five Favorites.

Best of the Web (and a wishlist item)

Do I know someone crafty who loves me and was trying to think of a nice Christmas gift? Oh YOU?! Well, if you insist... How about these awesome photo backgrounds? I think a lot of bloggers would love something like this for our "oh please pin me!" images. Actually, I could probably make them myself if I had the money - Travis has the right staple gun. I would even hang them on my walls so they'd double as decorations. Love it!

Grace shared a brownie recipe and I just had to try it. Dagnabit, I shouldn't have done it because those brownies are SO freakin' good! I didn't have cream cheese and made them sans the cow spots and still, by golly!

Some of my favorite bloggers did a little blog hop party and shared their Mass + kiddos tales and tricks. There's Abbey and her ten tips, Sarah and her standards, Haley and her 27 books, Kendra and her age appropriate goals, and Christy and her prep.

Fr. Barron's homily for today, the Feast of St. Augustine, is pretty good.

Rockstar Catholic DRE and godmother to my oldest, Katie has some fab ideas for encouraging parents to be more involved in religious ed.

Finally I am SUPER EXCITED (caps lock don't lie) to tell you that on September 1st Blessed Is She will begin sending out daily devotionals based on the Bible readings from Mass for the day. Beautiful, solid devotions written by women just like you (+ one rock star).
To kick it all off there will be a Twitter Chat Monday night at 9pm Eastern. But you can also follow BIS on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest, just in case Twitter isn't your thing.

Please be sure to go to Blessed Is She and sign up for the daily devotionals. Let's help each other in our walks with the Lord and let's live authentic Catholic lives.

Seven Quick Takes (with lots of good clicks)

1 - I heard this song on the radio recently, looked it up online, and remembered seeing the video a long time ago. This girl is such an amazing dancer, though, that I wanted to share it, even though it was all over Facebook last spring. I mean, she does crazy, creepy in such an amazing way, huh? Wow.


2 - This is how you write charitably and truthfully, friends: Catholic Psych. (With a hat tip to Jenny, who posted the link on the book of faces.)


3 - Kate at The Rhodes Log invited me to be part of her series "Before I Had a Seven Year Old." Now technically I still don't have a seven year old but since L can get the baby out of the crib, change the two year old's diaper, put the baby in his carseat, buckle everyone up, help with shoes, and is all around super duper helpful I thought it was fair for me to participate. You can check out my interview here. And thank you so much, Kate, for honoring me with the invitation.


4 - Wanna help rebuild the Catholic culture in America? Good! here's your chance: Call of the Void is a movie in pre-production coming from producer, Patrick Coffin. A Hitchcockian style film set in 1951, New York City, it's a suspense movie that explores our subliminal, destructive thoughts. Sounds promising, right?

Right. You can donate to the Kickstarter Patrick has going for the film. Also, if you love Fulton Sheen you'll want to check out the video if only to see how amazingly similar to Sheen Patrick Coffin looks. It's crazy.


5 - Thanks to those of you who gave me some podcasts ideas. I started with Catholic Stuff You Should Know and I love it! Highly recommended... based on the two episodes I've listened to so far.


6 -Last week Katie came over and helped L make a crown from flowers from our yard. She ran up to show me just as her dad and I were on our way out so I snapped a picture super fast. Doesn't she look lovely?

7 - Next week I'm starting a little series on ye olde blog where I feature my favorite Instagrammers. Some of them you probably already follow but maybe you'll find a few new ones to love, too. I hope you come back to meet them. 

Have a fun weekend. Thanks, Jen, for hosting!

JP's Red, White, and Blue 1st Birthday Party

In mid July JP turned One. 

We've always done big birthday parties for our one year olds. I don't know why since they can't remember anything. It's just how we do.

For his birthday I went for a Red, White, and Blue / Patriotic theme. It's cute, easy, and I could hit the 5th of July clearance racks. Sounded like a good plan to Travis. 

First, the invite. We began with a photo shoot.

Then I invited Katie over, I dug into my kids' craft bin, and hand painted the white stripes on red cardstock. Katie used a special scrapbookers punch for the stars.

 On the back we attached all the details, which I typed up on PicMonkey.
"We the people of the E- Family, in order to form a more perfect party, celebrate a 1st birthday, insure a good time and secure the blessings of BBQ and beer to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish JP's 1st Birthday Party!"

For decorations we had red, white, and blue balloons, all of which I left on the floor because the kids just want to play with them anyways. I also had some cute (and cheap! Thanks, Target dollar bin!) red, white, and blue chevron plastic bunting which we hung on the picture window in the dining room. They then decorated the inside and the outside and were super cute. Red and blue spiral stars hung from the evergreen tree (got them in the party supply aisle at Walmart) and I, like always, used cheap, plastic tablecloths for more color.

For drinks we had bottles of water, beer, root beer, Coke, and cans of Izze sparkling juice. I definitely didn't have enough ice but a friend went to the store and filled the baby pool with ice and all the drinks. The picture below was when the party was about 2/3 over and the pickings were getting slim but it worked perfectly.

We grilled out for the party. Burgers, brats, and hot dogs. And no ketchup. So another friend ran back to the store for ketchup. We also had a red, white, and blue berry plate, chips and home made salsa, star shaped marshmallows, a lettuce salad, watermelon, and a veggie-pasta salad. Along with the cake (which my sister-in-law made) there was ice cream, all American apple pie, and red, white, and blue rice krispie treats.

There were 81 guests and I'm guessing about 50 of them were kids or babies. It was awesome. I loved having so much life! All the kids had fun and I think the adults all did, too. I know I did. Friends from college, friends from the internet, friends from church and lots of family. We are blessed to be this loved.

As I already mentioned Travis' sister made the cake. She made a cake for everyone and a smash cake for JP. I highly recommend having talented sister-in-laws.

He loved the cake. (We all loved the cake.)

Usually we open gifts while our guests are still present. Kids love seeing gifts and being part of the excitement but the night was getting late so Joe and his siblings opened presents the next day. He was so cute, climbing through the mountains of toys, clothes, and tissue paper.

So that was that. Cute, fairly easy, and lots of fun. Happy Birthday, JP, you cutie pie, you!


A big THANK YOU to PartyPail.com for the following recognition for JP's Red, White, & Blue birthday party! I am *so* honored!

a Sheen-azing feast day video and Novena Day 7

First and foremost, I need to make something very, very clear. It is not my intention to anticipate the judgment of the Catholic Church in regards to the cause for canonization for Venerable Archbishop Fulton John Sheen. I submit wholeheartedly to the infallible wisdom and judgment of the Catholic Church in regards to the life and work of Venerable Fulton J. Sheen.

But let's hope and pray that the Holy Spirit will move the Church to declare him a saint, okay?!


A huge, special thanks to my soft spoken and amazingly talented friend Katie. You can find her Sheen lapbook, pop-up Marian shrine, monstrance craft, and more on her blog, Look to Him and Be Radiant. Please do check it out!

Yay for Katie!

Suggestions for your Sheen-azing menu:
Here's some good, ole Midwestern casseroles.
Soybeans or, as fancy people call them, edamame recipes.
Maybe with a side of cornbread.
With New York cheesecake for dessert.

For more info on Sheen or my son James you can click on my "Sheen" tab at the top of the blog.


More importantly, please continue to pray the Novena for the canonization of Venerable Sheen with me.

Novena Day 7

“Mary is not only mother of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, but she is also our mother, and this is not by a title of courtesy, not by legal fiction, not by a mere figure of speech, but by the right of bringing us forth in sorrow at the foot of the cross….Mary, by sacrifice and obedience, regained for us the title, Mother of the living. What a destiny to have the Mother of God as my Mother and Jesus as my brother.” Archbishop Fulton J Sheen

Lord, Fulton Sheen learned obedience at the school of Mary. He had such a great relationship with her; he knew that when he went before the judgment seat of Christ You would say ‘I heard my Mother speak of you.’ Help us to better know Mary so we may gain insight into such great obedience, love, faith and hope.

Prayer of Canonization, Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be

Prayer of Canonization

Father, source of all holiness, You raise up within the Church in every age men and women who serve with heroic love and dedication. You have blessed Your Church through the life and ministry of Your faithful servant, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. He has written and spoken well of Your Divine Son, Jesus Christ, and was a true instrument of the Holy Spirit in touching the hearts of countless people.

If it be according to your Will, for the honor and glory of the Most Holy Trinity and for the salvation of souls, we ask You to move the Church to proclaim him a saint. We ask this prayer through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen

Seven Quick Takes

1 - I heard this song for the first time last weekend. We were all in the van and Travis turned it up while telling me how he liked the song. With the first "Sail" I heard I thought he was saying "Sale" and so I started calling out things like "Buy One Get One!" and "Memorial Day" right before "Sail!". "Fifty percent off!" "Sail!"

chuckle chuckle snort snort. I crack myself up.


2 - L got Resa out of her crib the other morning and then came up to me.
"Mommy, feel Resa's face. It's so fluffy!"

She's pretty much right, too, ya know. I just love, love, love, love baby and toddler skin. It's so tight and smooth and covering a sweet, plumpy adorableness. It's just so fluffy.


3 - Did you hear about Brandon Vogt? Basically one of the most awesome Catholics today - Fr. Robert Barron - decided that Brandon is so excellent that he needs to be working for him. And so now Brandon is. How cool is that?!

And way to go, Brandon! Congrats on your new job with Word on Fire and God bless you and the whole team on all the good work you do!


4 - A few nights ago I had a dream that I was Jennifer Fulwiler's personal assistant. She had become super famous and I think a movie was being made about her book. We needed to order posters to advertise the movie and she told me to get three million. Then Grace Patton called and I took a message because Jen was super busy. When I delivered the message I was scolded because Jennifer will always take a call from Grace and I should always put her through.

For the record, I've spoken with Jen on the phone, exchanged emails with her, and spent time with her in person. She's not a demanding jerk at all so I don't know why I dreamed her that way but it was pretty funny, especially the part about Grace so I just had to share.

I hope you're laughing, Mrs. Fulwiler, ma'am.


5 - There's a lot of conversation going on right now about Halloween. Should we trick-or-treat as saints, as whatever, as whatever but within reason, or not at all. I'm pretty sure that how I feel about it as the mother of small children is slightly different than how I'll feel about it as the mother of teens and preteens but for what it's worth my kids will be pirates and fairies and animals for trick or treating and then saints for the All Saints' party at our church. I'm okay with spooky but not scary, again because of the ages of my kids, and I think there is a lot of evil tied up with Halloween. But I think there's a lot of good in it too, especially when its married to All Saints and All Souls days

So all that to say, I made asked my super talented friend to make a little catechetical coloring book for me to use at the parish Halloween / All Saints' party I'm organizing. We brainstormed together, she drew all the pictures and assembled the book, I proofed it and made some more suggestions, she didn't wring my neck, and now we have an awesome coloring book that you can use too - for free!

Isn't that GREAT?!! You can go to Katie's blog, Look to Him and Be Radiant, for more coloring pages and the whole book! (Plus tons of other great stuff for teens, pre-teens, and kids.)


6 - I really love Deme's blog and I'm enjoying following along with her House For Five's 31 Days of Moving. If you like looking at remodeling before and after pictures you should check it out for sure! Deme is so creative and does a lot of her stuff on a small budget - which I can appreciate.


7 - If you missed my newest video on liturgical living you can find it here. (It's about Mary.) Maybe I should name the videos - like it's a show. Got any ideas? I meant it when I said I'm not always very creative and so I have to look to other people, like Katie in #5.

7 Quick Takes

1 - Love this song. I know some of you play the songs for your kids and if you're not already familiar with this be warned that "Give them hell" is part of the chorus.


2 - I give that warning in case your kids are like my kids. Because Ben walks around the house saying, "Oh damnit." And his dad doesn't cuss.


3 - Last night my friend Katie was over and she was asking her goddaughter, L, what she wanted to be when she grew up. "Well, my first choice is to be a princess in a large castle. Or a farmer." Katie, who grew up on a farm and is very much a farm girl asked her what kind of farmer she would be.  L rattled off some veggies she would grow and then changed her mind.

"Maybe I will have unicorns and they'll make rainbows," she said so sweetly. And then I lost it and started laughing because I thought "out their butts." Except I didn't think 'butts'. What kind of mom am I?


4 - The reason Katie came over was to help make invitations to L's 5th birthday party. Here's a little glimpse of the cards for the Lorax themed party.

I don't know if people will get the whole "We thneed to celebrate" or the "where the grickle grass grows" parts but hopefully they'll just assume it's from the book/movie and roll with it.

Roll with it, people!


5 - Confession: I finally watched Les Mis... and I only sorta liked it. I had never seen it before and didn't know that it was a musical in that every blessed thing was sang. There were many parts where I thought, "If only this were dialogue I wouldn't be bored."

Are you gonna throw something at me?


6 - Earlier this week I visited Katie's 5th grade classroom (she's a teacher at a Catholic school, a DRE, and her parish's youth group leader, which is why she has so many awesome crafts/lessons for so many age groups for free on her blog). They've been learning about Fulton Sheen and so I spoke to them about JF's alleged miracle and the canonization process. They were awesome, awesome kids and I had a lot of fun.

7 - And here it is, your moment of Zen:

What I Wore Sunday

These are actually pictures from last Sunday.  This Sunday I wore a different dress (this one brown with small white polka dots) and a different cardigan (this one royal blue).  Same boots. 

Anyways, last Sunday I attended a Mass at the Cathedral because my very good friend was being awarded a Diocesan award for all her outstanding work. 

 So Katie, the award-winner, wore a super cute dress with super cute heels, and a nice, sensible cardigan.  She also wore her Pere Marquette Award, because she's awesome.

I wore a maternity dress because I'm fat and it fits, a cami, and a brown cardigan.  And some boots.  Love the boots. 

Dress: Target, like 3 years ago
Cami: Target
Boots: Christmas gift
Cardigan: hand-me-down
40 extra pounds: L and Ben's pregnancies

Thanks to Fine Linen and Purple for hosting!

Thomas the Train Birthday Party for my boys

September is a month of birthdays.  Ben turned 3 and soon JF will turn 2.  My baby brother shares a birthday with JF, but he'll be 29.  My sister-in-law turned 21.  My Grandma turned 86.  And Mary the Mother of God's birthday is celebrated every September 8th.  Everyone's birth, but mostly my little boys', was celebrated with a Thomas the Train themed birthday party.

The invite.

My friend, Crafty Katie, and I made them together in an afternoon.

The front reads,

Chugga Chugga Choo Choo 

Ben's 3 & JF is 2.

The back reads, 

All Aboard for Ben & JF's Birthday Party!  

Date

Time

at Engstrom Station

(Did ya like that "Engstrom Station" touch?) 

Simple and cheap decorations.  Red and blue balloons and plastic table covers.

The cake was a line of cupcakes with Thomas leading the way.  I made chocolate cupcakes topped with red frosting and funfetti cupcakes topped with blue.  Oreos served as wheels and I crumbled a few and put them on top of some cupcakes to look like coal.  Pretzels are jovey logs, graham cracker Goldfish are fresh Sodor fish, and MnM's are little packages.  I've seen a few Thomas movies in my day, clearly.  When I explained things to Ben everything made perfect sense to him but I'm pretty sure those less "in the know" on all things Thomas had no idea what was going on.

On the kitchen island I had another Thomas pulling more treats. 

Cupcakes, Sodor Goldfish, Oreo train wheels, pretzel Jovey logs, and regular old grapes.

I used a green plastic table cover (97 cents at WalMart) with a strip of the dining room table's blue table cover as a river and built a train track.  The boys loved it.

I made signs and hung them around the house.  

Here's Percy, Gordan, and James welcoming everyone. (Please note my serious face.)

On the front door I had a picture of Thomas and Sir Topham Hatt saying "All Aboard!"

Over the bathroom sink was a picture of Victor that said, "Victor will get you clean at the Steamworks" because I'm ridiculously funny. 

The rest of the cupcakes.  Yum-o. 

And the happy birthday boys. 

what to do on a Monday night

Travis is on a bromance man date with his best friend, at a bar watching the Bears game. 

The kids are asleep (finally!  nap time was horrible today!) and my headache has finally gone away (maybe it was all the water I drank?).

So now I can finally post a picture of my kids on Halloween.

A knight, a princess, and a lion.  roar!

Wow those kids are cute!  How 'bout we look at some more pictures of them?

I caught L "reading" the Bible.  She was actually saying the words to the Guardian Angel prayer.  (Do you know that prayer? So good:  Angel of God, my guardian dear, to whom God's love commits me here.  Ever this day be at my side to light, to rule, to guard, to guide.  It's a great prayer to start the day, at bedtime, when you've got the heebie jeebies, or when you're about to blow your top.)

Also, L's been practically living in her Rapunzel dress since mid October.  She's so cute.

JF, greeting me at the door.  Did you know he's walking now?  He's walking now.

Ben, super happy about his gigantic, warm from the oven, made from scratch chocolate chip cookie.

Do you remember awhile ago when I was on a serious hunt for the. best. chocolate. chip. cookie. recipe. EVAH!?  I found it.  That's what one looks like.

It is possible that Ben may not be wearing pants or a diaper in this picture.

This was gearing-up-for-quiet-time time.  (Yes, I know it's lame that I do that but sometimes it's needed.)  Put on a PBS Kids show from Netflix to occupy L and B while I lay JF down and then send the other two upstairs. 

Notice how spread out L is?  I had just painted her toenails and fingernails and she's letting them dry. 

Need something a little different to read?  My dear, dear friend, Crafty Katie, has started a blog to chronicle her year on sabbatical.  She turned down a teaching position and is living off savings and a small income from working as DRE at her church.  Already her blog is great.  God check it out: 

Look to Him and Be Radiant

Lastly, if you don't like country music or you didn't got to MTHS don't click on the following link.  But if you do like country, went to my high school, or want to see my high school crush is up to these days then check out Jake Maurer. 

I had a serious, mad crush on that man some 12 years ago.  Whew!  It's almost embarrassing to think about it now.

The crazy thing is that last night I spent the first half of my sleeping dreaming about Jacob and the Black Smoke Monster (does he have a name?  I never caught it.)  And the second half of the night I was dreaming that I was back in high school, dating Jake.  So it was interesting when I saw the link to his updated website on Facebook today. 

And I know what you're thinking.  But I was not stalking him - I saw it in my newsfeed.

Good night!