Pre-apologies for another lazy catch-up/quick takes style blog post, but it’s all I can manage at the moment!

It definitely feels like summer time now. We don’t have a pool, but on hot days I usually get a text from one or other friend who lives nearby asking if I want to bring the kids over for a swim. All my friends are awesome! I can’t help myself giving a little lecture the kids on the way back home, or at bed time, about how we should share what we have, too, seeing how much happiness it gives us when people share with us.

This week and last I’ve been re-reading Iain Matthews’ Impact of God, and enjoying reading old posts from the Contemplative in the Mud blogger. I’ve been a subscriber for a couple of years and am always grateful for the quotes he posts from the saints several times a week. Occasionally he writes reflections of his own which are great as well. If you know me (not just from this blog which I don’t have stacks of time for), believe me, you will love this man’s updates. And if you only know me from my blog – well, check out Contemplative in the Mud anyway. It’s a little internet gem.

I’ve reviewed Matthew Tan’s book Redeeming Flesh, for this weekend’s edition of The Catholic Weekly. Also, something recently on opening our homes to enrich other families and our own own – from visiting speaker David Lejeune at the Renaissance of Marriage conference in Sydney last month. Videos and podcasts from the conference are here if you want to check any of them out.

We did a bit of opening our own home last Sunday, for our littlest boy’s fourth birthday and three other family birthdays. It was a long day, but fun.

CathFamily, the monthly e-magazine I help produce, looks at a tough topic this month. Today I was wrapping up my draft of the Christmas and New Year issue, which will be happy, practical, inspiring, and beautiful. Just what we need for our families this Christmas!

Thanks to my real-life friend Ana who offered to order mine with hers, I’m going to get the 2017 Catholic Women’s Compendium I linked to a couple of weeks ago. It will feel pretty special after years of the $5 diaries I’ve picked up at the discount shops. And I have something exciting already to put into it for next year, which was just decided yesterday. I’ll explain more when I can but involves getting on a plane, not to go very far, but still – I haven’t had to fly anywhere for years!

Our family got an early Christmas present yesterday. A big garden planter bed thingy on wheels because my step mum had been reading my blog and thought we’d like it. 🙂 What should I put in it? I’m thinking maybe stuff for salads – lettuces, radishes, spinach, chives?

November is just wisping past. I’ve hardly grasped it, and feel I need to get a grip on December already. I’m due for another time-tracking project to help me feel less like a hamster in a fast-spinning wheel and prioritise what’s most important. It really helped me when I did it a few months back.

This weekend will be super-full. My sister’s band is launching an album on Friday night and I hope to go. We have a rental inspection Saturday morning, and a meeting in the afternoon. We’ll be going to our first Christmas party for the end-of-year season on Saturday night. Sunday morning is Mass and I wouldn’t mind visiting my mum in the afternoon. And my husband will be helping his friend move house as well.

November is the month we pray for people who have died. On our little prayer shelf are new memorial cards and funeral booklets along with the older ones  – people who we have a special feeling for, for some reason or other. During this month I’m trying to remember that life isn’t something forever slipping away, though it often feels like it, but something I’m pushing towards or being pulled further up or in to.

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