Get Thee To the Church: St. Stephen Martyr, Washington, DC

For Christmas Joe's parents gave us a gift certificate to Marcel's, a five-star French restaurant in Northwest Washington, near George Washington University and Georgetown. Right across the street is the Melrose Hotel, and why don't you just spend the night and we'll stay with the kids?

Sounded just fine to us.

Saturday night: A fantastic dinner. (The kids got to go to Dave and Buster's in Richmond. I think they felt like their evening was MUCH better than ours.) A lovely night's sleep in a nice hotel. And guess what was literally right next door to the Melrose? St. Stephen Martyr Church. We couldn't have planned it any better. And never mind the change to daylight savings time and losing an hour's sleep; so what if we woke up at 8 instead of 7? Plenty of time to make it to 9 am Mass when we only had to walk ten feet.

I love churches with great acoustics. I love the way the voices of the cantor and the lector and the priest resonate and echo through the room; it makes me want to pay closer attention to the words they are speaking. (They also probably have a great sound system--although the little boy in the back who spent the entire Mass crying and screaming and banging on the pews was not hooked up to any microphone, and everyone could hear him just fine. I tried my best to ignore him, and resisted the temptation to walk back and politely ask his parents to PLEASE take him into the vestibule.)

I'm ALWAYS losing things, and St. Anthony helps me every day. I loved this statue of him.

There is a beautiful little side chapel in honor of Our Lady of Lourdes.

It was a lovely Mass--no choir or piano or organ, but we sang all the hymns and chants a capella, which was fabulous. After church, we checked out of the hotel and drove a few blocks into Georgetown, where we enjoyed a great brunch at the Peacock Cafe, and then waited in line at this place for half an hour for dessert, which we brought home to share with everyone.

(The one in the middle with the flower on top? Gluten free chocolate lava. Delicious, and you couldn't even tell it was gluten free.)

Oh! And we found this: the only surviving pre-Revolutionary building in Washington.

Happy Sunday, everyone! Now get thee to church!

So Many Blogs, So Little Time!

I love this new hobby called "Blogging." I've connected with many wonderful people (mostly mothers like me, plus a few radio hosts and apologists, and other folks much smarter than me), and learned a lot! I've even hooked up with a couple of bloggers from my own church, and I've enjoyed getting re-acquainted with them! I love using this medium to share my thoughts with others. I love to read books, but lately I've been reading blogs so much that some days go by without my reading a single page. That's OK, though; I'm still working on creating that balance. Right now I'm reading "The Thirteenth Tale" by Diane Setterfield. Fascinating.

I sat down at my computer 45 minutes ago intending to write a big chunk of a post that's been buzzing around in my head (actually, there are several of those); I spent the whole time reading and responding to YOUR posts instead. I love it!! Hopefully I'll have time to post back here later, because I'm eager to write about these topics ASAP:

1. The 2nd Anniversary of the Virginia Tech shootings, and the wonderful talk by Greg Mortenson we attended the other night

2. This hoo-ha over the Georgetown thing and covering up the IHS symbol--I'm still not sure what to make of that

3. The Homeland Security's paranoia that pro-lifers like me are violent right-wing extremists. I still need to read that report before I comment further, though.

Meanwhile, I have a busy couple of days ahead of me, so forgive me if I don't write anything for another week. Hopefully I'll be posting much sooner than that.