Catholic Guilt...

Last year during Lent my sacrifice was actually going to church with Adam every Sunday (some may say that making church a sacrifice has reserved my spot in Hell...) Much to my surprise we actually did attend church regularly, and continued to attend until the fall. Then Adam's schedule changed and got in the way of our normal weekend routine, and before we knew it our church attendance went from great to nonexistent. We always had good intentions of going, but didn't set the alarm, or came up with some lame excuse not to attend.
Last week Adam was working and ran into Father Gary (our priest) and began a conversation about our church attendance. Adam said that his job and schedule had been in the way and Father Gary gave him this look that said, "Do you have any other excuses to throw at me?" So, needless to say, our Catholic guilt plus the fact that it was Palm Sunday led us to church this past Sunday. The church was packed and we were forced to sit in the balcony for the mass. During communion we made our way downstairs and Father Gary spotted us and chuckled a little at the sight of us.
During the walk to the car, Adam and I were having a conversation about Father Gary's reaction to seeing us at church. I couldn't help but think of how often Father Gary must hear lame excuses as to why people don't attend church. All we have to give up is 45 minutes of our time once a week. Think about how much he has sacrificed in order to do his job...

Facebook, Myspace, and your job...

I received an email today from the National Education Association that contained an article about whether or not Facebook and Myspace could cost a person their career. In the article (click here to read it http://www.nea.org/home/12784.htm) there were several examples of people that had lost their job due to what had been posted on their online profiles. Most of the people were dismissed for posting racy sexual photos, photos of doing drugs or drinking, and comments about their extracurricular (not appropriate for educators) behavior.

Part of me thinks that everyone has their First Amendment rights and as long as they are not involving their extracurricular activities with their career then they should be able to do as they please. But the other part of me thinks that when you are hired for a position that places you in the public eye (i.e. teacher, police officer, mayor, firefighter, state rep, etc.) then you sign up to be a 24/7 role model. A role model that has people watching you, looking specifically for the stumble that could take your job away indefinitely.

Now, do I think that our contracts should say that people in these positions should not be allowed to participate in web sites that have online profiles...NO! But I do think that if you are going to have an online profile that you shouldn't be posting pictures/blogs about your inappropriate extracurriculars, whether you are a priest, teacher, police officer, custodian, IT person, stay-at-home parent, or anything else.

It feels like SPRING! (knock on wood)

The past two days the temperature has reached into the 50s and I am very excited about the nice weather. However, I am also skeptical because I know that Mother Nature is probably holding back another storm that she will release at some point within the next few weeks.

I have been joyously watching at the snow melts ever-so-slowly from the backyard, and the mud grows ever-so-quickly! It is way too much fun trying to wipe off the girls' paws before they come into the house. This Friday is the first day of spring, which will hopefully only bring on much nicer weather. But I do remember a time that it snowed on Mother's Day Weekend, so we can only hope!

I hope that you are able to enjoy this beautiful weather too!