Just a little note of appreciation...

I've been blogging for close to 5 years now, and I have my little following over on the right sidebar that I check in on every day (*waves*) and I know that there are others that follow in an rss feed reader. SO GRATEFUL FOR ALL OF YOU. And it hasn't gone unnoticed that my follower number has increased noticeably over the course of the past month. This is a small little blog, so that number on the side going up by 4 people is pretty significant in such a short period of time! Welcome to everybody!

I've also been getting more comments on my posts. Not hundreds, granted :), but I used to rarely get comments and now I'm getting a few regularly on each post, and I wanted to say how much I appreciate that. My new Catholic Nook posts, in particular, have solicited some wonderful suggestions in the comment box. Go check out the comments under the post from Tuesday on a monastic life for lay people, there are some great suggestions in there for ways to squeeze prayer into your daily routine, and a link to another blog post on this same topic by Lyn.

Speaking of monastic lives, today is the feast of St. Benedict, the father of Western Monasticism, so this is a biggie. And I've been in such a monastic state of mind these days that I did a lot of reading up last night and this morning on our friend Benedict. AND, fittingly enough, the Dolores Hart biography that I'm reading right now discusses Benedictine spirituality, since of course, she is a Benedictine. This morning over breakfast I read a passage in the book about the community accepting oblates, which is the Benedictine term for a third order of lay people. Mother Hart says something to the effect of oblates being for "people with a monastic spirituality who are not called to the religious life."

BAM! I mean, could there be a more perfect description of me (and I'm sure some of you)?

I felt glowy all morning.

Good stuff. Henry's patron saint feast day is Saturday, we're baking a cake to commemorate the occasion. :) And Pray More Novenas is dedicating their July novena to St. Anne!! Super duper excited about this one. If you haven't already, you should sign up to be on their email list. They pray a novena every month and will send the prayers right to your email box. It makes it very easy to keep up. The St. Anne novena begins on Wednesday July 17th.

All right, I'm heading home shortly to clean up whatever disasters my children have cooked up in my absence. Have a great evening, and I'll chat with you all tomorrow for 7 Quick Takes Friday!