Answer Me This: Smart phones, dinner, and baths

This is my first attempt at joining in Catholic All Year's Answer Me This.  

1. Do you have a smart phone?

Yes, as a matter of fact, I just got one in May.  A better question would be Do I know how to use it yet?  Answer:  Mostly, but there is so much I don't know yet.  I resisted getting one for so long thinking it was more a toy than useful tool.  Then I saw all these people doing crazy things like looking up the Amazon price before making a purchase at a store or looking up a restaurant, spur of the moment, without having to drive home first to look it up on the computer.  Now a month later I can't imagine my life without Google at my finger tips.  I am trying my best to keep it a tool and not a toy though.

  

2. Which is your favorite meal of the day?

Dinner.  It's the only meal I am guaranteed to have and to sit down for.  Plus, my whole family is there usually to scream through it enjoy it with me.  I usually put a good amount of thought into my dinners as well.  I don't typically make it for dinner if I don't like it.  That's the benefit to being the chef of the house.  The downside, of course, is that I do most of the work.

This week, among other things, we have enchilada soup, minestrone (with sausage for hubby's benefit,) and brisket (a kid favorite) with a new carrot salad on the menu.

3. Shower or bath?

I currently do not have the master bathroom of my dreams and it only has a shower, If you've never seen it, here it is.  BUT if I did it would have both a shower and a separate bath so that I could take baths whenever I have time.  Don't know when that would be, but I'd like to think it would be at least once a week when I don't have to do some crazy shower circus act, juggling babies and toddlers like Jenny at Mama Needs Coffee.

I can dream, right?

4. Think of a person you love. How many days have you been in love with that person? 

The obvious person here is my husband.  I have loved him for 5,831 days as of June 1, 2014.  I used the date calculator here and the start date being the day I told him that I loved him.  So the math is fuzzy since who knows when I actually started loving him.  I am certain it was before this date, but since I know this date this is what I am going with today.  

This is the earliest picture of us dating that wasn't completely humiliating.  We must have been at his best friend's place at t.u. because he was the one in love with Audrey Hepburn.

And just for fun these were our engagement pictures.

My husband looks soooo young!  When did we get old?

5. What's the best church you've ever been inside?

Well, that is a loaded question since we went to so many beautiful churches all over Europe.  The obvious answer would have to be St. Peter's because, well, besides it being in the Vatican and amazing, Pope Benedict XVI was there and he blessed my oldest three children (the last two weren't born yet.)  It was an amazing moment is all I can say and we have the picture of the top of the my head and Hannah's head head to prove it.

6. Happy Feast of the Visitation! Has anyone ever come to help YOU?

So.  Many.  People.  

The person who has helped me the most often would be my mom.  She has come to help me after almost every baby was born.  She is a wonderful and supportive mother and I am blessed to be her daughter.

There have been two times when I have been in the hospital (for other reasons than a planned childbirth kind of thing,) living far from family as usual, and really needing someone to help with my children.  Once when Brian and I both got a crazy stomach flu at the exact same time.  Hannah had just turned a year and I was pregnant with Genevieve.  Overnight I became super dehydrated and the next morning drug myself to the OB with Hannah while Brian went to the doctor too.  Brian got a bag of fluids pushed and came and got Hannah from me because they admitted me overnight to re-hydrate me.  We didn't want Hannah to get sick and a friend of ours, Sherry, came and took care of Hannah and even tucked her into bed that night for us.  Brian felt better the next morning and was able to take over, but I was so grateful, especially since we hadn't lived in New York very long and didn't know very many people.

The second time was when Brian was gone for a year and I had surgery.  My friend, Jill, whose husband was gone with my husband, was so very supportive the whole year.  When I was putting off surgery until Brian got back, she gave me the push I needed to go ahead and have it done with before the men returned.  She promised to take care of my sweet children while I was in the hospital and recovered.  She is so great with little kids that I never once worried about my babies.

That was fun!  I might just try this again.