The Buerglers

It has now been a little over a week since we lost our little Albert.  New York City was a wonderful distraction, but reality is beginning to set in.  I have a follow up appointment with my midwife.  We have the funeral Mass on Wednesday.  I have a baby shower for a friend on Wednesday and one for my sister in law on Saturday. There are so so many emotions, thoughts and prayers running through my head.  I wish I could capture them all, but I often can't express the depth of my heartache.   It's amazing how much it hurts to lose our  blueberry sized child we had never met on the outside.  My prayer is for all the mothers who have ever had to bury a child of any age. For all of us women (and men) who have ever lost a child or had to greatly suffer, this quotation from Adrienne von Speyr's Handmaid of the Lord has reminded me that we say YES to the Lord without hesitating over the future. And that is a beautiful thing. Adrienne von Speyr's...

For those who do not know, I am a Confirmation coordinator at a very large parish.  Each year I have over 170 candidates.  This year I have 194.  Each year has it's own set of battles.  A few years ago I was planning a wedding and got married during the "Confirmation Season" last year I was pregnant and on bed rest trying to organize things from a far with help from co-workers. This semester of work has been particularly challenging for me but in a different way.  This year our pastor/boss charged the youth ministry team with being bold and to not back down to pushy parents.  Obviously, there are exceptions and there is compassion.  He meant that the people in our area feel very entitled.  They use their money, job status, and every other thing you can imagine as an excuse to not follow the guidelines for our program, or the rules of the Church.  You would probably be appalled at the lines people give me.  He a...

It started Thursday morning, Eric and I were both working from home for the day so we opened the windows and lit some candles. One of the middle school girls gave me a honeypot looking candle holder with a honey scented candle as an end-of-the-year thank you gift. I had lit it once or twice before but never thought anything of it until that day.  The longer it burned, the more familiar the scent became, yet I couldn't place it.  Why did it smell so familiar?  And why did it make me have high school flash backs all day long?  That evening my mom came over to help me finish organizing a few things in the babies room, and I found a stack of old greeting cards.  I thumbed through them to figure out why I hadn't thrown them away.  I noticed that three of them were from my friend Erin, who was my best friend in high school and is now in formation with the Sisters for Life.   Erin can only write letters a few times a year until she's done ...

Happy Monday!!! Laundry We're a few loads of laundry in to the switch-back-to-store-products.  I missed my clothes smelling of Downy and the ultra clean feeling clothes.  I am sorry homemade soap and vinegar fabric softener, you'll just have to collect fly away dryer lint until we run out of the good  expensive stuff. Birthday Thank's Starbucks! My birthday was on Friday. Happy 29th (for the first time!) to me!  It was an especially low key day this year.  Not only have I been pre-occupied with baby things and work that I completely forgot my birthday was arriving, I ended up with a nasty 24 hour cold that landed me watching Netflix and eating grocery store hotbar for dinner.  Eh. My fancy dinner date with Eric has been rescheduled for this week.  We had a light brunch at my parents house with my siblings, and Eric's sister and I shared a birthday fondue party at his parents house. Gadgets and gizmos a plenty  One of the...

I have a lot rolling around in my exhausted, pregnant brain.  Nothing is long enough or coherent enough to necessitate it's own post, but I want to get it out of my head. ...today was my last day working "full time" or really, my two part-time jobs.  I am now just working at the church.  My plan is to take from Thanksgiving to New Year's Day as my maternity leave. ...for the first time in my life I really feel content with my work, family, who I am, what I do/do not, and where I am headed.  I feel ready to handle what's brought my way, and not be stressed. ...Eric and I sat and made a two page to-do/goals shared Google Doc (yes, we're those people - but surprise! it's actually not color coded) of things for me to get done in my new found spare time both for the baby and because we know it won't get done when the baby comes. Things like cleaning out my shoes, tights, belts, purses, etc ...I have been reading a lot about stay-at-home Mom time ma...

One of the deacons at our parish recently lost his mother-in-law. It was a long, heartbreaking process.  In the end, he said that when you or someone you love suffers, it's God's way of reminding us that we need Him and that we need to pray . This week has been exactly that for the Two Buerglers. As many of us do, we coast on auto-pilot day in and day out. Nothing really wrong.  Nothing really spectacular.  We're lukewarm.  And that's exactly where God doesn't want us to be.  It even says so in Scripture (somewhere). I often catch myself in these ho-hum situations and kind of look over my should and think, "Uh, oh.  Something big is coming.  God is going to move in my life in a big way".  And then I wait.  And BOOM. Something happens. And often, when it rains, its pours.  God is dramatic like that.  At least in my life. And most definitely this week. All summer Eric's company has going through a lot of legal/politic...

This post originally appeared in my private blog on February 24, 2009 As I posted l ast month  she has been sick for several years. She has withered away from a healthy 130-140 pound, average height, strikingly beautiful woman. These days, she lays, a mere 80 or 90 pounds in a hospital bed hooked up to feeding tubes and oxygen, wrapped in two or three blankets to stay warm. We are very, very blessed that my family can afford the incredible health care she is receiving from some of the most patient and kind nurses. However, day after day, the nurses call the family and report little to no movement or responses. The last my family could see or feel a response from her was the day after my grandfather's funeral, they could see one tear in her eye when they told her that Papa passed away. Last night my dad sent me a Facebook message, yes a Facebook message... asking me what to do about my grandmother. The nurses  think  that she is not responding much to the feeding tube, a...

This originally posted on February 4, 2009 in my personal blog.... Tuesday morning my parents delivered the sad news that my grandfather, Albert John Corsetti, passed away. Is I mentioned in previous posts, he has been suffering from uncontrolled diabetes and a series of mild heart attacks. It was another small heart attack that killed him, because he was too weak to recover through all the efforts to revive him. More later. Trying to get things together so I can head down to Florida as soon as possible; I want to be with my family. Please continue to pray for my family during their mourning. I know God will continue to work through this.

This post originally appeared on my private blog.  It posted January 19, 2009... After running errands and visiting friends this afternoon, I arrived home to find a very out of sorts father. He had lots of bad news to share. My grandmother has been sick with various organ failure, which they believe could be to several years of undiagnosed  Celiac  disease. Regardless of what caused it, she's been in and out of the hospital for almost three years now. She's been there more often than not lately, since she is barely responsive these days. My grandfather, in caring for my grandmother, has not taken care of himself. His diabetes are out of control, he doesn't sleep, he's battling depression, and his just a grumpy old man. Well, he's been in and out of the hospital having procedures done on his legs, trying to save them from the lack of circulation and sores from diabetes complications. All week he would check himself out (keep in mind all of the other conditions...