Good Morning World!

This is my birthday week, I have already received the gift that I wanted this year....a Mandolin. Wow! It is so beautiful!! The strings are the same as the violin, just doubled, I know how to play the violin, but it's a different technique, so I plan on purchasing a how-to book today, probably a Mel Bay one.

This is a good day, I have finished my 2 on-line courses, Catholic Social Teaching, and Evangelization and Discipleship, which were both very VERY intense and consuming and I feel that I can breath again. As my bishop told me last month as I complained of the extra courses, "You'll be all the more smarter for them!" with a smile. errrrr! I am smarter, though and I have learned more than I thought I would. He is such a wise man!

Going into these two courses, I was tired of taking these courses (these were my 13th and 14th courses over a span of 3 years) and just plain ready to be a Master Catechist, but alas I must be patient, there are still 2 more courses to go. The next course will be a morality course, then one more in September, Ecumenism. Then I'll be finished and certified!! (God willing!)

Anyway, we are going camping tomorrow to the mountains of North Carolina and my knight is treating the 4 of us to a day tour of the Biltmore one day and river tubing another and just plain chilling out in the beauty of the Great Smokey Mountains for the rest of the week. Can't wait!