I do tend to use a 1 pound box of shells or other pasta, and I often sub in honey mustard for the Dijon mustard the recipe calls for.  When the kids were younger, they didn’t like the thyme, so I skipped it for a long time. The other secret to getting them to eat it was to call it “Nemo Noodles” and “Sponge Bob Casserole,” depending on their ages at the time. Very often, creatively renaming your dinners will entice your kids to eat it. Once, when my older daughter was in a particular phase when she liked gross stuff, I told her to think of her spaghetti as “bloody worms.” I kid you not. And she loved the idea. (Kids are VERY strange.)

So, without further ado, here’s the tuna casserole recipe I use.

Tuna Noodle Casserole

Ingredients

1. 12 oz – 1 pound pasta (egg noodles, shells, etc.)
2. 12 oz water-packed tuna, drained
3. 2 cups sliced mushrooms
4. 1 cup frozen peas, thawed
5. 16 oz fat-free sour cream
6. ½ cup fat free mayonnaise
7. 2 tsp Dijon or honey mustard
8. 1 tsp dried thyme
9. ½ tsp table salt (or more, to taste)
10. ¼ tsp black pepper (or more, to taste)
11. ½ cup shredded reduced-fat Monterey Jack or Swiss cheese

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350º
2. Cook noodles according to directions without added fat or salt; drain and transfer to a large bowl. Fold in tuna, mushrooms, and peas.
3. Whisk sour cream, mayonnaise, mustard, thyme, salt, and pepper together in a separate bowl; fold into noodle mixture. Transfer to a large cassrole dish and top with cheese.
4. Bake until top is golden and bubbly, about 30 minutes.

††††††††††††††††††††††

Romance!

I’ll always remember how it felt when I realized that I would never celebrate Valentine’s Day the same way again. It was more than a decade ago now, and my husband had a very heavy travel schedule for his job as a trainer. He was constantly traveling all over the Southeast, running workshops for his company. I was pretty easy-going about the travel for the most part, especially since my family lived around the corner at the time.

Then he dropped a bomb.

“I have to be out of town the second week of February,” he said. “Um, including Valentine’s Day.”

I wanted to object – and loudly – and was about to do so until I realized two things.

First, he didn’t control when that workshop was scheduled. Yelling at my husband would accomplish nothing, with the big exception that it would make him feel horrible about something he had no control over. Making him feel bad for stuff that isn’t his fault isn’t exactly a good way to keep my marriage strong.

Second, I realized that Valentine’s Day – day of love and presents and chocolate and showing the one you love how very much you care for him – is a manufactured holiday.

Yup, you read that right. Manufactured.

And I don’t need some particular day of the year to know that my husband loves me. He shows me all year, in large and small ways, that I’m important to him.

And so, we started a non-celebration of the one day of the year that everyone spends showering each other with presents and flowers. We do exchange Valentines – home-made – and he sometimes will buy some chocolate for the girls – usually from Wal Mart or the Dollar Tree. But the big celebration – the dinner out, the present, the flowers – are no more. And it is, frankly, a relief. Besides, it was probably about 7 years before he was even home for Valentine’s Day after that first trip to Texas.

Instead of getting flowers or presents for February 14, I like to think back about the ways I get Valentine’s Day all year long.

My husband gives me so much all year:

My Husband - Really!

• he works hard to provide for our family, making sure we have a roof over our heads, clothes to wear, food to eat, and reliable transportation
• he sacrifices things he wants for the benefit of our family, including trips to sporting events and nights out with the guys
• he will often come home and help with dinner or dishes, even after an exhausting day
• he changes my oil for me, and has done so since the week we were engaged
• he gives me back-rubs when I’m sore
• he mows the lawn on hot summer days
• when I’m too nervous to handle some task that requires me to be sociable and coherent at the same time, he’ll often step up and help me out, or even take over when it involves a potential conflict
• he watches movies with his girls that he would certainly have no interest in otherwise – I cannot count the number of times he’s watched Disney princess movies
• he trusts my judgement on things, even when I am being more strict than he might be
• he doesn’t *let* me homeschool – he whole-heartedly supports our doing so!
• he makes sure our family goes to Mass and Confession as much as possible, to be sure our spiritual life is growing

I could probably go on and on about how amazing and wonderful he is.  And I learned to look at my life this way – seeing these small gifts as the greatest ones I have – all because one day my husband told me he was about to spend Valentine’s Day in Texas with a bunch of store managers.

What this means to our girls is this:  Valentine’s Day, while a nice time to give cards and indulge in a little candy, is certainly not the big deal you’d think it was if you got all your information from television ads.  It’s a nice day to tell someone “I love you,” but, really, what day *isn’t* a good day to do that?

What Valentine’s Day is *not* for them is a day to make up for the rest of the year.  It’s not a day when you treat someone vastly differently than you do the other 364 days in the year.  It’s not a day to go nutso and buy some extravagant gift like a diamond ring or an iPad.  It’s not a day to go crazy and buy a dozen roses (for more than double the price)!  I’ve frequently tole both my husband and my children that if he bought me anything like that for Valentine’s Day, I’d probably clock him!

Home-Made Valentines ROCK!

Our family Valentine’s Day is going to consist of home-made Valentines and a nice dinner.  As a matter of fact, I just looked and realized that I scheduled leftovers for the menu.  Shows you just how little I pay attention to February 14, doesn’t it?

Of course, just because it’s not important to celebrate, that’s not stopping us from doing something different this year.  I laugh about the fact that we’re actually going to a dinner-dance at our parish tomorrow night, especially since we really don’t “do” Valentine’s Day.  But the Knights of Columbus is having a dinner-dance tomorrow, and the proceeds are going to a food bank in the area.  So we’re going to get dolled up and head out for a romantic dinner.  At a table for six.  At our parish social hall.  Honestly, it’s the only Valentine’s dinner that really fits us, I think!  Heck, I might even dance!

But barring the Knights doing this again next year, I anticipate going right back to our usual Valentine’s Day: leftovers, construction paper cards, and snuggling on the couch while we watch a movie with our girls.

Adoption Services to Become Mandatory?

In a recent executive order, Bob McDonnell (R-VA) has ordered that all clinics that provide abortions first provide patients with specific information on adoption services.  Pamphlets given out must meet certain guidelines and be from state-approved lists of adoption service providers.  All health centers must be ready for on-the-spot inspections of their premises, as well as secret-shopper-style visits from undercover representatives of the state government who will report back to a new special council set up by the governor. The council has been given the power to fine non-compliant clinics up to $2000 per instance.

Abortion providers have until July 15 to comply and submit to an inspection of their clinics to assure that they have all documentation in order.  If they wish, they may apply for a one-year allowance to figure out how they will comply and begin to make the mandatory referrals to the approved list of adoption agencies.

Abortion rights advocates are already scurrying to prevent new clinic regulations from going into effect.  Such regulations now require any clinic that performs more than 5 abortions per month to have hallways at least 5 feet wide, areas outside procedure rooms at a minimum of 8 feet wide, as well as regulations on everything from parking spaces to the numbers of toilets available. Clinic owners say the requirements are burdensome, but supporters of the measure say it’s a matter of having abortion clinics up to the same standards as any other medical clinic in the state.

… oh, wait …

There are no abortion clinic requirements to refer people to specific adoption agencies. It’s just that the President of the United States is disregarding the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States in order to force Catholic hospitals, universities, colleges, and charities to pay for contraception (including abortifacient drugs) and sterilization – things that the Church deems mortal sins.

Catholic Organizations Cannot Escape the Mandate

Imagine if Governor McDonnell did enact the regulations requiring adoption referrals. What outrage we’d hear from the very crowd who is currently crowing with delight that Catholics are being denied their religious freedom! After all, the clinic regulations I linked to are the same as required for all outpatient surgical centers in Virginia. (Several articles lie about this, saying that it’s the same as hospitals; this is a misrepresentation of the facts, as these are the regulations for outpatient centers.) What the president is now requiring of Catholic organizations is that they either deny their faith or disobey the government and risk paying fines of thousands of dollars per person no longer covered.

Guess which one we’re picking, sir?

More:

Sign the petition to have the contraceptive mandate rescinded!

…To become a mother, I had to learn how to care about someone more than I did about myself, and that was terrible.  But who I am now is something more terrible:  the protector who can’t always protect; the one with arms that are designed to hold, always having to let go.

Dear mother of only one child, don’t blame yourself for thinking that your life is hard.  You’re suffering now because you’re turning into a new woman, a woman who is never allowed to be alone.  For what?  Only so that you can become strong enough to be a woman who will be left. …

You see, my older daughter is now 13, and it came to me rather suddenly that my work with her is nearly done.  She’s coming to a time in her life when it’s time for me to let her go, little by little, and allow her to experience more of what is in the world – to make her way through it and solve problems on her own more often.

It’s almost time to be a woman who will be left.

While my Big Girl is busy rejoicing in her new freedoms, even while groaning about the responsibilities that come along with them, I am left wondering where on earth the past 13 years have gone. When did this:

Little Newbie

Become this:

Who's That Young Woman!?

It’s when I saw her as this young woman that I realized that it’s time to let her see and do more than before. To start the process of, little by little, letting go of her.

Sometimes it’s hard. When she learns about some of the injustices of the world and she breaks down, crying, it’s hard to have been the one who told her about it.  I’ve always sheltered her from these injustices, waiting for a time when she was more ready to face them.  Now is the time, even if she doesn’t realize she’s strong enough to bear it. It’s time for me to help her know that, with God’s help, she can face them. It’s time to edge her way out of my shelter that I built for her and to see the world as it is.

It’s time for her to meet it head-on.

But it isn’t easy for me, either. Because despite the fact that this is who is standing before me:

Sweet Sisters

Our Happy Family

This is who I see all too often:

Happy Girl!

It Really Was a Happy Lunch!

And it’s time I get closer to the woman who’s left, because it’s always been my job – and my goal – to become her.

It’s just that I didn’t know it would be so damn hard.