"You Catholic girls start much too late..."

I have a few friends who knit and blog and we've decided to embark on a blog project that has nothing to do with knitting. We're going to take turns coming up with a topic every Thursday and we each have to blog about it by the end of that day and post links to each other's blogs so that people can see our different perspectives on the same topic.

-Thanks to Merryland Girl for this explanation of the Thursday Blog Project.

This week's topic comes from Melissa @ Merryland Girl: what is your favorite thing about your religion? (if you don't observe a religion, what is your favorite non-religious holiday?)

Other contributors are:

Froggie Knits Like Crazy

Desperate Madness

I honestly wish I had a favorite thing about my religion.

I am a non-observant Catholic, and despite the recent propaganda urging Catholics to "come home", I still don't think that Catholicism is my cup of tea.

So, this week I will blog about my favorite non-religious holiday, which is any event that my family gets together.

When we are all together, I like to quote Morbo when Richard Nixon's Head asks him how's the family: Morbo replies :"Belligerent & numerous!"

There are *A LOT* of us, my sister, Stacey has been with her husband, Jack since I was 3, so our families kind of melded together over the years.

Every year, we celebrate Mother's Day and my niece, Grace's birthday together and both families combine.

I have 4 sisters and 3 brothers, not all from the same 2 parents, but the bulk of us share the same mom.

I have more nieces and nephews than I can count on 2 hands and am proud to say that I have wiped the butts of almost all of them at some point in time.

When we all get together, we laugh until our sides hurt. We retell stories about shenanigans that we got into as teenagers, to which our mom usually says "I had no idea!"

We go through tough times and happy times, thankfully there are more happy times than tough.

I can't imagine what my life would be like without the guidance and experiences I had growing up in my big, blended family. And even though there have been times when we've been on the outs with each other, I wouldn't have it any other way.

As an adult, I can almost always tell when I encounter people who are only children (not like it's a bad thing) but I always feel a little sad for them, that they didn't have an older brother to tease them, or older sisters to talk about embarrassing things with, or even younger siblings to teach and torment.

This evening, I got to sit around a kitchen table and talk to my older sibs: Stacey, Cheri & Steve and man, did we laugh. It was just an impromptu gathering to have dinner with my niece and nephew while they visit from Kentucky for the week, and it was great.