7 Quick Takes Friday (Vol. 10)

1. I finished my re-reading of all the Little House books.  I had read them in third grade, and really enjoyed them.  I still really enjoy them, and I think I get so much more out of them now as an adult.  It is truly amazing how self-sufficient people used to be.  I think it's sad that the majority of us have lost so much practical knowledge of how to do or make things.  We're so dependent on mass-production.

2. Next up on my reading list: The Omnivore's Dilemma (which I read half of over the summer and really enjoyed, but then had to return to the library, and kept forgetting to check out again), and The World According to Monsanto.  Both are books in the whole "real food" movement, and I would say they also fit the Little House theme.  They discuss how industrialized our society - especially our food production - has become.  And the latter book will give me more evidence for my conviction that Monsanto is a TOTALLY evil corporation.  Should be informative reading!

3. Wednesday night, we were praying the Rosary in the living room, in front of our little altar.  Usually, Sly would use this time finding new ways to be really loud and distracting.  But that evening, he decided a couple times to try to "join in" with Tom (who was leading).

The part Tom was saying for each bead was, "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.  Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy whom, Jesus".  Several times, Sly joined in.  Although when Sly said the words, they sounded more like, "Ha hab baba gar ma ba ni ba....Gheee-Sus!"  It was the first time he's ever tried to say Jesus, and it just melted our hearts. 

4. As I was typing up that first part of the Hail Mary above, I thought of something.  I think Tom and I are the ONLY people I know who actually say "amongst" in the Hail Mary with the 'st' sound, rather than modernizing it to "among."  Every time I pray this prayer with other people, such as the Catholic Moms group, I hear myself being the only one in the room to utter that extra 'st' at the end, and then I get all embarrassed, and shrink into myself, and don't say the next few words.  Not that I want to change the way I say it.  But I hate being the only weird one.

5. We've had some unexpected money come our way recently: a larger-than-expected tax refund, my husband got a raise and a bonus from work (!!)....so we've been throwing some of the excess towards my student loans.  That's also where we put all of the money we received as wedding gifts (which was a significant amount, since we didn't register anywhere, and thus hardly received any traditional gifts). It's so exciting to see them getting paid off.  I think I probably had less student debt than a lot of people do these days, but it's been a burden on my mind.  We're going to end up paying it off a lot sooner than we would have.  And once that happens, we can finally start saving for a HOUSE.  Good good news.

6. The other day, I brought Sly to an event with the Catholic Moms group.  This little girl who looked about his age, came up to him and started hugging him.  Sly seemed a little taken aback at first, but then he decided to just go with it, and started kissing her - on the lips.  It was pretty adorable.  But a short time later, I caught him hugging and kissing on another little girl.  Uh oh...we might have a problem here!  haha

7. One of the only real downsides to the place we're living now is that we have no yard whatsoever.  All the houses in this part of town are built right against each other at the sides, and run right up to the sidewalk at the front.  A lot of the other ones have small backyards.  But we're a corner house, so with buildings surrounding us on all sides in the back, we lucked out of a yard.  So far, I haven't minded too much.  But come nicer weather, I think I'll really start missing having our own little patch of grass, or struggling vegetable garden (we're both pretty terrible gardeners, though I can't help but dabble in it each year).

So the plan for this spring is to fill up our narrow little front porch, the stoop, and the walls along the house with potted plants!  I'll create my own little green area to take care of and enjoy.  I think we might even get away with trying a few edible things...herbs are easy to do in pots, and Tom asked for a tomato plant.

See more Quick Takes at Conversion Diary