7 Quick Takes (Vol. 34)

-1-

Happy All Saints Day!  Once again, I procrastinated about preparing anything for an important feast day.  It  didn't even really hit me that this feast was coming until I realized with inappropriate glee that we could actually eat MEAT on a FRIDAY this week (our family abstains from meat all Fridays of the year, unless it's a major feast day).  I found this cute idea on Catholic Icing that would be easy to do with little kids.  I don't really have any pictures at the moment that I'm willing to let Sly cut up, but I might let him pick some Saints from our enormous stack of laminated holy cards, and tape some of them onto a paper representation of Heaven...

-2-

This morning, I asked Sly what Saints he could name.  He said St. Therese and St. George (every little boy's favorite, especially since Sly is recently into dragons and slaying things - mostly Stella), and he got St. Joseph and St. Sylvester after a bit of prompting.  It's a start!

-3-  

I finished my Jesse Tree ornaments for the exchange.  I did red felt hearts with the Marian "M" symbol from the back of the miraculous medal.  I think they came out pretty well.  I can't wait to get my whole set back in the mail!  

 

 Does anyone have a good book or resource suggestion for actually *using* the Jesse Tree during Advent, though?

-4-

Dragon and ladybug...and a hairy guy and a cat bum

Trick-or-treating last night was a bit miserable.  It was wet and rainy.  Both Tom and I decided to go out with the kids, since we never get any kids at our door anyways (I left a bowl of candy out in case, but it wasn't touched). 

Every year, the local bureaucrats decide to step in and make Halloween a little less fun for the kids.  Last year, they *moved* Halloween to a Saturday, because they worried about a forecasted storm which never came.  You can't just do that!  It falls on a specific day each year.   This year, the official trick-or-treating hours ran from 5:30-7:30.  So ridiculous!  Most adults (both those with little kids to take out, or those who might want to hand out candy at home) aren't even home from work by 5:30.  And 7:30 is barely even nighttime!  When I was a kid, I don't think we even left the house until 7:30.  Why do they have to take all the fun out of everything? 

-5-

There was one event from last night which was pretty memorable, though.  At one candy stop (a.k.a. a house that actually had it's light on, which in our lame city neighborhood is about 1 out of 10), we noticed a praying mantis sitting on the outside of the house.  We talked about how it was an uncommon site for October, the kids got some treats, and then we moved on.  About 20 minutes and a number of houses later, we found ourselves inside a beautiful old funeral home (their door was open and the porch lights on, tricking us into thinking they were offering candy.  They weren't, but the owners were very nice, and invited us inside to gawk over their amazingly ornate and beautiful old building).  Inside, Sly remarked, "there's a praying mantis in my candy!"  And sure enough, there it was, sitting right on top of the pile of candy in his pumpkin bucket!  The poor thing must have had several handfuls of candy thrown on top of him! 

A couple of people have mentioned, though, that praying mantis' bring good luck.  So I guess Sly has some luck coming his way.

-6-

I have an update on the ongoing - yet still mostly casual - search for a house of our own: we found one that we loved, and we actually put an offer on it last week.  Our realtor and the seller's realtor both expressed their belief that we should probably get the house, as it was a good offer and we had no competitors.  But sadly, it wasn't to be.  The seller's realtor sat down with them to go over the deal and their closing costs, and they expressed complete shock and surprise.  They didn't have nearly enough money to sell the place!  Their realtor insists that he had explained the finances to them several times, but apparently, they weren't paying attention.  They have to take the house off the market for an indeterminate amount of time.  I don't even know what their reason for selling was in the first place, so there's no reason to expect it to go back on the market soon.  It's pretty disappointing.  The worst part is, Tom and I had finally narrowed down just what we were looking for (in terms of neighborhood, number of bedrooms, price, etc.), and right now there's nothing else on the market that fits all of it.  So I think we'll continue to wait and pray.

 -7-

Now that I know that our new baby is a boy, I want to get to work on knitting him a baby blanket, which I did for the other two while I was pregnant.  Does anyone have suggestions for a nice - but not too time-consuming - pattern for baby blankets?  (I'm on Ravelry as christinewin, if you want to add me!)

Quick Takes is hosted at Conversion Diary