7 Quick Takes Friday (vol. 67)
My mother-in-law, Yaya, was here all this week, leaving me to wonder once again why we do not have our own reality TV show. (For those of you who don’t know what I’m referring to there, read this or this.) Also, in proof that her zeal for potty training knows no bounds, she decided that it’s time to start potty training our youngest. Who is 11 months old. I will admit that it actually kind of worked, in the sense that she did use the potty whenever Yaya put her on there. I kept trying to silently mouth “Don’t encourage her!” to the baby when Yaya wasn’t looking, but she would just chew on her fist and giggle.
While Yaya was here I spent a lot of time writing at a local English tea shop. I loved being there, except for the fact that their tea was so nasty. It tasted delicious, but at the bottom of the cup there was always this layer of mushy sludge. Occasionally I’d catch the British owner looking at me, and she’d smile and ask me how I liked it. I’d smile back and say that it was lovely; I hated to tell her that she didn’t know how to make tea. Poor woman.
IMPORTANT PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Per the above, this morning I learned some critical information about English tea traditions: when they serve you tea, there will a small object on the saucer next to your teacup. It will look remarkably like one of those all-natural brown sugar cubes, leaving you to wonder why they gave you an extra piece of sugar when you have plenty in the bowl on your table. Before you plunk it in your drink and start stirring it around, as I have been doing for more time than I’d care to admit, you should know that IT IS A COOKIE, not a sugar cube.
One wonders what the tea shop owner thought as she saw me drop a cookie into my drink, mix it in, and then grimace as I scraped the sludge out of my cup when I was finished. Probably something like, “Poor woman.”
While I’m on a roll, here’s another one from the “Why Do I Leave the House?” files: Last week my two-year-old’s Mother’s Day Out teacher let us take home the cherished class storybook. It’s a little story with the same style as the famous book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, only with pictures of the children in her class (e.g. “…I see PAYTON looking at me!”)
I knew this had disaster written all over it. Between pushing the baby’s stroller, gingerly holding artowrk with wet paint, getting jackets out of backpacks, signing everyone out and chasing down escapee toddlers, our trips from the school building to the car are like something out of The Iliad. So I lost the book.
The next time we were at class, I didn’t know how to break the news — I felt so terrible about losing the irreplaceable class book. I thought I, umm, might even tell a little white lie, just to emphasize how very much I appreciated it, lest the teacher think it was lost out of carelessness. “We sure did love reading it!” I was all set to exclaim. “Last night she asked us to re-read the page with Reese on it over and over! We must have read it ten times this weekend!” And, after that, I would tell her we misplaced it.
For a long time, I will be debating whether it’s more of a lesson that you should never tell white lies or that people like me should be kept away from society that the teacher interrupted me before I had a chance to speak and said, “Hey, Jennifer, you forgot to bring the class book home last time!” and handed me the book.
A reading update: I just finished Lit by Mark Karr and Four Witnesses by Rod Bennett, which I look forward to reviewing soon. Now I’m about to start A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken and The Story of the Church by Alfred McBride. Anyone else reading anything good?
In case anyone’s wondering why I always read two books at a time, it’s because I always have an “upstairs book” and a “downstairs book” going. The upstairs ones are usually ones that require some serious thought, since I can read them at night when the house is actually quiet. The downstairs ones are more light reading, something I can escape into while sitting at the kitchen table if I need a break from the chaos to recharge my batteries.
Funniest comment I’ve received in a while: A couple weeks ago, Matt of St. Blogustine wrote:
I have to ask….Am I the only GUY who ever does this 7 Takes thing?…I suddenly feel like I’ve stumbled into the ladies underwear department at Sears….*blushing*
No worries, Matt! 7 Quick Takes is an equal-opportunity carnival, with guy bloggers like Darwin and Fr. Christian Mathis being semi-regular participants. But, yeah, they’re usually outnumbered by chicks. We need to hear from more men!
I look forward to reading your posts!
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7 Quick Takes Friday (vol. 64)
I used to have all these romantic ideas about cold weather. I realize now, however, that they came from periods in my life when my parents and I lived in cold climates and I had no real responsibilities. I had these vivid associations of winter weather = relaxing next to the fireplace while holding cups of steaming hot chocolate. But now that winter means doing all the stuff I normally have to do, only freezing while doing it, it’s much less romantic.
I know, I know — we’re talking Texas cold, with lows still in the teens. Yesterday my dad sent me a link to an almanac page that showed temperatures for one December when we lived in Bismarck, North Dakota. The high one day was -20 degrees F (-28 C). Because I’m a boring person who enjoys weather chat, I ask: What’s the coldest temperature you’ve seen lately?
A big “thank you!” to Marcel LeJeune who mentioned me in his Top 12 Catholic Bloggers of 2009 list. His blog is one of my favorites, so it was an honor to be included.
I’m amazed at what a difference it’s made to downgrade from our oversized dinner plates to smaller “lunch” plates. Here’s the same scrambled eggs and veggie portion, put on the old plate and then the new plate:
It definitely makes it less tempting to over-eat when your food takes up more space on a plate!
Our refrigerator broke earlier this week. We’re trying to fix it ourselves to save money, so it will be at least a couple more days before we can use it again. I am amazed at how much I’ve learned about myself in this situation. For one thing, I’ve learned that when sloth and gluttony are in competition, sloth always wins. I’ve probably lost five pounds this week because I’d rather just be hungry than go into the cold garage to get something out of the little fridge out there where we’re keeping our fresh food. Honestly, if we could just move our kitchen upstairs, where I’d have to work to get to food, I think I’d be a size 8.
As I get into the second draft of the book, one of the things I recall about my earlier years is that my friends and I could scarcely utter a breath without using profanity. I mean, chatting about the weather would require at least three f-bombs. As I recount conversations from that phase of life, it’s hard to avoid using four-letter words; it would be like writing about New York City construction workers and keeping it clean.
When I first started writing those sections I thought long and hard about whether I should use profanity when recounting dialogue that happened during that time. On the one hand it would be more authentic; on the other hand it would offend some people, and it’s not exactly ideal to throw around four-letter words. As a book nerd, I found the whole “authenticity vs. etiquette” subject fascinating to think about. What are your thoughts on profanity in books? Never? Only if quoting someone who used it? If it fits the book’s style?
Speaking of the book, I’ve been trying to think of a new title. I used used this title generator and plugged in words from a word cloud generated from my 70-page outline. It came up with: A Church Above Biggest Years; Loving for Books; and A Happy God. Back to the drawing board.
I was so touched to the emails I got in response to my mention of our friend in San Antonio in take #6 last week! A few kind souls offered to strike up a correspondence with her since it obviously brightens her days to receive letters. I love this idea! The only problem is that I need to work out the logistics: how to introduce the idea to her, seeing as how she doesn’t even know me very well (“Dear Mrs. X: do you know what a ‘blog’ is?…”), and how to arrange it so that I’m not giving out her home address? Any ideas?
I look forward to reading your posts!
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Happy Thanksgiving!
As part of my goal to have a low-stress Advent and Christmas, I’m going to take this week off from blogging to focus on getting things in order around the house. I won’t be hosting 7 Quick Takes this week, but will be back next week. I hope all you Americans have a great Thanksgiving, and happy week-before-Advent to those of you outside the U.S.!
(Also, speaking of Advent, if anyone out there is as confused about that part of the liturgical year as I used to be, here’s a post where I asked readers to summarize Advent in 25 words or less a couple years ago.)
A week without noise
I’m doing something crazy this week:
I’m shutting down my computer. For a whole week. No email, no blog reading, no blogging, no web surfing, no Twitter. No Word, Quicken or Photoshop. I’ll live a computer-free life for seven days.
For some people that wouldn’t be that big of a deal; for me it’ll be a huge deal, and that’s why I’m doing it. I realized at the end of last week that for all of my adult life I’ve been hyper-connected. When I worked in the high tech industry I spent ten hours a day in front of a computer. Even now that I don’t work, my computer is a huge part of my life — I communicate with my parents and husband and friends primarily via email throughout the day, and my main hobby, writing, puts me in front of the computer even more.
There’s nothing wrong with any of that per se, but I realized last week that I’d become addicted to the “noise” of constant communication, running over to my computer to see if there’s a new email or blog post or blog comment or news story to give me a few seconds of distraction and amusement any time things get the slightest bit tough. I like the idea of completely fasting from it all for a week to force myself to re-adjust to silence (I don’t mean literal silence, of course, since my house is about as tranquil as the howler monkey cage at the zoo, but “silence” in terms of a lack of a constant buzz of outside stimulation and information). I like how fasting from anything gives you a fresh perspective on what is normal, that when you re-incorporate it into your life even the smallest doses seem like a lot since you’re used to having none.
I’ve felt called to do this for a while, for weeks doing that thing where God sends me clear signals along the lines of “STEP. AWAY. FROM. THE. LAPTOP.” and I’m all like “Step away from the what? The map shop? What? Let me get back to you after I’m done checking email…” and this past weekend he finally hit me over the head in a way that I could no longer ignore.
So after I hit publish on this post I’ll shut down my laptop and put it over on my bookshelf until next Monday. Needless to say, I won’t be hosting 7 Quick Takes this week, and I won’t be checking comments until next week (which is why I closed comments on this post). Since I’m horrible about replying to emails I doubt anyone will notice a difference in that department.
This’ll be the first time in my adult life I’ve spent a whole week completely “unplugged.” Oddly enough, I’m really looking forward to it. See you all next week!
UPDATE: 20 things I learned in a week without my computer
RELATED:
- A fascinating video about the desert hermit experience (this is well worth the time to watch if you haven’t already seen it)
- A day in the life of a mommyblogger
- Blogging and the water well
- Becoming more human (a post by Betty Duffy with lots of good food for thought)