Quicktakes – Page 2 – Susanna Spencer

Seven Quick Takes: Friday, July 10

1. Tomorrow is the last day of the novena to Bl. Louis and Zelie Martin! I will post a link to a litany for their feast day. I had forgotten since last year how powerful and realistic the daily reflections are on marriage and family life. When these two are canonized, they are going to be an even greater example for marriage and family life.

2. I had a birthday since we last did quick takes, with my traditional chocolate peanut butter cup pie. Also, here is the only photo of me and T since I was in the hospital.

3. My sister asked for more baby photos. I have not really been able to take many photos of the baby. Here is one from last week.

But today I got his FIVE WEEK old self dressed in his first 3-6 month outfit (he is in a cloth diaper), fed him, and he was happy. I set him down to snap a photo and he did this. This is why we don’t have lots of photos of the baby.

4. Garden update! Our lettuce harvest was massive and delicious. There are still a few plants that have not bolted. And I am trying a second planting in a shadier spot. The cold crops don’t like the heat of the summer. The peas are still going strong. The chard has been delicious. The carrots, cabbages, and leeks are still coming.

Here is the first of our cucumbers.

5. Other Garden: These nine tomato plants (in front of the lilac bush) are covered in grape, cherry, or yellow pear tomatoes waiting to ripen. We are going to have tomatoes coming out of our ears soon. The pepper plants are not really growing, so we will see. The herbs are doing well. And those are potato plants in the far back.

6. We did some peach canning yesterday, but I am going to give it its own post next week, because a days worth of canning deserves its own post. For real.

7. In case you missed it, M and I published our second article for ChurchPOP reviewing the films on the Vatican Film List. This time was the Religion category.

I am linking up with Bonnie at “A Knotted Life” who is hosting this week for Kelly.

Our Favorite Books of Nursery Rhymes, Myths, and Fairy Tales {SQT}

In case you missed it, I recently published an essay at Crisis Magazine on The Importance of Myths and Fairy Tales for Christian Children.

To compliment the essay, I am sharing seven of our favorite books/authors for pre-school and kindergarten aged children.

1. Nursery Rhymes, Illustrated by Douglas Gorsline. There are some beautiful collections of nursery rhymes, even at big book stores (if you can find one). We found this edition at our local library when we lived in Buffalo, NY. It is out of print, but the copies are really cheap, and if you are unsure about the conservative nature of this book just read the one review on Amazon by an Amy S.:

“This book on nursery rhymes contains some obscure ones (e.g.Elsie Marley, Little Miss Tucket, Cock Robin) along with the perennial favorites to wow fellow students at preschool. Alcoholism, bashing in of craniums, thievery, corporal punishment, birdicide, and giant, nosy insects are all here, just as they were in the last century, if not centuries ago. (I mean the rhymes, not the cited incidents.) Old-fashioned illustrations of all British classes at their best and worst adds charm and spirit to these rhymes. Not for the faint of heart.“

This is the kind of book to prep your nursery aged children for the Greek myths.

2. Andrew Lang’s Fairy Books:
The Blue Fairy Book
The Red Fairy Book
The Green Fairy Book
The Yellow Fairy Book
The Pink Fairy Book
The Grey Fairy Book
The Violet Fairy Book
The Crimson Fairy Book
The Brown Fairy Book
The Orange Fairy Book
The Olive Fairy Book
The Lilac Fairy Book

These are collected tales from around the world. J.R.R. Tolkien criticizes them in being called “fairy” tales, since many of them do not in fact have magic or fairies. But they are a great exposure to folk tales around the world, and you know they are good because they were published from 1889-1910.

3. D’aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths: This volume of the myths is edited just right for small children. It begins with the origins of the Greek gods, tells the myths about each one, and then goes into the myths about mortals. D’aulaire also did a book of Norse Myths (and many other interesting looking books) which we have yet to check out.

4. Bullfinch’s Mythology: This collection of Greek, Roman, Arthurian Mythology and the Legends of Charlemagne and we have not yet read to our children, but my husband spent hours reading it as a child. Bullfinch tells the story and then tells the allusions in British literature to each of the myths. The books are more appropriate for ages 10 and up. We have yet to find an version of the Roman myths that we really like for younger children.

5. Children’s Book of Virtues edited by William J. Bennett is a collection of fully illustrated classic tales teaching children about virtue. He also has longer works with fewer illustrations but more great tales, The Book of Virtues and The Moral Compass.

6. Howard Pyle’s works and illustrations: We especially like The Wonder Clock, a collection of silly and clever moral tales. And we are currently reading his King Arthur stories (in which are toned down very well for young ears): Story of King Arthur and His Knights, Story of the Champions of the Round table, Story of Sir Lancelot and his Champions, Story of the Grail and the Passing of Arthur. Pyle compiled and wrote many other volumes of stories that we have yet to read.

7. Complete Beatrix Potter: I linked the box set of the individual little white books because for little kids and little hands I really like having the little books. We did not buy the box set all at once, but have been giving them individually for every birthday and Christmas since our eldest’s first Christmas. We will have the complete set by this Christmas (which will be our eldest’s seventh). You may wonder why I am ranking these newer books with the older, more traditional tales of Western culture. First of all, they are absolutely brilliant. Second of all, Potter draws from the English speaking tradition in her stories, referencing nursery rhymes and riddles that English speaking children should know, and if they do not yet, will learn through her tales. She is a great example of how nursery rhymes are an essential foundation for a complete literary education.

P.S. I would love to hear of any other great books of nursery rhymes, fairy tales, and myths, especially ones with beautiful illustrations!

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I am linking up with Kelly at This Ain’t the Lyceum with these seven quick takes!

http://thisaintthelyceum.org/sqt-of-course-i-assume-its-a-dead-body/

Seven Quick Takes: Friday, May 1

1. I have really been off the blogging train these days, except for random updates about traveling. But I have some quick takes today, and I did have a devotion on Blessed is She last Friday (which I failed to share online because last Friday was packed with things to do). I also have been working on the next Vatican Film List article for ChurchPOP, so that should be coming soon. I hope no one has missed me too much, or maybe you have missed my blogging a lot. If I get my nesting done by 37 weeks pregnant and don’t have the baby until the due date, you might hear a lot from me on the blog…

2. Speaking of nesting, can you say freezer meals?

I got 15 in the freezer last week, and have four in the fridge ready to freeze. Last week was my chicken week, and this next week will be beef. They are all stacked in the front of the freezer to stay flat, but I have plenty of room to rearrange and move them to the back.

3. Other nesting feats include: purchasing camisoles to do this with, ordering new diaper paraphernalia and other baby items that need to be replaced, getting drawers at Ikea to free up the changing table baskets for baby clothes (a potty trained two year old does not really need a changing table anymore), final seasonal and size up sorting for the children’s clothes, washing winter coats and gloves, and realizing that this bump of mine would be so much nicer with the baby on the outside.

The crabapple is budding.

4. It really is Spring in Minnesota. I am banking on having had the last frost as my sugar snap pea plants are already two inches tall and would not tolerate a frost very well. We covered the outside seedlings a few nights last week, but this week has been low 40s with the highs near 70. I am really enjoying gardening again this year, though I wish that I could do weeding without bending over. In other garden news, I repotted my 3-4 inch tall tomato plants and I am not sure they all survived the transfer.

I have been accused of growing an indoor garden. And yes, we grew butterflies as well.

Some seem to be reviving their leaves, but they looked so much better before I repotted them.

5. I am always surprised when plants grow the way they are supposed to. I had no experience with gardening before we bought this house two years ago, so all of it is so new. I have plans for growing flowers this year, and my tulips that I planted last Autumn came up beautifully.

I did the weeding this week as well, and I plan to put in some annuals and mulch in the next couple of weeks when the tulips are finished blooming. Flowers make a yard so cheery.

6. In case you were wondering, low 50s and cloudy is the perfect weather in which to go barefoot.

Also, to paint yourselves in mud, but I took no pictures of that. These girls are turning into real Minnesotans I think.

7. So, that is about it for me this week. I have been extremely practical, but in case you are worried that I am doing too much, be assured that I have been taking some time to stare blankly at what the internet has to offer and am reading another Dostoyevsky novel, The Idiot. I am finding it easier to read than Crime and Punishment or The Brothers Karamazov, but M promises me that it will get heavier.

Linking up with Kelly at This Ain’t the Lyceum.

http://thisaintthelyceum.org/sainthoodcrowdsourcing/

Seven Quick Takes: Saturday, April 11

1. Happy Easter! We survived all three long liturgies of the Triduum! We were ready early, so it was the perfect time to take a family photo. Some children even fell asleep. I, however, spent the Easter vigil being kicked from the inside and squirmed on from the outside. Fortunately, after six years of little children, I have learned how to pray at Mass despite being bombarded with continuous motion. We had a nice time with our house guests, and a had a large group on Easter Sunday for dinner.

Our empty tomb awaiting the Easter egg hunt. We did inside, because Minnesota.

2. Also, Happy Feast of St. Gemma Galgani! She is my confirmation saint, so I made a chocolate cake (which I have been craving for a month) to celebrate. We decided the Easter egg sprinkles would be appropriate for the occasion. Her feast often falls during Lent, but not this year!

We have an icon I purchased at the church where she is buried in Lucca, Italy during my semester abroad, and a cousin gave us this first class relic of St. Gemma which he acquired in Rome. It is weird and cool to have a tiny piece of St. Gemma’s body in our home.

3. After we drove my sister to the airport on Tuesday, I took the children to get some seeds for the garden. I have never started seeds inside, but we thought we would give it a try. I hope this container I found works.

We are trying to grow yellow pear tomatoes, sweet peppers of various colors (hopefully we planted a seed for the purple variety–that is what they wanted), transplanted some basil seedlings, petunia seeds (I am planning on flowers for the yard this year!), and some sunflower seeds that came in Easter baskets.

4. And now that is is April, I am going to be updating about the garden. M got the garden all ready for me this week, and today I planted seeds outside that are supposed to be safe to plant in Minnesota in April. As long as we don’t get a hard freeze again, all these should grow nicely. The lettuce and peas of these varieties we had great success with last year, but the chard, colorful carrots, and green cabbages are all new for us. I am always nervous starting things from seeds. It is pretty neat that the tiny little seeds can make big tasty plants. (I actually planted the peas earlier than recommended, but I really want to eat them! If they fail to grow, I will try again in May). I am hoping that this early Minnesota spring sticks around.

5. Tomorrow is Divine Mercy Sunday, and we managed to pray the whole novena as a family. Since my retreat, I have been renewing my devotion to Divine Mercy. The chaplet is such a simple and powerful prayer. The kids picked up all the prayers within one time of praying it. G and L both were leading decades by the end of the novena.

6. In case you are wondering about how I am doing after my post about dreading a newborn earlier this week, I am feeling a lot better about it after processing my feelings. The best comment from a friend was, “You can do hard things!” And she is right; I do hard things everyday. I will adjust to having a newborn and the hard things will become easier. And this baby is not for me, but is for everyone, and is a unique human being created to be united with God. Anything I have to do for this baby will not be too much.

7. Lastly, M and I wrote our first article together, and it was published on ChurchPOP this week. We spent all of the Autumn and a lot of the Winter watching films from the Vatican’s Film list “values” category, and finally got to reviewing and ranking them. We will be writing two more articles about the list soon! Check it out, if you have not done so yet!

Once, again, I am linking up with Kelly @ This Ain’t the Lyceum and her Quick Take hosting.

http://thisaintthelyceum.org/sqt-the-respiratory-edition/

Seven Quick Takes: Friday, March 27

1. Do you ever feel like your child does not really have a birthday unless you tell the whole internet world? G turned six nearly two weeks ago, and I am finally sharing her birthday cake photo with you. It is not even a real birthday cake. It is a peanut-butter-chocolate-creamy-delicious pie that we bought from a family restaurant, because I was on my retreat until 5:35 PM the day of her birthday. But don’t worry, she had a wonderful birthday week complete with presents, her grandparents visiting, planning a pink party, and having seven little girls over for a pink cupcake and pink lemonade party. So, really it was a great birthday for a sixth year old.

2. Does my description of my week after my retreat give me a valid reason for not blogging for two weeks? I am going to say yes. And I promise that I have been writing, just not for the blog. I was doing things like getting my devotions for Blessed is She finished and working on a project reviewing some films (which is coming soon and should be great!). At any rate, life has been busy and being in the third trimester means that it takes more effort to think clearly.

3.When my parents came for the birthday girl they also brought me my dried bouquet from my wedding, which my long suffering sister has had in her bedroom (the one we shared) for nearly seven years. I am thinking that I should really spray it with something to preserve it better. The mantilla/scarf is on from Segovia, Spain where my friend C and I were coerced by street merchants into purchasing one each and the from whom the rest of our group escaped from down a cliff side. I have had it stored away for years, but it seemed like an appropriate item to display with the bouquet.

4. My Christmas gift from M arrived just in time for the Annunciation. It is the original memoir of Laura Ingalls Wilder written previous to her publication of the children’s novels. The reason it cams so late is that the small publishing house that produced it has had to do several printings to keep up with the demand. It is heavily annotated (I am only to her life at age 4), and it is interesting to see the historical facts along side what she fictionalized for the sake of make good novels. Also, it is a beautiful, very nice book, and very large as the cover is about 10×10 inches. It will hopefully provide a nice diversion for a month or so as we wait and prepare for baby.

5. Look, it snowed again. I believe the label for this is “spring snow.” I knew that highs in the 60s were too good to be true for mid-March in Minnesota. I told the kids that it would snow again. They stopped believing me, and then along came an Alberta Clipper on Sunday night with 3 inches of snow. The children were not entirely happy about it. They refused to play in it, except to search the yard for a rock for a project we made on Monday. However, it is still getting above freezing everyday, so I will take that.

6. On Monday, we made a Calvary and tomb centerpiece, and I really hope that the grass seed (which has been sitting in the garage for a year) will germinate and give us some pretty, green grass by Easter. Otherwise, we are going to have to get fresh grass seed for next year and try again then… The large rock to the right is blocking the entrance to the tomb.

All of the rooms at the retreat center were named after different titles of Our Lady. This was mine… yep… awesome.

7. The last quick takes I wrote were right before a 48 hour silent retreat I took run by the priests of Miles Christi based on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. It was extremely intense, but also worth it. I highly recommend taking a retreat if you can with them (you can see where they offer them at this link). While they think it would be a good idea to go annually, I am thinking that it is going to have to be a “whenever the baby is weaned” sort of thing for me. And if you cannot afford it, put ten dollars in a jar every month for two years (or 2.50 a week) and then take the plunge. Seriously, guys and gals, it is worth it.

As always, I am linking up with Kelly who hosts Seven Quick Takes at This Ain’t the Lyceum!

http://thisaintthelyceum.org/sqt-thanks-and-cake-on-friday/

Seven Quick Takes: Friday, February 13

1. We had an emergency grocery run yesterday. The things we were low on? Toilet paper, bread, and milk. So, since I had to go the store in the 2 degree weather with all three kids, I decided to make it a whole week grocery run. I am now contemplating what to do with a free Saturday morning… Anyway, I must look really pregnant even with my coat on, or people felt really sorry for me. I was a little cranky with the girls, who seem unable to listen these days, and also kept on dropping things. The thing is, every time I dropped something a stranger would come by and pick it up for me. I guess between the three kids, the big belly, the ridiculous cold outside, and my hair falling out of its ponytail, I looked a little desperate.

2. I am just going to say it, St. Valentine’s day is the one saint feast day that people don’t seem to mind celebrating with the old calendar. We always do our favorite old calendar saints on their old feast days, so it is normal for us.

3. We are trying childcare/date exchanges with some friends for the first time. They have three boys (expecting a fourth in June) and we have our three girls. Anyway, our date is tonight. Theirs was last night, and it went pretty well once we got the one year old to stop crying. If things go well tonight, I think we should do it again! It is hard to feel like we can afford to go out very often when you add the cost of the sitter to that of the meal.

4. Back to pregnancy, I passed my glucose test this week. Woohoo!! So, this means that my measuring big at every appointment is just that I have a bigger baby or the due date is a week off. Both are entirely possible given what I know about when this baby came into existence (charting win). 😉

5. Further, my friend R. wrote this great piece at the Federalist about adding a component of “danger” to one’s sex life. While she never stated it, it seems like a great example of what is missing in people’s intimate lives that they need things like that stupid, awful movie coming out tomorrow to entertain them. Really, there is a bit of fear involved when knowing you could be co-creating a new human being, plus all that comes with bearing, birthing, and raising that new human.

We had 35 total, but the other are in the mail!

6. February has been a beast so far. Everyone has cabin fever. I decided to suck it up and make the month more interesting, so we spent every school day this week making St. Valentine’s day cards (braving the glitter glue!) to mail to family. It included handwriting of course, and gluing and cutting. We may have barely done much other school. We have been trying to get our more often. So, I took the girls to two different stores this week. I was actually enthusiastic about housework. We had a fun visit M’s office in a snowstorm, plus tried a burger place in St. Paul, Snuffy’s Malt Shop. They were super kid friendly, and while I prefer a shake to a malt, I even liked their malts. Anyway, we are trying to make February less dreary, and I plan to keep it up even with Lent coming up. Going out with the kids is easier now than it will be in June!

7. And to make it feel more like summer I am including a greenhouse photo. Our amaryllis is blooming, I bought a mini rose bush to fill things out, and the parsley is still green. The girls had me buy the little lady bug plant to give to our recently widowed neighbor for St. Valentine’s day, “We want her to know we love her soooo much!”

Amaryllis!

I am linking up once again with Kelly at This Ain’t the Lyceum, the host of Seven Quick Takes!

http://thisaintthelyceum.org/sqt-im-counting/

Seven Late Takes: Septuagesima Sunday

1. This is the last weekend of my husband’s winter break. His school has a January term, in which teaching is voluntary, so he has been researching and class prepping since we got home from the the girls call, “our travels.” We are really going to have to live it up this weekend. It is nice when the semester starts because it helps us establish a better routine. We have been pretty good about home schooling, but getting up for morning Mass has been a struggle. We have been pulling the tired pregnant lady card when the alarm goes off, and while it sounds legitimate, the mornings we do get up I am just fine.

2. The weird thing about this semester is that once finals are done we will be at the due date for this next baby. We have not had a new baby in over two years so it will be a family adjustment. I think it will be easier than the transition to three. When F was born, G was not even 4 and L was almost 2. It will be much different with a 6 year old, a 4.5 year old, and a 2.5 year old, who all play well together.

3. Speaking of a 2 year old, potty training is still going on. It has improved greatly over the weekend from the small accidents we were having last week. The only question is when to stop awarding her with chocolate every time.

4. We finally employed our Ikea greenhouse. We planted our amaryllis from M’s aunt and found some potted herbs at Trader Joe’s. Now I need to get around to planting some basil and find another good indoor flower to get us through until our bulbs come up outside. I really like the greenhouse largely because it is easy to move the plants if we want use of the whole table and it mostly keeps the little hands away from the plants, unless they get a desire for some fresh parsley.

5. We have been spending our last two evenings watching movies about St. Francis of Assisi. The first, Francesco directed by Liliana Cavani, I recommend never watching; it is just not worth your time and really does not portray his life well at all. Cavani does not grasp St. Francis or his motivations whatsoever. The second movie was The Flowers of Saint Francis. It is based on several episodes from the book The Little Flowers of St. Francis, and it embodies Franciscanism beautifully. The neat thing about it is that the director, Roberto Rossellini, used real Francisca friars to play the part of the Franciscan monks.

6. Today, in the old tradition of the Christmas season, we took down our Christmas decorations. F finally got to indulge her toddler desire of taking ornaments off the tree for as long as she desired. I really like the rhythm we have around our Christmas celebration. Taking down the tree listening to Christmas music was an appropriate end cap to our putting it up listening to the same music in December. Tomorrow is Candlemas, the Presentation of our Lord, and we are going to celebrate by having crepes, which is another traditional food. Today also happens to be Septuagesima Sunday, which means buried the “Alleluia” until Easter, and we are 70 days from Easter and less than three weeks from Ash Wednesday.

7. Finally, for people like my sister who like to see it, I present my 22 week bump (and my new favorite, super soft sweater that I found on clearance last week):

Linking up with Kelly @ This Ain’t the Lyceum!

http://thisaintthelyceum.org/sqt-lets-friends/

Seven Quick Takes: Friday, January 16

I finally found a use for the hooks between those partitions…

1. Happy Season After Epiphany! We like to celebrate Christmas until Candlemas (February 2) in our home, so I spent the 3 days after our three weeks of out of town visiting with family unpacking our suitcases and getting up the last of our decorations. This meant putting Christmasy things on the front door wreath, changing the Advent candles for red ones, and hanging the Christmas cards up for display. It just feels more right to me to have the tree up for all of January rather than in the middle of Advent. I have been playing the Christmas music still as well. Being raised an Advent purist, it is nice to listen to Christmas music well after Christmas day without guilt!

2. We started the “spring” semester at the Awesome School this week. This meant that we attempted some of our normal school things everyday, but did not cry if we only got to one or two subjects. I feel pretty accomplished considering that G was recovering from a touch of the flu she had on Saturday. L (4) has decided that she wants to start Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, and my goodness, there is huge difference between my children and how easy they are to teach…

3. I am hoping that we stay healthy, since we have not really seen anybody since we got back to town. It will be nice to get back into the routine of play dates, mom’s group at church, and our home school co-op. So far G is the only one who had any symptoms of the flu and it has been almost a week since she got sick. Maybe it helped that she quarantined herself in her room for three days with the Chronicles of Narnia radio plays.

4. We are starting potty training on Monday with F (26 months). She has been interested for months. Since we told her that we are going to start training her on Monday, she is obsessed with the bathroom and talks fairly continually about it whenever anyone uses it. It would be nice to have diapers used only during nap and bedtime… plus our toddler size prefolds are pretty useless at this point. They are more like rags than diapers.

5. I made an attempt at movie reviewing on Truth and Charity this week. M and I went to Exodus: Gods and Kings on our date last week in Michigan, and while we had lots of commentary on the movie, I limited myself to one theme in my review.

6. Gee, it is nice to be in the rhythm of writing again. Vacation always takes from my writing time which is generally nap time or in the evenings. I was pretty wiped out every afternoon, which I attributed to being pregnant, but also may have been from a lingering cough/sinus infection which I finally got treatment for this week. I hope to be more on the blog than I have been and maybe on some other sites soon.

7. In your charity, please remember in your prayers our elderly next door neighbor who is on hospice and dying of cancer. He does not have much time left. Please also pray for his wife and children. While we have only lived here a year and a half, they have been very helpful and kind neighbors.

Linking up with the lovely new host of Seven Quick Takes, Kelly at This Ain’t the Lyceum.

http://thisaintthelyceum.org/sqt-written-seated-glass-wine-standing-desk/

Seven Quick Takes: Friday, December 12

1. This is my first time linking up with the new hostess of the Seven Quick Takes, Kelly at This Ain’t the Lyceum. Last week quick takes did not happen, but I was on writing and publishing overload. I posted most things to my blog Facebook page, but in case you missed them, I will go ahead and link things here.

At Church POP:
10 Reasons Some Women are Wearing Veils in Church Again
12 Secular Christmas Songs that are Actually About Advent
The 20 Best Religious Advent Songs

2. The reason I have not been writing this week is largely due to Jane Austen. I am using the pregnancy excuse to read all afternoon while the kids rest…

I always come back to Jane Austen and St. Francis de Sales. Pure insight into humanity.

3. I can’t believe we did this, and I promise I am not an Advent sell out. My only defense is that it was St. Nicholas day, a party at M’s work, and the kids wanted to see the “man dressed like St. Nicholas.”

4. Someone turned four two weeks ago.

L had the time of her life at the crazy, bounce house filled, Christmas party last weekend. She may have also had a major emotional crash later that day… She also had a nice birthday after Thanksgiving with breakfast with Daddy, the science museum, and grandparents and an aunt visiting.

5. Here is a math problem for you: What do you get when you mix together 42 packets of Kool-Aid and 15 white silk scarves?

15 colorful play scarves! And if you want to know how I did this: I bought the scarves here, and used this and this tutorial. I managed to make them for 1/3 the cost of buying pre dyed play scarves. It took about 3 hours to do the whole thing: two evenings of dying and one of ironing.

6. Today is M’s last day of classes for the semester, and finals are next week. While this means a lot of grading, it also means that his 6 week winter break has almost arrived! We will do the normal tour of the Midwest to see family, a lot of staying at home, home schooling, and M will do research, writing, and class prep.

7. Oh, Jane Austen is calling my name, do I have anything else to say? Only that we have discovered a new to-us band. Gungor. We like their album Ghosts Upon the Earth the best and only a few songs from the other albums. This has been my favorite lately:

Seven Quick Takes, Friday, November 21

1. This week my mind has been largely elsewhere, thinking and praying for peace in St. Louis where I grew up, and praying for all of those in Buffalo, NY where we lived for four years. Both the places and the people in those places have my affection. It is hard to see suffering and to only be able to stay here in Minnesota and pray for them.

2. You know my first snow storm in Buffalo was a pretty big one. We maybe got 12 inches in the North towns, but the South towns got close to 24″. It happened about 5 days before Christmas, and I-90 (our route to visit relatives) was closed for a day due to the snowfall. I ended up going into work the day of the storm and being ignorant of snow driving decided to drive on the right side of the road rather than the less deep left side of the road. I got stuck. I was six months pregnant, barely ever had driven in deep snow conditions, and stuck. I saw a man shoveling his driveway a few houses down, and being the good neighbor Buffalonian that he was, he got my car unstuck. He showed me how to put on the gas and rock the car back and forth until you get it out. And I know that is the kind of stuff going on in Buffalo this week. People are helping each other.

Our yard before the spring thaw last year. These poor snowmen were frozen all winter and then went the way of Frosty.

3. I also know what it is like to have 4+ feet of snow melt from your yard in a short amount of time. That happened to us last spring, and we had a minor basement flood. It turns out that it is a good idea to shovel snow away from all around the level surfaces, especially patios that go right up to your foundation. This is much more easily done when you get your snow in 2-8″ layers over the course of a winter than in 48 hours. So, I will continue to pray as the snow in Buffalo melts this weekend.

A snow angel the size of a five year old girl. 🙂

4. Speaking of snow, we have a little ourselves. But could someone please explain to me why we are down in the single digits already? Yesterday when I was out with G, it was 9°F. It is only November. We are supposed to hit the 30s this weekend, but then look at Thanksgiving:

iPad screenshot, woot!

I am pretty sure that people should not have settled here. I might need to squeeze in a rereading of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s The Long Winter along with my Jane Austen, so I can realize that we have it a lot better than they did.

5. Another snow question, do you think we can convince our elderly neighbors to let us build a snowman on their rock? Wouldn’t that be awesome?

6. Do you think it is time to potty train when the two year old hears me mention the word and then tries to drag me to the bathroom yelling, “POTTY TRAIN! POTTY TRAIN!”? I am not sure if it is worth it five weeks before a long visit with family. Maybe it is. Maybe I should just let her do it before she loses the desire. I have never potty trained without a younger baby around, so maybe it will be a breeze. Plus, she takes a good long afternoon nap, so it would just be in the mornings that I would be doing it alone. hmmm…

7. Last of all, for some reason, my giveaway only has two entrants right now… Don’t be shy, enter the giveaway, even if you don’t have a girl of your own, I bet you know a girl who would love Christmas with Bernadette, and I bet you would enjoy the Advent features of the Magnificat Advent Companion App. 🙂

Linking up with Kelly who is filling in for Jen at Conversion Diary.

http://thisaintthelyceum.org/sqt-takes-edel/