Quicktakes – Page 3 – Susanna Spencer

Seven Quick Takes, Friday, October 31

1. I am going to rally my spirits and try not to get distracted or become lazy and give you all some quick takes. First trimester is rough, let me tell you. And I know I am not the only one having trouble blogging during it, because two ladies, Mary and Blythe, who write blogs that I follow have confessed to the same lack of writing motivation. Blythe has even gone to far to convince her husband to keep her blog up for her for the next 30 days.

2. While I am not quiet willing to give up the blog entirely while I am tired and nauseated all day, I did offer M an opportunity to guest post once a week. He refused in the same manner that he refuses to grow a beard. His colleague T and I have been encouraging him to try a beard again (he last had one in college), and he stands firm. In the same way, he resists blogging for me. No amount of pressure will work. In fact, the more pressure you put on him, the less likely it is that he will do it. So, there we go, M will not be blogging here and will not be growing a beard, much to all of our disappointment.

I am getting a new memory card in the mail next week, and then no more grainy iPad pictures…

3. I had been putting off buying a pumpkin all October, and yesterday I realized that we did not have one, and it has been a necessary tradition for M to carve a pumpkin with the girls. So, I ran out to nearby house that has a random urban farm in their side yard. It turns out that they also grow pumpkins up north. I found a nice pumpkin and brought it home. M did the carving with the girls and I took my Thursday shower. I would take a picture of the finished product, but that would require going outside in the cold, so I won’t. Imagine two triangle shaped eyes, a diamond shape nose, and a toothless, crooked happy smile. That is our Jack O’ Lantern. We don’t get super creative, but we keep the tradition.

4. I have been delighted this month by my friend Anna’s series on things she has learned from her parents. There are 31 of them over at her blog for the month of October. Today was the last one, and I am going to miss them. Is it weird that I have a sort of parent crush on them now?

5. Last week, I bought an extra blue hubbard at the farmers’ market. On Monday I decided to roast and puree both the farmed one and our home grown one. It turns out that ours was not fully ripe. I really have no idea what we did wrong or if we did anything wrong. I really did not look into how long it takes squash to ripen or anything. Oh, well. I still scraped out the green stuff, but we only had four 15oz. bags of puree this year. I think next year I will just use the garden space for something else and by a bigger farmers’ market squash.

6. This has been a daily requirement for my stomach. I am addicted to naturally flavored carbonated water.

7. This has been a fun last week of visitors. M was at another conference over the weekend and his mother came to town to help with the kids. My patience and endurance have decreased significantly since his last trip only two weeks before. Pregnancy hormones really mess you up emotionally, I tell you. (No more conferences until next Fall!!! HOORAY!) Then my brother came to visit. My baby, almost 25 year old, first day of work as an engineer today, brother came to visit by himself for the first time ever! He has come with my parents to St. Paul once as god father to F, and I think he came to Buffalo maybe 3 times total during our 4 year stint there. It was a real pleasure to have him here. I am pretty sure he came just for me to cook for him, because he brought a new cookbook of his made by the chefs on America’s Test Kitchen, which is one of his favorite shows. However, since I have no pictures of his visit, I can not prove to you that he was here. (I suppose I could photograph his unmade bed, but that would require getting up…)

Bonus: Did you here about the Advent journal being sold at Blessed is She? Order your copy today!!

http://blessedisshe.net/product/advent-devotional-journal/

And lastly, I am linking up with Jen, the wonderful hostess of Quick Takes!

http://www.conversiondiary.com/2014/10/7-quick-takes-about-last-minute-halloween-costumes-a-great-new-book-for-fall-and-popping-the-dom-on-a-tuesday-night.html

Seven Quick Takes, Friday, October 24

1. I am mentally planning a post on our favorite Mass books for different ages, but today I just have a funny story to tell about one of them. F (23 months) has an illustrated Mass book that goes through the parts of the Mass. She really likes the page at the consecration of the Precious Blood where you can see the consecrated hosts in the ciborium, and always points to them saying, “Cookies!” I told this to M, and he suggested that maybe I should redirect her to understand that the hosts are not cookies. So, last Saturday at morning Mass I explained to her that the hosts were Jesus. During her second flipping through the book, she paused on that page, pointed to the hosts and proclaimed, “Jesus cookies!”

Jesus Cookies. From We Go to Mass.

2. Also, last Saturday, when I was busy in the morning, M winterized the vegetable garden. I am eternally grateful to him for doing this chore. I really am. It makes me really happy, thankful, and loved. He dug up all the dead plants and turned over all the soil, and trimmed back the lilac bush which tries to shade the garden. We plan on throwing some mulched leaves into the beds to add to the soil, and I am still planning on getting a compost bin for the garden stuff. We really should compost, I know, but the garbage disposal is soooooo nice.

The Empty Garden. Here you also see our crazy oregano plant and the hearty parsley.

3. My friend, Jacqui, mentioned to me that she loves my food/canning posts, but due to pregnancy I have been having a really hard time eating things that are not either made out of beef, are junk food, or are extremely bland. Maybe I should share my favorite whole wheat pancake recipe, which always works to settle a pregnant stomach. I can’t really think of anything else worth sharing…

4. Speaking of food, I discovered that my yogurt recipe works even if you let the crock-pot go on low for an extra hour (solo bedtimes will do that to you). It went all the way up to 195°F, which seems to be the limit on other yogurt recipes. But I cooled it to 115°F and added my room temperature starter, and it worked. I was pretty nervous that I had wasted 8 cups of milk plus a brand new yogurt, but instead I ended up with super creamy yogurt. I think I might have to let it go to a higher temperature every time. Maybe after a little experimenting I will update my yogurt recipe.

5. We pray a litany of our family patron saints every night during family prayer time. Tonight, L (almost 4) decided to throw out a few suggestions, wanting to repeat her patron saint as well as her sister’s. I explained to her that we do not need to do saints more than once because they are always listening when we pray to them. Her response, “I don’t always listen.” At least she is honest, right?

6. And now it is G’s (5) turn. M has been doing some home school with her twice a week in the afternoon, and one of the topics they have been covering is geography. Lately, they have been working on states. However, M, as a native of Michigan seems to favor Michigan above all other states. You can take the man out of Michigan, but you can’t take Michigan out of the man. The other morning at breakfast, G held up her hands to represent the Upper and Lower Peninsulas and said, “Mommy, this is Michigan. It is like two hands!”

7. In case you missed it, I am running a giveaway of a beautiful rosary book. The giveaway ends at Midnight at the end of the day Monday/beginning of Tuesday. Click on over to see the review and enter the giveaway!

And as always, I am linking up with the lovely hostess of Quick Takes, Jen at Conversion Diary.

http://www.conversiondiary.com/2014/10/7-quick-takes-about-south-dakota-rap-battles.html

Seven Quick Takes, Friday, October 10

1. This week has been a lot about food. Saturday had a frost advisory, so we did a rapid harvest of the garden, and we got a pretty good load of stuff:

The frost never came, and did not until last night. However, we have accomplished so much with our garden stuff by now, that I am not really wanting to go back.

2. First, we pickled 10 pounds of cucumbers, using this tutorial. M and I canned 9 pounds in our boiling water canner after bedtime one night, and then the girls and I did the rest in the fridge for our science experiment of the week. Beforehand, I ran out to the store to find dill seed for the pickling as well as cider vinegar. The cashier, who was about 7 months pregnant, immediately asked if I was making pickles. I should have offered her a jar. I really should have.

I really hope that they taste better than they look. Here we have a quart of slices and nine pints of spears.

The lighting worked better for these ones. We have 11 half pints.

Another experiment we did was pickling green tomatoes. I have no idea if they will be good, but we did them in dill. I am thinking we will have a dinner of chicken Kiev, pickled tomatoes, and…

3. Red cabbage sauerkraut next month. I have never fermented vegetables before, but here we are giving it a try. I will let you know how it goes. We used this recipe.

On the first day.

4. There were a lot of cute food rosary pictures online on Tuesday for Our Lady of the Rosary, including our cupcake one from a few years ago. This year we were a little more focused on the Battle of Lepanto in which a small Christian fleet defeated a larger Ottoman fleet through the intercession of Our Lady. The pope asked everyone to pray the rosary for victory. The traditional name of the feast is Our Lady of Victory (there is a beautiful basilica in Buffalo, NY named for the feast). We did not do a lot of rosary explaining, but did describe to the girls how a battle would take place between ships. I even made “Lepanto Pot Pie”, inspired by the St. Francis Day Pot Pie Soup on Catholic Cuisine. I could not resist the imagery of floating things in liquid…

Here we have St. Michael interceding, the Christian fleet, and the parsley symbolizes the graces sprinkled on the Christians that day.

5. That is about it for food these quick takes. I am looking forward to listening to more baseball this weekend. I have been spending a lot of my normal writing time reading articles on the Cardinals and watching highlights. We only have October once a year, so why not savor it all. Go Cards!

6. We had another home school co-op today. F decided to be her clingy self, and I did not get to leave her alone in the nursery. As it was, she was quiet in the mom’s discussion time, and then spent the rest of the time playing happily on the floor in the nursery (on my lap). It was still restful given that I sat around with her all morning instead of doing my normal morning chores and teaching. Next co-op is on All Hallow’s Eve, and there is talk of a pizza party at co-op. However, we are planning on doing the All Saint’s day pizza costume party at St. Agnes in the evening. Is pizza for lunch and dinner too much? Maybe if I only allow them to eat fruit and vegetables the rest of the day it will be okay. (How did I get back on food again?)

7. I decided to reread the first book of C.S. Lewis’ space trilogy, Out of the Silent Planet, and it happened to be in conjunction with my listening to H.G. Well’s War of the Worlds during my jogging/walking (I am still building up from my broken toe running hiatus). It was a little bit mind boggling to have humans bent on taking over the peaceful Mars (eventually, it is more like scouting out the planet in the book) contrasted with violent Martians bent on taking over not-so-peaceful Earth. In Lewis we had non-fallen rational animal Martians, and in Wells we have purely rational, survival absorbed, violent, blood drinking, rational animal Martians. It is quite a different view of the world. Lewis, however, uses the medieval understanding of space as his back drop for his story, and Wells is purely scientific. Anyway, if you want to make you mind a little crazy, try reading both at the same time…

Linking up once again with Jen at Conversion Diary!

Seven Quick Takes, Friday, October 3

1. This week has been a fun week for Feast days. We had the Feast of the Archangels on Monday, St. Thérèse of Liseiux Wednesday in the new calendar and today in the old, the Guardian Angels yesterday, and St. Francis of Assisi tomorrow. We have not really done much to celebrate the specifically besides talking about the saints to the kids. I am making some French Onion soup tomorrow in honor of St. Thérèse. Maybe on Saturday we should go begging for food? Or maybe we should just give some food to the poor, hmmmm…

2. St. Francis will always be extra special for us, because devotion to him was pretty much ingrained after four years at Franciscan University and a school sponsored trip to Assisi when we were studying abroad. I also grew up watching the 70s version of his life, Brother Sun, Sister Moon. Though there are two other movies of his life that are reportedly the best and worst movies about St. Francis which we will be watching in a couple of months. Besides movies though, St. Francis is pretty cool.

Blanched apples +Victorio Strainer = Apple Sauce + Peels

3. I am sure everyone is just dying to know how our apples canning went. Well, we made 19 quarts of sauce, canning 18.5 of them, and 5 half pints of jelly. The sauce canning went well. However, the jelly ended up needing pectin to be added. I suppose blanched and food milled apple peals and cores do not retain much natural pectin? The jelly is pretty delicious, but I am not sure I want to use it for PB&J. We will have to find some sort of delicacy to use it on.

If we get snowed in this winter, we will at least have fruit.

4. We were pretty much homebodies this week. After a whole day of the applesauce canning last Saturday, we were pretty tuckered out on Sunday (we thankfully did not witness any cars hitting bicycles on the way to church this time…) and it just kind of rolled into Monday. M had a bad case of laryngitis and had to whisper all day on Tuesday. Then it rained all day Wednesday and Thursday, but we managed a library run today. Restocking on the library books is always nice to do, especially because the kids have a new stack of books to peruse. In fact, because of these books naptime has been especially quiet!

5. G (5) called me into her quiet time to tell me how delighted she was with the collection of fairy tales I had picked out. “It has lots of princesses in it! It even has Rapunzel, but I don’t like this version because the evil witch cuts off all of her hair!” Now, I am pretty sure she did not read the story, but gathered this from pictures. Part of our early home schooling has been a complete immersion into fairy tales and nursery rhymes, so I usually find a different illustrators set of fairy tales to bring home from the library. One of the books I rejected today, however, had the story of Noah’s Ark as a folk tale…while I may not think we need to interpret the incident literally, I am not going to teach it to my kids outside of Scripture as a folk tale…

http://livingwithladyphilosophy.blogspot.com/2012/10/blue-hubbard-pumpkin-pie.html

6. A friend brought up to me that she found my old post about roasting my first blue hubbard, so I thought I would go ahead and link it again for newer readers or people who just want to make their own pumpkin purée. And by the way, the kitchen featured in the photo is that of T and his wife F. We rented from them our first year in St. Paul.

Someone had been trying to wear all pink everyday…

7. And finally I leave you with pictures of our giant carrot. It was peaking out of the ground, just asking to be harvested. We have some other carrots growing still, but they all did not do this well, mostly because our cucumber plant took over that part of the garden. This next week I am going to make an attempt at sauerkraut with our cabbages and pickles with our cucumbers.

“SMILE!”

Once again, I am linking up with Jen at Conversion Diary!

http://www.conversiondiary.com/2014/10/7-quick-takes-about-driving-in-dc-meeting-fabulous-people-and-outing-myself-as-an-airplane-stalker-nerd.html

Seven Quick Takes, Friday, September 26

1. Well, we are four weeks into the school year here at The Awesome School, and I think I am getting a good rhythm. We have found a good balance of a little bit of schooling on the most basic kindergarten level material, followed by play, chores, and or errands. Even with a few random schedule interruptions we have kept our rhythm.

2. Today we had our first session of our new (to us) co-op. It was really nice. Since I am new, I had no responsibilities today, and it was the strangest thing to drop G off in her class, L in her’s, and discover that F did not really care whether or not I was in the nursery. So, I spent 2.5 hours sitting at a large table with other moms doing “Mom’s time.” I spent a whole morning not worrying about children. That was not quite the truth, I worried about F a little bit, but knew someone would tell me if she was having trouble. It was relaxing. After co-op, we ate our sandwiches on our 20 minute drive home and had some fruit, nap time story, and now it is quiet time. I think I am going to like this co-op.

Two bushels.

3. End of September means apple sauce canning time for us. This year, I opted for market apples, which I ordered from the farmer by email, and picked up at the market 2 minutes from our house this morning. It was nice. It was real nice. Also, doable. We plan on making lots of sauce, and I am going to try my hand at apple jelly. I was slightly disappointed when I discovered that I could have been making peach jelly from our peach peals and pits, so I am determined to do apple jelly. I am thinking about pie filling maybe as well, but then that will also be determined by how excited M is about all of these things. He is, after all, the master canner in our home. I think we will head out to an orchard in early October, but not for lots of picking, more for the experience.

Tomatoes, meet Victorio Strainer.

4. We did our first tomato canning last weekend. We decided to do 1/2 bushel just to give it a try, and it took 3 hours to cook down the tomatoes, which was a long time! We ended up with 6.5 quarts of crushed, cooked down tomatoes that still have to be turned into sauce. So, I guess we are going to see if we like our home canned tomatoes better than store, and decide if it is worth it to do this every year. We think it is the case with peaches, apples, and jams, so we will see…

The final product.

5. I started an Instagram account this week, but am probably just going to post food pictures there, because, well, food is good, and it is an easy way to share what I cook. Also, I have to post from the iPad, and it is a bit of an effort to get quality photos onto the iPad. I am still resisting the iPhone. I even added an Instagram button on my page (see upper left corner). I feel slightly techy… but I am not… I got a friend to give me a link to a Youtube tutorial which made it easy…

6. M and I watched Schindler’s List for the first time this week. That is a tough movie to watch. Everyone has told me this, but seriously, it kind of leaves one heartbroken, shocked, and speechless. I don’t really have anything I can say about it at this point, except to beware of evil and love others the best we can. I have further thoughts on evil in my last two T&C posts (here and here), which I wrote before I saw the movie, but were influenced in part by the atrocities that people committed during the Holocaust.

7. On a lighter note, the kids and I had a cold for most of this week, so we cut back on our normal social life (you know, play dates, play dates, etc). I confess, sometimes I like a week where we just sit tight and I don’t have to socialize too much. When I do too much, I get more introverted and just want to stay at home. So, this was a week off for me, well until today with co-op and another commitment tonight. And another thing that wiped me our socially, was that little radio interview on the Son Rise morning show I did last Friday. If you missed it and really want to hear me, the podcast is here and I am on right at 1:45:00. It has taken me a full week to recover and hearing the first 2 seconds of myself to find the right spot for you, freaked me out a little….

Linking up once again with Jen at Conversion Diary!

Seven Quick Takes, Friday, September 12

1. I have heard from other moms about having a bad week or day this week, and I confess that it has been particularly rough for me here in the Spencer house, especially trying to figure out how to parent an almost four year old. I hope that part of it is just the end of the threes and transitioning into not needing a daily nap. I also know that part of it is my lax parenting with her, and that my parenting must be balanced with my personality. So, I have made some parenting plans, and I hope that by sticking with them, with all the kids, I will stop losing it entirely with them. You know you need to change something when you are confessing being impatient with your kids regularly…

2. Today has been the best day all week, and not just because it is Friday. I know that my success in not losing it will not be so easy every day, but I plan to persevere even on the hard days. We did our morning hourish of reading, catechism, math (sandpaper number tracing), and then for writing practice the girls made birthday cards for two different “C”‘s who have birthdays a week apart and are also 20 years apart in age. G (5) and L (3) worked on the cards for two hours, and F (22 months) and I worked on the weekly sheet and towel laundry along with the biannual-seasonal-clothing-dresser-swap.

3. The biannual-seasonal-clothing-dresser-swap is biannual, because it seems we only have two seasons in Minnesota: Winter and Summer. (We even have the furnace on today to keep the house from dipping to jacket weather.) For those of you not familiar with this, it means that I changed out all the summer clothes for winter clothes and checked the sizes of clothes to see what fits whom. Anyway, I used to think the whole changing sizes and seasons thing was a chore with just G, and now it takes a whole morning with three! I imagine that one day the older girls will be able to do more of it themselves. We also had a basketful of clothes handed down to us from a friend I had to sift through. As it is we have way to many pants and tops for the girls for the cold weather, and not nearly enough dresses and skirts. I did the skirt thing with leggings for them last winter, but they had holes in the knees by mid-February and that is not going to cut it. So, we are going the more practical pants route. Is it weird to put skirts over colored skinny jeans? Because I might just encourage that. They are so much cuter in skirts!

The hungry hawk is in possession of this squirrel’s sibling on the other side of the Ash.

4. Wednesday I noticed four baby squirrels coming out of a nest in our backyard Ash tree. They were squeaking and climbing up and down the tree, and were pretty cute to watch. M even stopped work for a minute to admire them.

The Circle of Life moves us all.

Then yesterday I glanced out the nursery window, and saw a young hawk with a baby squirrel pinned under its feet. I mentioned it to G and L and they started shrieking and sobbing, “No! No! Chase it away! Don’t let it kill the squirrel!” Knowing that M would want to see the event, I called him up from the study to calm down and explain to the girls about how hawks have to eat as well. All animals have a purpose, and hawks is to eat baby squirrels. The girls stopped screaming, but were not convinced of the goodness of the hawk. At least it was free-range “happy” squirrel veal, right?

5. I was nominated for the 10 book challenge, under the rule that I list 10 that have stayed with me. It is not meant to be a list of the *best* books I have ever read, but ones that have impacted me the most (off the top of my head):

The Complete Works of Jane Austen (I cannot pick one.)
Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis de Sales (Still the best spiritual book for lay people that I have ever read.
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (duh…)
The Rule of St. Benedict (When M and I read it in college, we knew that we wanted it to influence our family life.)
Kirsten Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset (I love they way she presents motherhood and womanhood. And her insight into humanity is incredible!)
After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre (Virtue Ethics are the best kind.)
The Conservative Mind by Russel Kirk (An understanding of conservatism that I agree with.)
The Complete Works of Laura Ingalls Wilder (They are even better as an adult.)
The Rhine Flows Into the Tiber: A History of Vatican II by Fr. Ralph M. Wiltgen S.V.D. (This transformed my understanding of the modern Church, especially growing up post-V II.)
Tess of the D’urbervilles by Thomas Hardy (I will never forgive Hardy for being so cruel to his characters, and I am scarred for life…)

The pattern is called “Ozborne Slub.” I am so glad the seam looks straight in the photo…

6. I never shared my curtains that I sewed back in July (though they have photobombed a bit). They cover all the kitchen windows including our long ones and the back door. I managed so easily because it was a stiff cotton broadcloth. I had been putting sewing them off for a year, and now that they are finally up, I am pretty happy with them, and they add a lot to the kitchen. 🙂

7. I leave you with our blue hubbard watch:

Has it grown since last week? I can’t tell…

Linking up again with Jen at Conversion Diary.

http://www.conversiondiary.com/2014/09/7-quick-takes-about-my-first-radio-show-punk-rock-dads-and-a-desperate-plea-for-birthday-party-ideas.html#comments

Seven Quick Takes, Friday, August 28

1. I am trying not to lament the end of summer vacation for M. It has gone by too quickly with a 17 day trip to Georgia, Ohio, and Michigan, a 5 day visit from my sister and her family, and our 9 day trip to St. Louis, plus everything in between. It has been absolutely lovely here in Minnesota, which is more that I can say for our winter weather. Our garden is still producing well, and we are taking in the last week and getting ready for a more scheduled school year.

2. August flew by without a trip to any fairs, and while I know the kids will miss seeing the animals, it did not fit into our schedule or our budget. We did however make a visit at the end of July to the farm in Wisconsin to visit our cousins, aunt, and uncle and see their animals. Hopefully the girls won’t be too sad when they notice we missed out on the State Fair this year. While it is a big deal in Minnesota, we have only been Minnesotans for two years so maybe we can be okay missing it.

3. Two years in Minnesota! I can’t really believe it. Time has flown by since we got here. The kids are so much bigger than they were when we moved here. We own a house. We have survived two winters. M is thriving at and loving his work. And we have found an awesome community of Catholic families to be a part of. We are really starting to feel at home here.

4. This video was going around Facebook this week about how this winter is going to be worse this year, especially compared to last Winter. But this guy, Joe Bastardi, specifically said “it may not be as bad further North and West, as in Chicago, Minneapolis…” Maybe we are getting a break this year in Minnesota. However, I am not going to count on it, and am mentally preparing for at least 100 consecutive days of sub zero morning temperatures…

5. We are getting monster cucumbers out of our garden. These things are like miniature watermelons. Here is one L picked today with a pen and with my lame phone.

The girls keep on picking them and bringing them it. But seriously, they are bigger than G’s arms!

6. And speaking of lame phones. I am trying really hard to not feel embarrassed everytime I pull my phone out in public. Last week at the baseball game everyone was using their phones to check the weather and take selfies and I was like, it would be fun to get a picture… but my phone there it is… tiny. It does have a fun keyboard that slides out underneath. But really it is much better for my soul and for my children than I have not upgraded to a smart phone. I waste a lot of time online as it is…

7. I was thinking of writing a post about how I organize my life and schedule and then I saw my desktop.

Who left all those files on my children?

I need serious help here, guys. Or I need to spend about five minutes getting everything into folders or the trash. My first tip is to clean before things get messy… then things will not look like this.

That’s seven!

I am linking up with Jen and her Conversion Diary. Head on over for more quick takes!

http://www.conversiondiary.com/2014/08/7-quick-takes-about-back-to-school-veggie-choppers.html

Seven Quick Takes: Friday, August, 22, St. Louis Doings

The prairie of Shaw’s Nature Reserve.

In light of our visit to St. Louis, I am going to tell about some of our favorite things to do in St. Louis. If you have been reading my blog since the beginning, you may find this to be repetitive. We normally visit my home town twice a year, and there are several things that we always try to do. Here they are in maybe a particular order:

1. St. Louis Cardinals Baseball: We cannot do this when we visit at Christmas time, but we definitely can in the summer. In fact, I often choose travel dates around home stands so that we can get to a game. In the past we have taken the kids with us, but the past two years M and I have made a date of it since free grandparent babysitting is hard to come by most of the time. I recapped this year’s game yesterday.

2. Ted Drewes Frozen Custard: Even people from Canada and New Hampshire come to Ted Drewes. It is the best frozen custard you will ever eat, and if you want the best of the best, you have to head over to the original location. I grew up on this stuff and I will never find a better frozen custard, ever. We go about every other day when we are visiting. So, that balances out to less than once a month. I am pretty sure that is not gluttonous.

3. Amighetti’s Specials: Amighetti’s is an Italian sandwich shop on The Hill. My parents have been getting the Special for as long as I can remember. Taking a bite out of a special brings back every memory of eating them on special outings and picnics growing up. They are nostalgic and good.

4. Cecil Whittaker’s Pizza: This is a St. Louis style pizza which uses the yummy cheese blend of cheddar, swiss, and provolone called Provel. St. Louis style pizza has a cracker thin crust with a delicious sauce and the yummy cheese. We always, always order when we visit. We almost did not get it in January after the blizzard that hit St. Louis, but thankfully they ordered for pickup only and M braved the winter roads to get it. And we were like, blizzard, shimizzard, no blizzard is going to keep us from our pizza! After living in Buffalo, NY and St. Paul, MN we will not be stopped by snow…

5. Toasted Ravioli: Yummy! This is another St. Louis Italian thing. We have no Italian in us, but we sure love the Italian foods. Take ravioli pasta, bread it, and fry it. Top it off with a meat sauce and Parmesan. Yum, yum! I was so excited when I found frozen toasted ravioli at Aldi this winter in St. Paul, but it was not the same as the authentic St. Louis recipe.

6. And now that we are stuffed from eating amazing food, I will tell you about the places we like to do walking: We like to go to the Science Center, the Botanical Garden’s, the free Zoo, the Art Museum, and this summer we went out to the Arboretum (now called Shaw’s Nature Reserve). These are all impossible to do every visit, but we like to do a couple per visit.

7. Best of all is St. Francis de Sales Oratory: We absolutely love the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priests. One of our dear friends was ordained a deacon for the order this year, and we hope to see him ordained next summer if they do them in St. Louis instead of Italy. Getting to a couple of the daily Low Masses they have there is awesome and beautiful, if not a little nerve wracking with three little ones. If they ever open an oratory in St. Paul we are going to have to be torn between them and our beloved St. Agnes.

That is all for now folks!! Thanks for reading!

Linking up with Jen at her Conversion Diary.

http://www.conversiondiary.com/2014/08/7-quick-takes-about-vintage-dresses-hiphop-wedding.html

Seven Quick Takes: Friday, August 8

Our rainbow…

1. So, the reason that I did not write quick takes last week was that we have been extremely busy since the last time I wrote them. I finished my last ones talking about how we decided to repaint the exterior of our house. Minutes after I published it, M found rotten, disintegrating wood around four of our windows. The wood was under a metal cover that was put on when the windows were last replaced. We did some Google searches of rotten wood and stucco houses and saw some pretty awful scenarios. We were envisioning two whole sides of our house having rotten wood underneath the stucco, and then having to spend all of our money and more to fix the house. As it turns out, we found a really nice carpenter to come out assure us that it was just the wood around the windows that was bad, make a good offer to fix it that same week. So, we took him up on it, and while he did the work he told us that the stuff (I don’t know what it is called) behind our stucco is made of some indestructible material they used to make back in the day and even if water did get back to it, it would never rot out. And the day that we learned that the wood was not rotten beyond the windows, a rainbow appeared in the sky.

2. We went ahead with the painting, but first there was power-washing. Our awesome friends T and F own a power washer, which they lent to us in exchange for garden lettuce (well that is not exactly how it happened, but T sure likes our lettuce). Here are some post power washing photos (the paint was not this bad before:

Back of the house

South side of the house

Up close

3. We started painting Tuesday afternoon, doing the first coat on one side. Then we did all three other sides on Wednesday. M worked on the second coat and the windows yesterday. Tomorrow M, my sister S, and my brother-in-law are going to finish the second coat and the house will be repainted! Hooray!

The South side with one coat.

The back all finished up!

I did not realize how bad it looked until we did the painting. We have been getting comments from neighbors that we have not even met yet on how good it looks. So, of all the good things to come out of our repainting, besides maintaining our house, is that our neighbors really like the way it looks and our house will blend in really well with all of our snow.

4. Remember my best squash friend, good old mother blue hubbard?

I was inordinately excited two weeks ago to discover female flowers on my squash plant. And now we have three baby blue hubbards. I am so excited for grotesque looking squash to grow in my garden and to make delicious pies, breads, and soups.

Tiny squash!

This one is trying to get out of the yard.


The biggest so far. And my does my plant need some water….

5. In addition to painting this last week, I have been getting ready for our summer visit from the W’s (my sister M, her husband J, and their four lovely kids) and my sister S. It is a lot of work to get a whole house ready for guests with a broken toe (which still needs the funny shoe but not hurting anymore). We had a birthday cake for three year old B yesterday and went to the zoo today. Mostly, the kids are just happy to be with each other. And the weather it absolutely lovely outside in the shade. We are going to try for a sisters’ outing one of these evenings. Hooray!

6. I think I can handle home schooling this year, and I am determined to follow a schedule. People tell me again and again that I do not need to do much for kindergarten, but the thing is, my kids do better with a little structure in their lives. And I am pretty sure and hour of structured school time for a five year old will not ruin her experience of childhood. Not that anyone is saying that it is, but it seems that a lot of seasoned home schooling moms think that kindergarten should be really laid back. We are going to stick with simple science, math, and catechism, and solidify reading and printing. I think that this kindergarten year is largely for me to realize that I can do it. I can teach and help my children learn. It is very intimidating to take home schooling on, and I have been trying to get a mental handle on it for over five years.

7. Finally, I have to confess that I had writer’s block. The piece I wrote for Truth and Charity yesterday took a lot of mental energy and I think it was met with a lot of spiritual resistance. But I persevered, and if you did not get a chance to read it and you care about traditional prayer or charismatic prayer, I hope that you will.

Linking up with Jen! Head on over to find more Quick Takes!

http://www.conversiondiary.com/2014/08/7-quick-takes-about-hiking-fails-questions-about-dc-the-smells-of-the-bible-and-the-best-baby-photobomb-ever.html

Seven Quick Takes: Saturday, July 25, 2014

1. I have two medical things to discuss this week. The first has to do with my dad. You may remember about his emergency surgery back in January to repair his aortic dissection. Well, the surgery was a success and he is alive and getting better day by day. We learned yesterday after a CT scan that his aorta did not heal as well as the doctors would have liked, and they recommend that he not run at all ever again. This is a blow for him, especially since he has been looking forward to running again since his surgery. They do not think that naturally any further healing of the aorta will occur. His aorta is as healed as it is going to be, except by miraculous divine intervention. So, I again ask for prayers for Dad, that he be healed completely from his dissection and that he is able to be happy with his limited aortic ability should his complete healing never occur. We are so thankful to have him with us still, even if I am never able to run with him again. Thank you for your prayers.

I can’t decide which shoe I like better…

2. In other medical news, I broke my little toe on the right this week. It is pretty lame to have a broken toe. This means no more running for me for 4-6 weeks and I have to wear a funny shoe and have a purplish toe. It happened when I was walking through a doorway and accidentally kicked the edge of the wall. It was like: step, kick, hop, hop, hop on the other foot, OW!!!!, tuck L back into bed, hobble back out to the couch, send G down to get M to get me ice, feeling nauseated, ow that still really hurts, maybe I should see the doctor for an xray, calling my awesome physical therapist sister to get her advice, calling the doctor, calling a friend for a ride so I don’t strain the possible break, seeing the doctor, getting the xray, maybe not broken, getting call from doctor… and yes, it was most definitely broken. A teeny tiny hairline fracture which disables me for a month. But there are lots of things to offer it up for these days, so the Catholic in me had no problem there…

3. We have a new little rabbit living under the shed. The girls have named him “Peter Rabbit.” He is pretty cute and looks cuddly. In my surplus of lettuce this week I donated some of the wilted, bug eaten lettuce it to the rabbits. Both rabbits chowed down on that stuff. It had a soporific effect on the rabbits (a la The Flopsy Bunnies by Beatrix Potter), and they went and took a nap.

Cottontail and Peter. Cute bunnies until they find a way into our garden. For now, we can watch the life of bunnies while we eat breakfast.

4. I organized the pantry today. Having this broken toe is limiting in some ways, but not enough to prevent me from reorganizing the pantry. It looks so nice and tidy, for now. I even threw a few stale things out. It was quite freeing. Now I must organize something else….


The bumper and crib sheet we have had forever. They kind of match the decor… and that wall is looking really bare…

5. I have been wanting to get a rug for F’s room since we moved into the house. It is the only bedroom I did not paint, which was fine since all the bedrooms had been repainted before the house went on the market. But it was stuck with these cream colored walls which matched perfectly to my rocking chair, making a very creamy, woody room when you had the crib, chair, and changing table all together. Slowly I changed things. I got some curtains of a pretty teal. F got a handmade quilt from her great grandmother which I threw over the rocking chair. Then I found the toy bins on clearance, which replaced the diaper boxes. And after looking out for the right rug for over a year, I found it. It was $18 (a back to school sale), and has all the right colors. Even F likes it. I am pretty happy with it. The only last thoughts I have for the room is maybe something more for the walls, and curtain ties instead of clothes pins…

That little door looks like it might lead to a secret passage for babies. It is actually a door to plumbing.

6. This bowl of fruit makes me really happy.

We have kept our Easter candle out without the lilies since Pentecost and it looked so bare and plain. So, today I was inspired by fruit. The only problem is that by the end of the week, it will be an empty bowl…

7. M and I have decided to repaint the outside of the house. It is a stucco house, which normally does not need painting, but someone in the past painted it. This means we have to maintain the paint. Plus, the windows need re-caulking. So, we are doing it all on a whim we had last week. We do not normally do things like this so spontaneously, but it just made sense to do it now, especially since we have no little babies this summer. It is not like I can do much to help anyway (my toe), but at least I will be able to managed the kids easier without a tiny nursling. And while that kind of sounds like I might be pregnant, I am not. It just means, we would like to have a tiny new baby by next summer, but it is not happening yet.

That’s all folks! I am linking up with Carolyn, the guest host of Quick Takes, this week.

http://www.svellerella.com/7-quick-takes-friday-svellerella-edition/