7 Quick Takes Friday (Vol. 115)

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A Montessori Mindset One of the kids at school fell on the way to carpool and got scraped knees.  After tending to the booboos, I was asked a question that I believe to be clearly indicative of this young person’s Montessori education: “What kind of wood do you think those steps were made out of that I fell down?  Are they made of oak?”  Wow!  That was the last thing I expected to hear post scraped knee experience.  The knowledge and questions of children, in general, tends to amaze and amuse me. 

 

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The Loss of Loved Ones Last Saturday Kevin and I went to Mass, prayed the Rosary before the statue of Mary in the garden at Little Sisters of the Poor where he and I have gone and sat together since I was in high school. I went to Reconciliation, then spent some time praying at St. Michael's grotto. Someone had stolen the matches and scattered all the envelopes, so I couldn't even light a candle for my dad. He knows I've been thinking of him a lot lately.
     Lord, I give you this day and all of the prayers and tears mixed together in it, to be used as You wish for the salvation of souls in time and eternity. Amen.

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You Got Mail! This weekend, I figured out how I’m going to display some cards Kevin and I sent each other over the years in a collage so they can be opened and read while hanging up.

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Empty Nest Errs It feels a bit strange going to St. Benedict’s for daily Mass now, knowing that the two people Kevin and I most often attended Mass with at that church have moved to new places as they continue on their faith and vocation journeys.  I won’t hear from Michele until Christmas and that’s if she feels like sending me a letter.  Fortunately, we keep in touch pretty much daily with John in one way or another, even though he’s been on summer assignment in Hampton, Virginia, and is heading back to St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore very soon for his second year of seminary.  

     
Kevin and I have felt in a sense like we’ve had two leave the nest over the past year.  What’s funny is that this summer, we’ve started actually decorating our place a bit.  We now have our dining area devoted to a Rochester, Lake Ontario, beginning of Kevin and me becoming friends and dating theme...Read the rest of this reflection here.   

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Gelati Celesti Kevin and I have been enjoying using our St. Michael's Scrip for Gelati Celesti (and the other bazillion places they have available.  

  

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Step Up Yes, I know I'm silly, but now we have all four of the Step Up movies.  Some of the acting is corny at best, and the stories are very predictable, but I'm really inspired by dance, and Kevin loves it, too, so we've had fun watching the movies and the making of the movies and the choreography.  You can make fun of us if you like, but then you better bring it!  
    

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But I'm on Vacation! For the first time this summer, Kevin and I are both officially on vacation.       

Check out Jen Fulwiler’s tradition of 7 Quick Takes Friday at her tremendously popular blog Conversion Diary.

Empty Nest Errs

     It feels a little bit strange going to St. Benedict’s for daily Mass now that the two people (besides each other) Kevin and I most often attended Mass with at that church have moved to new places as they continue on their faith and vocation journeys.  I won’t hear from Michele until Christmas and that’s if she sends me a letter via snail mail since she's now in a cloistered Carmelite community in Carmel, California.  

     Fortunately, we keep in touch pretty much daily with John in one way or another, even though he’s been on summer assignment in Hampton, Virginia, and is heading back to St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore, Maryland, very soon for his second year of seminary.  

There's not a straight wall or floor in our place,
but the picture frames are level,
though this photo seems like it's not.

     In a sense, Kevin and I have felt like we’ve had two leave the nest over the past year.  What’s funny is that this summer, we’ve started actually spent some time decorating our place.  We now have our dining area devoted to a Rochester, Lake Ontario, beginning of Kevin and me becoming friends and dating theme. 

     We have a new shower curtain and matching towels in the bathroom.  I’m still working on what I’ve been referring to as my “inspiration wall” which is the space above my desk.  This past weekend, I figured out how I’m going to display some cards Kevin and I sent each other over the years in a collage so they can be opened and read while hanging up.  

     I try to remind myself of the major progress I’ve made in the past in the past nine months.  It is rather significant considering I’d brought several boxes over here when my mom sold the family home last fall, and then another bunch of things to sort through when my grandmother passed away, plus I still had some items from my dad that I didn’t want to throw out, but I hadn’t gotten around to mailing to family members or friends who would appreciate the items that my dad had collected over the years.

     It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if when Kevin and I finally get our place looking halfway decent (as far as we are concerned—not according to what anyone else thinks) and to a point where we could comfortably have more than our usual one person over at a time, then we’d decide to move.  After being dragged from one location to the next while I was growing up and hating it every time.  I do not like the prospect of moving, but at least I can be fairly certain we’ll be staying in Richmond.  God would have to make it blatantly obvious and more than abundantly clear to both Kevin and me that it was His Will before I’d even consider another out of state move.     

     There is a part of me wondering who God might bring into our lives next to walk with on their vocational discernment journey.  Another part of me is wondering if this will be a time for Kevin to focus more our own relationships with the Lord and one another.  Perhaps that would be partly expressed through us getting back to work on our spiritual memoir.  I know, I for one, could certainly stand to be reminded of the myriad of ways the Lord has worked in and through our lives over the past 15+ years. 

The Outer Limits of: French, Food, Fun, and Laughter

Speaking French, funny stories, rollercoasters, West African music and dance, an assortment of photos, video clips, and discussions made this evening quite enjoyable.  My youngest sister is in town for a couple weeks, and I hadn’t seen her since my mom and I went up to Ohio back in April to see her performances. 

    
Since then she’s been to Burkina Faso for the second time and loved it.  I was excited to hear about her trip and looking forward to speaking with her in French, which she’d really like to keep up.  We hung out at my mom’s.  Kevin came over after work and grocery shopping and cut up fruit for us all to eat while we were talking. 

Food Matters

We laughed about some amusing moments from when we were growing up, one of those being the day that my mom quickly packed my sister “a lunch” for the day she was spending with me while I took care of “my two little guys.”  (For further explanation, see My Nanny Diary.)  The contents of said lunch were rather interesting: 1. a loaf of cinnamon raisin bread 2. a box of individual packets of hot cocoa mix.

   
Opening a package of crackers and eating a couple that were starting to go stale, my sister said she didn’t mind them.  I told her that she should have known they were stale since there wasn’t FRESH written on the side of the package in black permanent marker.  Writing FRESH in black marker was a trick a household member had for identifying the cereal purchased most recently that was least likely to be stale.  Rather than throw the stale cereal out, this individual helpfully marked the new box as FRESH.

Enjoy the Ride

My mom and sister just got back from some time in Rochester, New York, so we were talking about the people and places they visited up there and got onto the subject of roller coasters.  There is a rather small (in terms of other amusement parks we’ve gone to) place with rides and a water park that’s been in its current location since before I was born.  Often when we’d go up to Rochester to visit my grandma, grandpa, uncles, and my parents' friends from college, we would spend a day at Seabreeze where they have such rides as the Jack Rabbit, a wooden rollercoaster that my parents went on years before we were even a twinkle in their eyes.  My sister and cousins went to the park for a quick visit to hit the highlights at Seabreeze before they closed the gates. 

This got us into a discussion about rollercoasters at different amusement parks and how family members responded to those at Seabreeze, King’s Dominion, and Busch Gardens.  Kevin had to tell the story about the time we were at King’s Dominion for the day, and we rode the Outer Limits rollercoaster for the first time.  Afterward, we decided to have lunch.  I went up to an open window and asked for “two orders of stricken chips.” 

The person looked at me quite confused.  I didn’t even realize what I’d said until Kevin stepped forward and said, “I’m sorry.  We just got off a rollercoaster.  What she meant to say is that we’d like two orders of chicken strips, please.”  We spent the entire lunch laughing hysterically as we ate our chicken and fries, and later I drew a little picture of a house and wrote "Home for Abused Chips" on the front of one of the many letters I sent him back then when we were still dating. 

   
Kevin's kept every card, note, and letter I sent him from when we first met throughout the entire time we were dating, so I came across the envelope the other day when I was rereading cards, letters, and things I'd sent him which are now mixed in with the letters and cards he sent me way back when.

7 Quick Takes Friday (Vol. 101)

                                                                                 

                                               

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Happy Mother’s Day!  I’ll be praying extra for mothers and “other mothers” this weekend.  I’m grateful to my mother for so much and admire her quite a bit, even if I’m not as good about thanking her specifically for being present, sharing her passion for the faith, the pro-life movement, reading, but I truly appreciate who she is and how she’s loved my sisters, family, friends, and me as unconditionally as possible. 

     This will be my mom’s first Mother’s Day since her own mother passed away in January.  I’ll also be remembering friends who have recently lost their mothers and will be more aware of their absence this weekend. 

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Sooooo Big! This will be my sister’s first Mother’s Day with a big beautiful baby boy in her arms.  Ezra, at a mere 2 months old is already in the 100^th percentile for height at 25.5 in. and the 99 percentile for weight at a whopping 16.5 lbs! 

                                                                                                 

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Tangled All three girls are fascinated by shoes.  The twins enjoy chewing on them and playing with the laces.  Vivi has, of course, already graduated to putting on shoes that are much too big for her and walking around in them pretending she’s Mommy, Daddy, or me.  Lately Vivi’s made it a habit to “tie” my shoelaces when I’ve taken my shoes off.  Her “tying” has become more complicated.  It actually took me a couple minutes yesterday to undo what she did so I could put my shoes on, tie them the more traditional way, so I could go outside and take the cover off of the sandbox for her.     

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Same Silliness, Different Day Vivi and her sisters love playing with blankets, one in particular that’s in their living room is often made into a hiding place, a makeshift tent, a blanket, a beach towel, etc.  Sophie’s been putting a blanket over her head, then turning around and flailing her arms until it’s no longer covering her face.  Once she’s free, she starts the process over with as much gusto as the first time she did it.

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Context Clues "Mickey Mouse got ripped,” Vivi said.  I laughed thinking of this in terms of bodybuilding and how he’d become Mighty Mouse, though I know she was just stating a fact about the sticker she’d just put upside down on the page then tried to remove.

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Wishin’ and Hopin’ There are a number of books I read that I don’t have to write reviews for and devour in between reading and writing about other books.  One of these such reads I picked up at Goodwill when I did my spring/summer shopping a few weeks ago.  I was thoroughly amused by Wishin’ and Hopin’ a novel by Wally Lamb.  The narrator is a 10-year-old fifth grade boy at a Catholic school in 1964.  The thoughts and observations of this kid are priceless and wildly entertaining.  I’m certain that my dad and his brothers pulled some of the same tricks on the nuns who ran the grammar school they attended as students in this class do.  I was not only laughing out loud, I was reading parts of it to Kevin and telling friends about it, too
     

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Mixed Tapes  Kevin and I were watching a movie this week in which the friends and couples would exchange mixed tapes they’d made for each other.  This brought back memories of when I was in my last year of high school and college when Kevin and I would make mixed tapes for each other.  Kevin had a recording studio, high quality equipment, and a large music collection.  I had a light pink Panasonic boombox with a recording feature on it.  I did the best I could to record songs from the radio, other tapes, etc. on the tape I made for Kevin, but it came out more like a ransom tape in that the cutting, pasting, differing volumes, and styles were rather shocking.  The best part, which Kevin and I still laugh about, is the time when he was listening to the first mixed tape I made him, and he practically fell off the loveseat, because one song was so much louder than the one before. 

     This week I’ve been listening to one of the 1432 CDs Kevin made for me while we were still dating.  Good times.

                  

Check out Jen Fulwiler’s tradition of 7 Quick Takes Friday at her tremendously popular blog Conversion Diary.