How We're Making a Catholic Family (in 7 Quick Takes)

Sometimes I feel more like a convert to this faith than a revert. Case in point, I said my *first* Rosary last night. First! I mean, I've had the Hail Mary memorized for a long time and all the other prayers too, but I've never strung them together while contemplating the appropriate mysteries... ever. It was eye-opening. (And I've never been so aware of my pride as when doing so: "Oh wow! Look I'm doing this! I'm actually doing this!" "I'll totally have to write a post about that insight I just had." Et cetera et cetera et cetera...)

But my point was/is... the Catholic tradition is DEEP and there is so much that I've either never heard of, or only ever just touched on. So when the husband and I decided to come back to the church, we started looking at how we were going raise our family Catholic. So far this is what we've come up with:

- 1 -

Weekly Mass. At least this one was a no-brainer. However, that doesn't mean it's been easy. How can it be with a 3 year old and a 9 month old? But to make it work, we bring lots of snacks for the 3 year old, a couple books, and every once in a while, the 8 year old cousin. The cousin is especially good at getting the 3 y.o. to go to the children's liturgy. (Which can we take a moment to appreciate the children's liturgy?! Neither my husband nor I ever had that growing up, and I think it's just so neat. To me it's the best of both worlds: the children are with us for the majority of the Mass, but we also get a wee break to actually hear the Word and homily. Now to just get the Spitfire to attend it more... ;) )

- 2 -

Catholic media. Books, radio, web, podcasts... you name it, I've been on it. This is where I definitely feel like more of a convert. Truly, it's like a whole new world has been opened to me. Who knew Catholics write their own books/blogs/news? *winky smiley* It seems a little silly to say that now, but prior to this year the only (and I mean only) Catholic writer that I knew of was Fr James Martin, SJ (and not a bad one to start with, if you're like me and don't really know any). On the flipside, I feel I could provide you with at least a soundbite opinion for every Christian (non-Catholic) writer out there. Probably the inevitable result of spending one's childhood in the Family Christian Bookstore, but I digress.
It's been through Catholic creators (my catch-all term) like Matthew Kelly, Scott Hahn, Kendra Tierney, Bonnie Engstrom, Heather Renshaw that we are starting to find our family's place in this Catholic world.  So for them, I am grateful.

- 3 -

Catholic art. "Why should this even be a thing?" you may ask. And to be honest, this is really a work in progress still, as decorating anything (cakes, cards, walls) is not my strong suit. But I think what you hang on your wall shows people what you value most. Is it pictures of family? Places you've been? Beautiful landscapes? Fine art? Plus, you only put the things you enjoy looking at on your wall. So, decor not only communicates something about you to others, but it also adds a positive note to your life and day by looking at it. Our first piece of Catholic wall art was my great aunt's crucifix (or maybe cross?) that we hung up in our office (now make-shift baby room). When she died it was one of the few things that went unclaimed... not that I blame anyone in my family for that. It is, shall we say, different? When I look at it, I imagine her praying beneath it. So I couldn't bare the thought of it going to Goodwill, or worse, the dump.  So I brought it home with me and now it watches over the little dude while he (sometimes) sleeps.

Next came this print from Audrey Eclectic that I love. And most recently, I won another print from her as well of Saint Therese of Liseaux! I don't know where to hang that one though... maybe in the wee girl's room?
My hope, though, is that we will eventually have a space dedicated to displaying art that lifts our hearts and minds to Jesus... a little altar or oratory, if you will. It's on the to-do list.

- 4 -

Celebrating the Liturgical Year. Another work in progress (I was going to include a link here, but um, this is exactly what my blog is all about... so feel free to click around and see what we've done!) Already I know more about some saints than just their names as a result of trying to celebrate their feast days. For this, I rely heavily on the Carrots for Michaelmas and Catholic All Year blogs for inspriation/direction. Right now, we're really just doing what they do. But I think that as we continue to do this, we will find saints that we have a particular affinity to, and ways to celebrate that work for us.
Of course, the next big season coming up is Advent and for that a friend and I have a Jesse Tree project in the works. (Sure hope I'll be able to get my part done before Advent begins! November 29th if you're curious)

- 5 -

Catholic Prayer. Hmm.... this really should have been #2 after going to Mass, huh? Because prayer is important! But as I mentioned before, Catholic prayers (like the Rosary) are still pretty new to me. Words like "Morning Offering" and "Divine Chaplet" are still just that... words signifying things I know nothing about. Yet. Again, file this under "Working On It."  One thing that I have done though is join a prayer group called PrayMoreNovenas.com.  Right now we're doing the Novena to St Jude (the saint of "lost causes") and it's been such a consolation. Also, I think I'm beginning to see answers to the prayers I've made during this novena; and when you see answered prayer, it's such a faith builder! (Which is probably the point?)
Also, since October is the month devoted to the Rosary, I feel like I should give a shout out to the app that helped me pray the Rosary for the first time: Touch Rosary. A quality app that is free! Amazing to think someone put all that time into making this app and is not asking for any money from it. (And I'm not being paid to say that either.)

- 6 -

Family Traditions. We have two small traditions: prayer before meals and also lighting a candle at dinner time to pray for our friends and family. I love how my daughter gets excited about lighting the candle and saying who we're praying for. She will even remind us to pray for certain friends if it looks like we're forgetting! She also gets very excited about blowing the candle out at the end of dinner - for which we keep reminding her that *everyone* needs to be finished with dinner before we do that (and everyone includes her!).

A note about the picture above: the block on top of the napkins is actually a prayer cube from the Iona Community. It's one of our favorite things to offer children when they eat with us ("Here, you can pick the prayer we will say for grace today.") This was something the hubs picked up on our adventure there, and I'm so glad he did.

- 7 -

Your thoughts? I'm sure there are myriads of other things out there that we can (and maybe should) do. What do you think we've missed? Or what are some things that you do with your family? I would love to hear them. And thank you in advance for your comment!

From our family to yours: thanks for reading! :)

This was my Seven Quick Takes for the week. Kelly is still running her Link-tober fest, so hop on over there to see more. And to answer her bonus question: last week's 7QT looks to be the most popular with a whopping 151 views (as of today... and truly, that number is staggering and proves that it's not just my mother who is reading this blog. Cool. Thanks again.)

Seven Quick Takes on Timing - 7th anniversary edition

Seven years today... I love this man!

We're talking about God's timing this week over at Blessed is She and today is my 7-year anniversary with the hubs... just in time for a Seven Quick Takes. The timing (heh heh) of these couldn't be better, as my original plan for the 7QT wouldn't have been long enough and my one thought on God's timing wouldn't have warranted a blog post of its own either. But, *together*... well, we'll see!

- 1 -

Is there one word that can describe God's timing? I believe yes, there is. If our God knows the beginning from the end and everything inbetween, then I have to believe that God's timing is Perfect.  But when job offers don't come when needed, or when babies arrive "early", or when Mr. Right still seems way way off, or even just while waiting for the tea to steep, knowing that God's timing is perfect is hard to remember when it's not my timing. So after reading an article on creating computer passwords to change your life - I decided to use the fact that God's timing is Perfect as the mantra I would repeat to myself every day when I switched on my computer. (That's not exactly my pass phrase by the way... wouldn't want you to go logging into Amazon on a spending spree, now would I? ;) )  And I will testify: typing this phrase nearly every day for the past seven years has changed me. Knowing that God's timing is Perfect has sunk into my very being - so much so that I'm much more at peace when things aren't working on my time table. And when I'm not at peace... well, then I'm no more than 24 hours away from a typed reminder to myself that God's got it all under control.

- 2 -

About that timing thing... back in 2002, I spent a summer in Scotland working for a tech company. I met many lovely people, went to a few concerts, traveled the country. But (contrary to some of my friends' predictions) I didn't meet my husband. Though I could have! He worked at that same company, on the same floor as me, with the same people I worked with. In fact, he had to pass my desk every day to get to his own desk! Yeah... no. I didn't meet him until he moved to California 5 years later. So I guess I will always wonder: were we supposed to meet in Scotland but we messed it up and then God had to make it happen again in California? Or... oh. wait. I think I answered my own question already (see #1).

- 3 -

Our little home... back when it had a lawn... and a tree... and a black car...

Things I love about God's timing: it's perfect. Like when we were in the market for a house... I saw a little gem of a home over the internet while we were away visiting family. It was in quite a state and clearly needed work, but the location was perfect, the size was perfect and the price was in our budget. I immediately started planning all the renovations and decorating we would do. But (and this is a big one) we couldn't do anything about it because we were out of the country. So we saved it in our list of favorites and hoped it would still be there when we got back. It wasn't. I was heartbroken. The next few months after that were pretty bleak in the house hunting - we kept getting beat out and out bid. Just when I was getting ready to throw in the towel, what should appear on Redfin but that house again! All spiffied, and reno'd and beautiful like! The people who had bought it were house-flippers and they did a great job. So we jumped on it and amazingly, for the first time in nearly a year of house hunting, we were the first ones to make an offer and (more importantly) it was accepted! Funny how things work out...

- 3 -

Lest you begin to think my life is all charmed... Timing: 2 minutes. This was how long I could take a shower in our new home before we would run out of hot water. Even though we clearly had a 30-gallon hot water heater sitting in our home, what we couldn't see was that it was nearly 100% full of silt and mineral deposits. Thus, not even one month after moving into our first home we had to buy and install a new hot water heater... and then redo the plumbing... and then the electrics... and then the insulation... and then the sewer lines... OY. Home ownership is expensive y'all.

- 4 -

Best example of God using time to perfect a married couple: Back in college, one of my professors shared his and his wife's secret to solving problems in their marriage. Whenever they disagreed on an issue and couldn't seem to talk it through, they would choose a time period (like a week) where they would each pray about the situation and intentionally listen for God's heart on the subject. During the week they would not allow themselves to talk about that issue at all (except with God in prayer). Then after that week they would write down what they heard and come back together to share. If what they shared didn't match, then they repeated the process until it did.  So even if they both flip-flopped on the issue, each taking the other person's side, that didn't count. They both had to come to the same conclusion, separately, before they could move forward. I thought then that it was a beautiful problem solving strategy. Still do.

- 5 -

Something I've always known, but learned again this week: when choosing bake times for brownies, always choose the smaller amount and, if baking with whole grains, subtract a minute. Nobody likes an overcooked brownie. Nobody.

- 6 -

Babies have a timing all of their own, don't they? I'm still amazed with Little Dude's mobility - especially when compared to his sister. She stood up for the first time at 10 months and didn't (wouldn't?) start walking until 13 months. This guy is 8 months and getting ready to start cruising on the furniture.

Oh hey mom... just standing here beside the coffee table...

On the other hand, when it comes to food, Little Dude couldn't care less about solids. He is *all* about the booby. Contrast that with his older sister who was (at this age) happily eating mashed up ratatouille.

Ah well. Take them as they come, right?

- 7 -

This week the bonus question is "Who is your favorite blogger that you discovered through 7QT?" And this one is kinda hard to answer, because the TIMING of when I found all these blogs is so jumbled. (See what I did there?) I feel like all of my favorite blogs have mentioned 7QT at some point, but whether I found them through 7QT or found them in some other way and then read one of their 7QT posts... it's hard to remember. But I will say that the day I figured out what 7QT was and, relatedly, what in the world a "link up" was and (also related) who the mysterious "Kelly" was... well, that was a happy moment indeed. As my daughter's 2nd favorite cartoon character might say, "Turkey shout, I figured it out!!"

Fig the Fox likes "This Ain't the Lyceum" Head there for more 7QT!

Domestic life in Seven Quick Takes

Can you post your 7 Quick Takes a day after the fact? We shall find out...

- 1 -

Today (as in coming up in the next 2 hours) the spitfire will be taking her first ever Swim Class! I'm not going to lie.. I'm a little bit nervous about how it's going to go. She has spent pretty much her whole life avoiding water... bathtimes (up until only very recently) were torturous for all involved. But her auntie said that *she* would take the little one into the pool, so I was all up for that - except today Auntie is off celebrating her wedding anniversary. Pfft. Whatever, Auntie. Go party while we go scream in the pool. Oh. Wait. I mean Swim. Swim in the pool. (Prayers please)

- 2 -

Shh, kitty... I have 20 minutes before the husband expects me home...

Does anyone else feel like they have to "steal" time to themselves? Yesterday's tutoring session ended a half-hour early, so instead of heading home I sneakily (gleefully) headed off to the local coffee shop and indulged in my new favorite drink: the iced matcha latte. I love the green color. (And, if I'm being honest, I kinda like the looks I get when I pick up my drink... most people's faces seem to be saying "What the what? Why is your drink GREEN?" Their faces may or may not also be saying, "Don't you know this is a Coffee Drinking Establishment?" To which I mentally reply that it's really more a Caffeine Drinking Establishment and I like my caffeine green as the leaf it came from. Thank you very much. *SLURP*)

- 3 -

According to all the signs outside said Coffee Drinking Establishments, it is (apparently) Fall! And if the coffee shops weren't telling me as much, then the Trader Joe's flyer was. I counted at least 4 full pages of pumpkin-laced products (including Pumpkin Trader Joe's O's???) in their latest flyer! I like my pumpkin, but maybe we're going a bit too far?  Personally I'd like to see the persimmon make some headway into the Fall Foodie Fray. I saw a recipe for chocolate persimmon muffins that sounds pretty glorious to me...

- 4 -

The little dude is 8 months old and pulling himself to standing!! I can't handle this. The spitfire didn't even attempt this til 10 months and then it was another 3 before she started walking (and she never did the "cruising" thing). This guy is out to blow all her records away and walk himself right off a cliff (ahem... I mean the front steps, which may as well be a cliff considering what it does to my heart when I think about it.) (More prayers please)

- 5 -

While we're talking about the little dude... we just applied for his UK passport and this was the picture we sent in...

Isn't he the cutest? And for fun here's his sister when she received her passport...

(Also, notice how she's *sitting*... gosh that was a beautiful thing. A baby. SITTING. Little dude doesn't know the meaning of these words)

- 6 -

I don't usually keep 2 books going at once, but in addition to the book I mentioned last week, I am also reading Wearing God by Lauren Winner. I just finished the chapter on our "God who smells" and it is truly fascinating. Winner goes through the Old and New Testaments gleaning out all the references to smells and smelling and explores what it means to say that we have a God who smells (both the action of smelling and also the act of emitting a smell).  I fell in love with this author when she released her first book "Girl Meets God" where she chronicled her experience of converting to Christianity from Orthodox Judaism. She is a Biblical scholar in the best way because of her life-journey and so I highly recommend any of her books to you.

- 7 -

Well, I'm running out of time... gotta go put the little dude down for his nap and the spitfire into a swimsuit. But before I go, the bonus question this week was/is, "How many 7QTs have you posted?" So, counting this one that would make.... 2! (Rawkin' it :) ) Weekend domestic life at its best. Head on over to This Ain't the Lyceum for more 7QT!

2 Feasts in 5 Days = ...7QT?

When did you post your first "Seven Quick Takes"?

Answer: right NOW. (Cue the dramatic news music score. Or something.)

- 1 -

What a long week, I tell ya. I think a picture of the front room from today will speak the 1000 words on this topic:

Yes. It's been that kind of day/week.

- 2 -

But tonight is girls' night, and I am soo looking forward to that! The restaurant that we're going to has the most amazing spare ribs on a salad that I think even the most die-hard carnivore would love. Plus they have a whole *wall* of dessert options - to which I say, "Thank you Jesus for breastfeeding!" (The little dude will love this tonight).

- 3 -

We had Carrots for Michaelmas and it was Knot bad! Thank you to Haley and Bonnie for giving poor-planning me a heads up about Michaelmas this week. And they were right: the whiskey glazed carrots are truly yummy. The spitfire even ate one before she realized it was a carrot. And as it just so happened, we had 2 pounds of carrots that needed to be used pronto, plus a couple bottles of whiskey leftover from the FIL's last visit... so truly, providence at its finest!

And then, just to warm this mama's heart, we had our first real family prayer before the meal! (Well, that is, since becoming a family of 4 eight months ago.) Yup, even the little dude held hands and *stayed still and silent* for the whole prayer. Un-be-lieve-able. If I could have taken a picture, I would have! (But I was praying. We all were :) )

- 4 -

I feel I may be the last one to this... but have any of y'all heard of Scott Hahn? (OK. Yes. I know I'm the last one to this... anyway!) I'm reading his book Lord, Have Mercy and I'm getting a little blown away. It's a little like the feeling I had back in high school calculus when everything just *clicked* and I finally figured out "why we had to do all those things we had to do". It was a turning point for me and my relationship with math, much like I think this book will be for me and my relationship with the Church. But since I'm not done with it yet, I think I shall have to save any more thoughts about it for another post.

- 5 -

"Gosh, I love the French!"

This was my exclamation after my daughter ate her "Croque Monsieur" with NO pushback whatsoever (weird name, white sauce and all). This time, thanks to Kendra for her menu idea to celebrate St Therese's feast day. We ate it with sweet potato fries - which I don't think you'll ever find happening in France - much to their loss. It was delicious.

- 6 -

Uh oh. I'm running out of things to talk about. Quick! A cat! from 1986!

Really? They make calendars out of this stuff now?

- 7 -

I actually made it to the craft store this week to price out the supplies needed for making a Jesse Tree. I don't know... this is looking far too crafty for the likes of me. Maybe I'll just buy myself one of these kits. Except that I don't like that it only comes with 25 ornaments.  I would really like it to follow the actual Advent season.  So... maybe someone out there can give me some pointers?!

Linking up with This Ain't the Lyceum for her Link-tober Fest!