Friday, March 7, 2014

7 Quick Takes {Take 34}, Lent, pee pee resolutions, real food, and dance costume edition...

Happy first Friday of Lent, everyone! Mike and I have been plotting our fish fry outings, one of our very favorite things to do each year, and I've been examining the ways in which I've already failed at my Lenten resolutions, *sighs*. Let's take a look at my week, shall we?

-1- Prayer. If only I could remember to say some.

I am starting off this Lent feeling a bit spiritually dry. Like anybody else, I have spiritual peaks and valleys. Going into Lent, my prayer life felt uninspired and wilty (I just made this word up ;-)). But hope springs eternal, and I set up my Lenten resolutions to act as a springboard to help me feel spiritually stronger. I LOVE Morning and Evening prayer with Magnificat, as well as the other meditations and saint stories therein. So far, Morning Prayer has been a breeze and a blessing. On the other hand, I have forgotten Evening Prayer every.single.evening. I haven't remembered *once*. My mind...I just miss it SO MUCH.

I need to develop a new habit. In the past, I had a habit of bringing my Magnificat up to bed with me along with the book I was planning to read. I created a little stack to take upstairs with me, pulling the Magnificat out of my purse after I got home from work. Up in bed, I'd read Evening Prayer, and then move on to my book. I remembered every night. I'm going to aim for that again.

-2- The tiniest of our Lenten resolutions: "Uh oh Mommy, I am going to go pee on the rug!"

Henry's Lenten resolution is to read through his children's Bible prior to Easter, which is adorable. It's sitting on his bedside table with a little bookmark sticking out of it. Anne does not yet have Lenten resolutions, but I've made her task to be potty trained by Easter. :0 It's still very up and down, but overall it's gotten a lot better. She still wears a diaper overnight, I can't foresee that changing for quite some time. But during the day, she wears underwear. We're doing A LOT of laundry. She seems to not be responding to her first urge to go and getting herself a bit wet, and THEN asking to use the potty. She will in fact go on the potty, but a full clothing change from the waist down is still in order. She has developed a fondness for:

"I do it MYSELF!"

And so she speeds off to the bathroom, wiggles up onto the toilet all by herself, and thinks that this is great fun. Go to town, I say. The prize is getting to flush when she's finished. It's far from perfected, but we're getting there.

-3- March feast days!

Somewhere in the vicinity of St. Patrick's day each year (read: anytime in March) Mike makes Shepherd's Pie for us. We're having friends over for dinner on Sunday, and so this year that is the big day. I'm looking forward to it. I'm sure we'll pursue some Irish beer for the day itself, we enjoy that sort of thing. :) This year, I'd also like to celebrate St. Joseph's feast day with the kids. Has anybody done this before? What is involved? Is there some sort of St. Joseph bread? I want to say there is a market around here that sells such a thing... I know I could Google this, but if anyone has a personal anecdote, I prefer those so much more. :0

-4- Speaking of food...

As if I need more things to be Type A about, I've been all into reading ingredient lists on packaged food these days. I've been reading Real Food, by Nina Planck, and although I don't necessarily see us switching to raw milk anytime soon, I'm quite fascinated with the concepts in the book. I've been taking a look at what we eat as a family, and we've slowly been trying to implement some changes. I've known for awhile with regard to the kids: they need to eat less processed foods. It gets difficult when they get picky and all you want to do is eat your dinner in peace, but that's simply not a good long term solution for anybody. So we're working on this, and so far so good. I know that I *feel* a lot better, as well. Which leads us to...

-5- "Were there always this many stairs up to my office?!" *pants*

I've been trying to get into better shape. My fitness wasn't poor, I do dance at least weekly, and I try to be active where I can (like taking the stairs rather than the elevator. :)). But I had slacked off with my previous daily walks, and I know that last time I had blood work done, my level of HDL cholesterol (the good kind) is not as high as it should be. Genetics are just NOT on my side with regard to heart disease, and the processed foods thing also plays a large role. Exercise can help with this, and I knew that I needed to get back into a healthy routine with regard to exercise. I've been walking again, and it feels wonderful. It's also almost spring/summer belly dance festival season, which is a fantastic impetus to be feeling my best. I am SO excited about all of the dance events coming up. Some things never change from when I was 5. ;-)

-6- Fun dancing stuff

Speaking of dance, some fun tidbits. Tomorrow, I'm going to see one of my troupemates perform. She will be graduating with a BFA in dance this May, and she is performing her senior project on Saturday. It is the first time in the history of her college that a student has been permitted to present Egyptian dance for this senior project. I'm driving down there with another dance friend, and we're all going out to dinner afterward, should be a lot of fun. I love watching dance in all forms, especially solos. Each and every person brings their own flare and style to it, and it's just a beautiful thing to see.

-7- "Oh. This costume bin is getting a bit *full*..."

And in that spirit, I've been spending a lot of lunch hours poring over dance costumes. :0 I do have several dance costumes, it is true. One is our official troupe costume. I have 3 others that I use when I dance solo or when our troupe decides to be colorful (we do this a lot in the summer, fits the mood) and everyone wears a different colored costume from each other. I'm certainly appreciative of all of them, and I use them plenty. After some time though, you crave something new to add to the repertoire. I always hunt for bargain basement deals on swap meets and such, and save my pennies. And so I've been having a good time with this. I don't have a red costume, and that seems like a lovely color to have. I also have a real affinity for the color orange. Exhibit A:

This is my purse. It hurts your eyes to look at it, and therefore I think it is perfect. :)
I would love, love, love an orange dance costume. Let's see if this dream can become a reality, shall we?

And so that's my week! How was yours?! Leave me a comment! And check out more 7 Quick Takes over at Conversion Diary!

6 comments:

  1. Oh! A question I can answer. *adjusts SAHM hat* A St. Joseph altar. It can be simple or elaborate as you want. I know you hate baking but you don't have to. http://www.thankevann.com/stjoseph/ Has awesome ideas and images you can use to create one. That's what we're making during "school" time.

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    1. Oh thank you! Sometimes called a "St. Joseph's Table" right?

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  2. Confession: I am reading this (and other) blogs at work. One of the things I was NOT going to do during Lent.

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    1. Ha ha! Thank you for sharing and commiserating. :) We're all in this together!

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  3. That purse looks awesome! Where is it from?

    St. Joseph's day is a huge deal for the Italian community in New Orleans. People decorate altars to him with all kinds of special baked goods, especially anise cookies.

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    1. Hi Sarah! It's a Namaste Harlow bag, in pumpkin spice: https://www.namasteinc.com/products/handbags/handbags_all.php

      Anise cookies? I might be able to attempt that. :)

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