Seven Quick Takes Friday--volume 64

One.
I lost a day this week. I sat down at the computer this morning all ready to wrack my head to do a Small Successes post, and lo and behold, it is Friday! How on earth did I get here? Maybe it was the egg salad we had for lunch yesterday that threw me off--it's normally a Friday lunch for us...

Two.
I wonder if I will ever spend a night in my own bed again. Normally I wind up on the sofa at some point because my beloved husband snores and Gemma will only sleep in my spot on our full-sized bed, which, by the way, used to seem a lot bigger when Bret and I were not parents and slept spooning together and didn't have a third person in the bed with us. For some reason, Gemma will nap in the co-sleeper, but will not sleep in it at night. And that's another thing: how on earth can a six-month old differentiate between nap-time and night time? Last night she and I slept on the pullout sofa because she is so congested and fusses pretty much throughout the night because of her inability to nurse or suck her fingers. She also screams like a siren when I drip saline up her nose and suction her nostrils with the aspirator. Terribly ungrateful, don't you think...?

Three.
On the subject of colds, I am trying to be patient with them, although this is our second cold in less than a month. I ought not complain, as we've only had two colds per winter for the last two years, and the year prior to that we had only one cold, but it lasted the entire winter...plus, this is supposed to be The Winter of the Great Swine Flu Pandemic, isn't it? So I ought to be happy that so far we are just doing battle with snotty noses.

Four.
I want to thank my friend Marilyn for posting this quote from St. Francis de Sales. I am emailing it to several people in my address book who need to keep it in mind as much as I do:

"Do not lose your inward peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset. Commend all to God, and then lie still and be at rest in His bosom. Whatever happens, abide steadfast in a determination to cling simply to God, trusting to His eternal love for you; and if you find that you have wandered forth from this shelter, recall your heart quietly and simply. Maintain a holy simplicity of mind and do not smother yourself with a host of cares, wishes or longings, under any pretext."

Five.
Every male in this family is in need of a haircut. Again. I hate giving the boys haircuts almost as much as I hate cleaning the oven, but I only clean the oven about once a year (I know, I'm really bad--I'm the reason self-cleaning ovens were invented), and the guys seem to need haircuts every time I turn around. This was another reason I was so delighted to finally have another girl...

Six.
The older piggy went to the butcher on Wednesday and we are getting back mucho pork today. Because the bacon we've had cured and smoked by the Mennonites is frequently way too salty (their lack of refrigeration makes them a bit heavy-handed with the salt), Bret wants to try his hand at it this time around. As for me, I like pork well enough, but I want beef! Pigs grow so fast, we raise two a year (not that we need to; but we hate not having a garbage disposal that converts food scraps to meat), but a calf takes 18 months to a year to grow to a decent size. And I am down to a few packages of ground beef in the freezer. I don't like to buy beef from the grocery store.

We also need to put a meat grinder and sausage stuffer on the homestead shopping list this year. City Wife has inspired me to want to try homemade Boudin! I want to make sure that we have these kitchen items by the time our small piggy is ready to butcher.

Seven.
My big success for the week (since I missed out on Small Successes yesterday) was not sweating too much about our schedule. I will indeed come up with a workable schedule this month--or so I hope--because having a schedule reduces chaos, and no one can live or work or learn or pray in an atmosphere of chaos, but what Christ said about the Sabbath being made for man and not man for the Sabbath can be applied to the schedule as well. I don't want to overdose on the medicine, so to speak.

Okay, it is time to go. Dominic is charging through the house in his brother's knight outfit, brandishing a sword and hollering loud enough to wake the dead (and maybe even Bret). and I need to have another cup of coffee.

Now go and visit Jennifer's Conversion Diary for more Quick Takes, and maybe add your own!