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Barefoot and Pregnant

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7 Quick Takes Saturday…Again

7 Quick Takes Saturday…Again

Last updated on: October 10, 2016 at 11:54 am by Calah Alexander

7 Quick Takes Saturday…Again 2016-10-10T11:54:42-04:00 Calah Alexander

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I swear this isn’t going to become a thing. I promise to not become so navel-gazing during the duration of this, my fourth pregnancy, that I only blog once a week and even then it’s a day late.

Actually, this past week was Ave Maria’s spring break and my in-laws came to visit, so we’ve been just a little busy. As in, I have neither updated my Facebook status nor checked my email in five days. And now I’m so afraid of what the state of my inbox will look like that I’m not going to check it until…oh, I don’t know. Later.

It keeps coming to my attention at 12:03 a.m. when I am inexplicably awake and yet unwilling to get out of bed and rectify the situation that sometimes, comments are left on this blog to which I do not respond.

I know, it’s like 98% of the comments. Once a month I make this frantic resolution to respond to every single comment, because I love your comments and they deserve responses, because I want you to know that I read and appreciate your comments, because when you don’t comment I wonder if you hate me now or if what I thought was funny came across as stupid, because I have a response for every single comment, even if it’s just a smile of appreciation, but the responses usually form themselves in my head and stay there. Sometimes I’ll actually go through a post and respond on each individual comment, and oh my gosh, you would not believe the amount of time that takes. I don’t understand it. I really enjoy doing it, but it takes me roughly two hours to respond to ten comments. I know, because I timed it once.

Now, I feel a great, easy friendship between myself and you who read and comment on my meandering thoughts. I don’t think that you hold my erratic habits of response against me. But sometimes there are comments left which actually need to be responded to. These include comments asking direct questions, comments from, oh I don’t know, neighbors who would like to meet up, and people who want to give me a pony. What happens there is that I read the comment, mentally remind myself to respond, promptly forget for two weeks, then can’t remember which post the comment was left on.

So can I ask for a favor? On my “About Me” page (which woefully needs to be updated, I know), my email address is listed at the bottom. If you want to ask me a question, meet me for coffee at the Bean, or give me a pony, please email me. I promise to respond, once I’ve gotten over my current paralyzing fear of my inbox.

So, as I mentioned, my in-laws stayed with us this week. We had a wonderful time with them, which was a wee bit of a pleasant surprise since my father-in-law, the Ever-Teacher, can be a little imposing during Lent. He’s a convert too, and I’ve found that converts tend to get a little more serious about their faith with every passing year. (I think this happens with cradle Catholics, too, but converts can get kinda crazy about it.) For example, this year I’ve resolved to say my rosary every night without falling asleep half-way through the Apostle’s Creed. See what I mean? Crazy. This is the second year I’ve made such a resolution, after spending my first few Lents resolving to remember that Fridays = no meat. Last year I made it through most of the first decade and woke up every morning tangled in my own rosary. This year I’ve made it through the entire first decade at least five times already. I’m still waking up tangled in my own rosary, but progress is progress, yeah?

This is only my fifth Lent, though. My father-in-law has many, many more Lents under his belt. He has progressed from insisting to his children that chicken doesn’t count as meat to giving up cookies for the duration of Lent. And if you could understand this man’s love for cookies, you would know what a sacrifice that is. But what he really focuses on during Lent is restraint. Broadly. He’s very clear that Lent is a time when we should take an honest look at ourselves, our sin, our pride, our untempered desires, and take them on, unflinchingly. And, as the Ever-Teacher, he’s extremely helpful when it comes to assisting us, his children and children-in-law, with the whole “honest look” thing.

It really is a great spiritual help, but I’m not gonna lie, it’s not usually pleasant. This visit, though, was noticeably different. He and my mother-in-law had some great suggestions for helping us deal with Sienna’s current fit-throwing/eternal pouting phase (since purchasing this

has been the entirety of my plan thus far), but otherwise seemed quite pleased with the Ogre and I.

I can only assume that this is because we have finally become such paragons of virtue that we no longer need spiritual direction. Obviously.

Speaking of spiritual direction, it seems that Charlotte has been confusing Christianity with the religion of ancient Egypt. Last night we had the following conversation.

Charlotte (upon looking out the window as the sun was setting): Oh! The sun went away.

Me: Yes, it did. Where do you think the sun went?

Charlotte: To Target.

Me: To Target! Really! Hahaha, maybe so. Maybe the sun needed some shampoo. Charlotte, tell Daddy where the sun went.

The Ogre: Where do you think the sun went, Charlotte?

Charlotte: The sun went to, um, to Target.

The Ogre: Haha. Maybe. But maybe the sun needed to rest.

Charlotte: Yeah, because God needs to rest.

The Ogre: No, sweetie, God doesn’t need to rest. God is always with us, even when we’re sleeping.

Charlotte: But God is the sun.

The Ogre: No, God isn’t the sun. God made the sun.

Charlotte: No, she didn’t.

We are doing some phenomenal catechesis in this house, let me tell you.

My parents gave the Ogre an Amazon gift card for his birthday, and he generously offered to use some of it to buy me a book I’ve been pining for, Salman Rushdie’s The Ground Beneath Her Feet.

It arrived a few days ago and…oh. my. gosh. I am in love. I love Rushdie anyway but this book…this book is something else.

It’s a re-telling of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, which is one of my favorite myths. But what makes it so unbelievably awesome is that Rushdie re-tells the myth by creating an alternate history of rock and roll.

Seriously. Has there ever been a more brilliant idea for a book, ever? And only Rushdie could pull it off. I love him so much.

The Ogre just interrupted my blogging to send me a picture of a couch he found at Goodwill. We don’t have a couch, and as I’m pregnant and whiny, we need one. He found a very nice, very pretty couch in great condition for only $100 dollars. I told him to get it. Just as he was about to, someone else bought it.

Now I’m really cranky and annoyed.

So the doctor changed my due date from October 3 to September 29 this week. I realize that the rational response is to say, “no big deal, it’s only four days” but I am not rational.

Instead, I said this: “Awesome! September instead of October! That’s a whole month! Now I can tell people that I’m three-and-a-half months along instead of two-and-a-half and maybe they won’t look doubtfully at my protruding belly and say, ‘You sure there aren’t two in there?’ “

So, have fun with what’s left of your weekend, and go see Jen for more quick takes!

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