7 Quick Takes, First Timer Here!

I decided to finally participate in the weekly “7 Quick Takes Friday” hosted by the really neat Jennifer Fulwiler over at Conversiondiary. She’s really fun to read and her story is inspiring. Go look!

7 Quick Takes, for me will be a simple way to keep blogging, to keep it structured, and to keep it brief! BRIEF! I’m not good with brief.

I suppose that’s why I don’t like Twitter so much. Ehhhh.

So here are my first 7:

1) Still haven’t had my hair cut. And it’s enraging.
Not by choice, but just by the fact that one hair appointment can buy 2-3 boxes of diapers. Clean hineys are more important than long, stringy, banshee hair. I entered a “guess how many M&M’s are in the bowl” contest at a local hair salon to win $150 gift card and a Chi Flat Iron. I even prayed to win— something some huge part of me thinks is silly… Like why would anyone pray to win a gift card, or for the Bengals to win…? Contests and games seem silly to pray about -yet in light of knowing God to be present in every aspect of my being, I’ve yielded to the fact that I must invite Him there too. Even into the little insignificant trifling parts of my life, I want God to be there! So I prayed that, if it be His will, I might win the gift card so that I could get my hair chopped. But God was like “NEIN!”

Oh well. I suppose not then. Banshee hair I shall embrace for a while longer. …as I shriek while some of it slides from my shoulder and flops into a poopy diaper, or, as my second son uses it to lovingly wipe his snotty nose. So it is “Mein Kampf.”

2) The whole family has caught colds. I’ve even caught something. And I NEVER get sick.

My husband isn’t allowed to get sick either. It always seems to me that as soon as I mention someone (friend, family, distant acquaintance) has so much as a runny nose, my husband suddenly comes down with a life-threatening illness. I basically tell him to get over it and do a netipot. I am the epitome of a compassionate wife.

So I’ve learned not to say anything, and lo, my husband remains perfectly healthy. But this time, both of my oldest are markedly not feeling well, so theres no hiding it. Craig felt bad yesterday and I worked hard to belay my impatience with illness and make him tea and administer medication. —BUT WHAT’S THIS!? I, the lady of the house, am beginning to feel a slight scratchiness of the throat?!

Well, then it must be real.

‘Tis simply a cold, but I haven’t even had a cold in so long, I’ve forgotten that it really can slow one down. I’m praying that my littlest (3 months old today) doesn’t catch it.

—and now I pledge to keep the rest of the takes really quick.

3) 4 months later, I am still crocheting the baby blanket I set out to make for our youngest boy. Will it ever be finished?

Yarn 4dayz.

4) Bottom half of our Christmas tree’s lights have blown. I suspect foul play from my oldest boy.

Yes, a blanket is our tree skirt. NOH8.

5) Please, go watch this video: A new reality TV show featuring Jennifer Fulwiler about her life and her conversion from Atheism to Roman Catholic. It’s called Minor Revisions. Jennifer is a writer and through her blogging she wondered aloud to the blogosphere about the existence, or non-existence, of God, and was converted through her intellect and research, through her questioning, and her willingness to be transformed.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Vu0QPSGXLQ]

I enjoy this so very much because it isn’t some sappy, emotional, spiritual story with some grand pomp-and-circumstantial event marking her conversion. At least, her conversion doesn’t seem to be what so many seemingly typically expect to learn from converts. Fulwiler uses her brain to consciously draw conclusions. Not that others don’t use their brain… but I don’t think I need a source to declare that many people see a Christian mentality as ignorant and just plain stupid.

I’ve striven to reach out to those people who are repelled by the sappy, feel-good emotions of Christianity. Believe me, I know them. I’ve felt them… I feel them daily. But emotion is fleeting and not firm enough to build a foundation of religion upon— at least for me. This is how I wonder if many people are repelled by Christianity: because sometimes it seems so fake and filled with a layer only as thin as tissue paper. People shouting “GOD IS AWESOME” over and over again… “PRAISE GOD!” without actually praising Him. And for many people, that suffices— and blessed are those people!!! Truly, they are blessed, those who do not need or even want proof! But for me, I’ve always required more. I’ve needed the deeper layers. I need and crave profundity. Jennifer Fulwiler begins to describe this in the first of her series. Watch with me and tell me what you think! She’s also wittingly funny :) I’d like to dedicate an entry or two with further thoughts on her story, paralleled to mine.

6) If you’re looking for a simple gift for friends or family this year, I recommend these:

but not if you’ve got a nut allergy. Sorry. My nephew has a nut allergy, so I find myself always aware of allergens. But these are really, really delicious.

7) How can I not mention the shooting in CT this week?
Some blame guns. Some blame people. Some say, “hey there’s just bad people out there and we can’t stop them”
My contribution to throw into the pot is perhaps our culture does not value human life in the way they should. If the intrinsic value of human life was truly realized, I don’t believe there’d be murder, killing, abortion, genocide, prejudice, racism, fighting, or even war. But that’s a tough one to teach to our culture which watches reality television shows starring individuals who speak about children as a commodity, as a personal right to dispose of or create in vitro. It’s a difficult lesson to teach to a world which believes that the earth is overpopulated with human beings; that we need to sterilize each other, or limit our family size by law. By believing that defects, illnesses or diseases are the properties of an “unwanted life”, we should terminate the life in utero, we neglect to understand the unique design of a human being. How can a culture be changed? an entire culture fixated by the media, eating the lie like a bowl of Cheerios?
I dunno. So my family and I will pray for those families, for the souls of the victims, and for love to permeate this culture. We will try to lead by example.