Quick Takes Friday

Look for more Quick Takes over at the wonderful Conversion Diary.

~ 1 ~
Sweet MPD is just a heart-warming sight to behold, I have to say. I will NEVER get tired of looking at little ones sleeping in their footy pajamas with their bums in the air! Could anything be more precious? Can't I just keep having babies straight up until I start having grandbabies? :)

~ 2 ~
Loving the Lemonade Detox Diet! I have been doing it for all of November so far and I am a whole new person. (A new person whose jeans are too big and rings are falling off!!) It is amazing what a total addiction food is and how much of my energy goes to planning it, preparing it, eating it, digesting it, daydreaming about it(!)... I am so inspired by what Barbara Curtis has to say on this topic here(click on categories, then diet)--basically that eating more than we need to really is the sin of gluttony, and should be treated like any other sinful behavior--confessed and then avoided. Sins of the flesh, right? She makes the point that we should strive to let God--not food--fill up our emotional emptiness. Powerful stuff!

~ 3 ~
So I'm thinking of ditching Facebook. Not just "too much time," although it is so addicting, don't you agree? And I have so loved finding friends--so many wonderful old friends who I'd figured were lost forever! But how about those high school people who are so excited to find you, while you're thinking "Who?" And then there are other old friends, who you haven't really kept in touch with, because if you'd been motivated to keep in touch with them, you would have done so. And the ones--I hate to say this--but the ones who you didn't like that much in the first place, and they didn't like you, and now they just bring back uncomfortable memories? And do I really need to know all this stuff about these people? Either I see them all the time, and already know it, or haven't seen them in 20 years, and don't want to know it.

Now I know you guys are really thinking I'm a grinch here, just like with my Halloween rant last week, but I'm just saying. Some of these old contacts just bring up way too many emotions, overall. That, I think, is the core of my issue with Facebook. (MY issue, certainly!) Some of those emotions have been packed away and closed up for years and years--and then, Facebook opens them all right back up, in a time and place where they don't belong. I can't handle it. This week, of all things, I spent two whole days crying--literally crying, which I never, ever do--over a path my life didn't take. I don't have time for a mid-life crisis this week, really I don't! I guess the thing is that one lifetime really just isn't enough for all the people we want to spend it with. Know what I mean?

~ 4 ~
Today I had to pick up JPD two hours early from school because he was getting way too wild and making some of the other kids in his class cry for various reasons (knocking down another kids' tower, pushing during dance time, etc.). (I can't even type this with a straight face it is so funny!) When I arrived to get him, he was nowhere to be seen. Apparently he had taken off running towards the busy street, having decided to walk home by himself, and the principal had sprinted after him to stop him from getting into the highway. Around in front of the church I found them--him throwing himself onto the ground and crying because he wasn't being allowed to walk home, and her quite ready to hand him off to me.

I guess this is probably Strike One for JPD towards getting expelled from preschool. To tell you the truth, I'm surprised it's taken him until November to create this big of a fuss. His teacher and I concluded that he's just getting a bit too overexcited about knights and archery, which is contributing to his wild behavior. So on the way home we returned his Robin Hood video to the library.
I love you JPD!!

~ 5 ~
The thing with moving is that it really forces you to re-evaluate every last scrap of your STUFF. As in, do I really want to move this (fill in the blank: treasured kids' craft, stack of old magazines with good recipes in them, tiny bottle of shower gel from my honeymoon resort)? It's PRIME purging time around here!

~ 6 ~
As a rule, I never break out the Christmas music until Thanksgiving. I feel strongly about saving it, which makes it that much more precious and exciting--and even so I must say that by the time Christmas comes around, I'm about ready to be done with it for another 11 months. But this year, I'm really wanting to get it out now. I think I will.

~ 7 ~
Moving day is now upon us. Monday night will be our last in this house. What a fun weekend lies ahead--NOT! But our new house is going to be so great...someday...if I ever get it all unpacked...