Quick Takes Volume 57

~1~

I'm wading into that time of the year where a lot of my time goes into planning our parish's VBS program.  I did a lot of the things I procrastinated on last year shortly after Christmas when I received the VBS program.  So announcements, flyers and bulletin ads are done.  Now I have to start contacting more of last year's volunteers to see who's coming back and in what capacity.  The deacon who is our DRE has been bantering back and forth with me over miscellaneous things.  I'm trying to convince him to dress up in an inflatable cowboy costume for our wild west themed VBS for the children, and he's flat out against it.  If the recent email exchanges we have are any indication of how this year's VBS will go,  I think there will be a lot of laughter along the way to take the stress off this sometimes stressful job. 

~2~

It's been almost two years since I've worn my retainer but I managed to get it back in my mouth.  My teeth have shifted a bit and I need to get them back in place before I wind up needing to get them straightened again.  If I can get them back where they're supposed to be then I can go and get a new retainer.  My present one is about 19 years old and really needs to be replaced.  I wore it last night and woke up at 4am in a lot of pain.

~3~

I finished reading The Hobbit a few days ago.  I wasn't expecting to enjoy it as much as I did.  I'm going to start reading The Fellowship of the Ringsoon.  But first, I need to read some of the books in my review pile.  I've got quite the bedside stack at the moment.  There are several books in that stack that I can't wait to read so I just need to find the time to read them.

~4~

I have been systematically restocking our freezer this past week.  I'm trying to ensure that we have plenty of back up dinner ideas for those days when things do go as planned.  I'm determined to make sure we stick to cutting back on our take-out/eating out habit.  I'm trying to convince Bryan that we should give up eating out and take-out for Lent.  I think that might be as challenging as the Lent when we gave up cheese. (Was that last year?)

~5~

Over the past couple of years I've tried using the Baltimore Catechismwith Madeline, but she always railed against having to memorize the questions and answers.  Now that she's finishing out the remainder of the school year being homeschooled for religious ed (it might stay this way until she's confirmed, but I'll be discussing that with the powers that be in the near future) she's using that and another text.  So far she's doing really well with it.  Bryan and I have been quizzing her night after night  and Ellie is now starting to pick it up as well.  She just started with it last night.  Might as well have them both learn it, right?  

~6~

I think Katie is cutting teeth on the top and bottom.  She's been pretty cranky these past few days.  We even had a night where she was awake from 1-5AM.  That wasn't fun at all, but she was pretty good about just calmly resting on my chest while I sat up with her.  Then later this week she didn't want to go to sleep, so now we're back to using her Baby Einstein music to lull her to sleep.  She's been our toughest baby with sleep. 

~7~

It's FREEZING here!  It's been in the teens every day since Tuesday.  The little bit of snow that we got on Monday night is still on the ground.  There's talk that we might get more snow tonight.  I'm hoping that's not the case.  I have no desire to go out in the snow.  We have several things on the calendar for this weekend and we don't need snow tossed into the mix.