Seven Quick Takes

I haven't done a quick takes post in so long, I'm probably way out of practice.

1.  Huge time waster alert.  You can go here and upload a picture of yourself and play with umpteen different hairstyles.  I've been backing and forthing for ages over whether to get bangs, which is ridiculous really.  Not the bangs bit, the backing and forthing, because honestly I put zero point two percent of my brain power daily into my appearance so what on earth does it matter?  But it's been a source of angst.  Now I can see myself in technicolour glory! 

I mean.  It's horrific, trust me, but oh did I larf.

2.  There are no little steps in advancing the kingdom, I tell you.  In the past while we've been hugely blessed by many people who may not even realize what they've done to help us in ministry.  Take the kindly older gentleman who is not even a Christian and yet gave David two large bags of clothes: dress shirts and pants, three leather belts, two pairs of leather loafers, all because he was 'just cleaning things out and thought of you'.  Of course, some of the things were dated looking, and some simply weren't useable, but there are at least two good pairs of pants in there that David can use for church, and the belts and shoes both will be a welcome addition to his 'professional wardrobe'.

3.  Here's a horrifying thought for you to take with you into the weekend - in just over a month my 'baby' turns THREE.  What's worse than that?  Well, I have to throw him a birthday party.  And because I am simultaneously unable to take an easy route when a harder route is available to me, and addicted to Pinterest, I have completely unreasonable expectations of what said birthday party is going to consist of.  It even has, wait for it...a theme.  I know.  You'd tell me if I was turning into that mother, wouldn't you?

4.  Not done with complaining about the birthday party yet, nope.  You see, we've never had a real honest-to-goodness birthday party for him.  The first birthday we still had very few friends in town and certainly weren't close to anyone with small children.  Plus, first birthdays aren't really a big party occasion, I think.  So, I had a cake, we did some presents, there were a few of our friends over and some balloons - but that was all.  Probably that's what we'll do for our daughter in a few months when it's her turn to turn one.  Then for birthday #2, Samuel didn't have anyone, really.  Clara's godmother came over with a cake and a present for him, and his own godmother sent him one.  We bought him a bear.  I don't think we did very much at all, intending for it to be a small affair.  Three is different though.  He's been to a birthday party.  He knows what they are and he wants one.  He's excited, and he has friends now.  I have to do a party.

4.5.  Would it surprise you to know that in an attempt to actually write and post a quick takes on Friday I started on Thursday night and have sat down to try and finish several times.  I keep getting interrupted.  Just now the toddler woke up.  I may finish next week at this rate.  Oh, and he seems to have woken the baby.  How fun.

5.   I've developed a brand new way to clean the house, and it's working far better than anything I've ever tried before.  I call it 'wandering'.  Let me explain it to you.  So you wake up in the morning, right?  I mean, theoretically.  And throughout the day you wander around the house and just do random stuff.  No rhyme or reason, no plan, no to do list, nothing.  If your house (and personality) are anything like mine, that will look something like this:

"I'm going to wash this glass.  There, that's done.  Oh look, the taps are dirty.  Ok, now I've cleaned those I see the plant needs watering.  While I'm at it I may as well pluck off those dead leaves.  Hmm, the dead leaves reminded me to take out the compost."

You can do this forever.  Good things about this method are that you don't mind getting interrupted because nothing you were doing was anything of any great importance, and you accomplish stuff across the whole house.  Nothing makes my house look worse than a sparkling clean kitchen because everything else appears awful.

6.  I'm happy to report that the stomach flu virus thing I had has left, and it didn't attack any of the other members of my family, just me.  Thank you, Jesus.  I'm still a little on the 'touchy tummy' side, and a bit worn out, but I'm well on the way to being back to normal.

7.  I'm starting to reconsider meal planning again.  I've got a preliminary list of recipes, but I'd love your favourites.  Leave me a comment.  The requirements are that they have to be fast, they have to be cheap, they have to be somewhat healthy, and we're not huge fans of tofu.  Tell me what you eat!

Check out Jen et al for more quick takes.