Seven Quick Takes

1.  I told myself that I wasn’t going to worry about the HHS Mandate today.  That means not reading about it, talking about it, or posting comments of righteous indignation (never using personal attacks--as tempting as it may be) on Cecile Richards’ Facebook page.  So far I have talked about it; however, I did change the station on the radio when they were talking about it.

2.  This week was Valentine’s Day.  Andy made dinner.  He made chocolate mousse for desert, God Bless him.  Yum, such rich, creamy goodness! He got me some chocolates and a nice card.  I got him some good coffee, good beer, and a nice card.  Last night we had the beer with our pork roast.  What a treat that was!  We hadn’t had beer for a long time. 

3. Speaking of food, I am back to making soup from my 12 months of Monastary Soups cook book again.  I try to make a soup from this book on Wednesdays and Fridays.  It is good a decent source of veggies as well as tasting good.  I do need to serve it with bread as my husband needs carbs because he is dabetic. Everything is better with fresh bread anyway.

4.  It snowed this week.  Here is a picture of our back yard and a picture of Ephrem dressed up for the snow.  I don't have a picture of Clare here but she is the one who really loves to go out in the snow.  When I look out the window to see her playing she looks so relaxed and peaceful.  I either see her lying down in the snow, looking up at the sky, and making a snow angel; or sitting on the back step looking out at the yard.  She can be very high strung so it's nice to see her being so serene.

His neck warmer looks so blue in this picture.  Would you believe that it is actually purple?

5. This is a picture Clare took.  It captures a little bit of Valentine's Day.  That must be Ephrem's little hand holding the Valentine's.  A woman in our homeschool group organized a party for preschool and elementary kids.  It was supposed to be like the Valentine's Parties kids have at school where everyone puts Valentine's in each others box.  It was nice.  

6.  The kids and I went out for coffee this morning with my brother.  I thought that it would be good for us all to get out as we hadn't been out all week.  There are so many distractions/things that need to get done at home which can be an impediment to just kicking back with the kids so it was nice to be able to relax a bit.  We went to my brother's apartment afterwards and the kids played with toys and Gabe and my brother played chess.  I left everyone there for a bit and took a trip to the grocery store.  After that we came home for lunch and naps. 

7.  Well it is finally the weekend.  Maybe we should go on a family outing tomorrow to go to confession and the library.  Out to lunch would be nice.  We'll see if we have the money for it. 

For more quick takes visit Betty Beguiles as she is hosting 7qts for Jen this week.  So glad you stopped by!