Seven Things...

This is something new I'm trying, this 7 Quick Takes Friday. Staying true to myself I am already one day late. Hurrah.

1. There has been a lot of talk around here these days about vocation. It started with Jen's post at Conversion Diary on Christian vocation that I found eye-opening. Then a few days ago my Oswald Chamber's reading for the day said "If we have a further goal in mind, we are not paying enough attention to the present time. However, if we realize that moment-by-moment obedience is the goal, then each moment as it comes is precious." (From My Utmost For His Highest. If you don't have a copy you must immediately rectify that situation. Go on, now, I'll wait.) As if that wasn't enough to think about, we watched Into Great Silence last night and the blind father at the end gave the same message as Chambers's. Happiness is found in closeness to God. This from a blind, elderly monk with nothing but prayer to his name.

2. My husband and I have made a conscious decision to keep store-made toys to a minimum for our son. When my mother asked what she could give her new grandson, I requested that she crochet something, and she made a large bear (named Mouse Bear). We have some lovely, hardy little board books for him and some natural teething toys but we're trying to keep the *ahem* STUFF from accumulating. So why is his favourite toy at the moment THIS? It makes a mother weep. It has plastic in between the pages and a stuffed duck on top of a plastic handle and two sparkly plastic teething rings attached to it.

3. All of this blogging of mine has been interspersed with a lot of blog reading. Here are some I've discovered recently and added to my favourites (because I can't figure out how to make a sidebar of them yet.)

http://www.conversiondiary.com/
http://www.simchafisher.wordpress.com/
http://www.sortacrunchy.typepad.com/

4. I ate a bowl of icing for breakfast and I have to tell you how I made it. The recipe is from my very dear friend Amanda, who, amongst her other accomplishments, has given the world a very cute daughter and a chocolate making business. Babies and chocolate, she's my kind of gal.

With an electric beater whip 1 package of cream cheese till smooth. Add 1/4 cup of cocoa powder and whip. Add icing sugar by the 1/2 cup until sweet enough for your taste. You can use it right away, save it, eat it in front of the computer out of a bowl, whatever.

5. I am becoming OBSESSED with Kirstie's Homemade Home. Does anyone else find it hard to get quality programming? We recently dropped from the 'VIP' package with our provider down to 'basic'. It isn't called basic, mind you, they always have fancy names for it. Like 'Stellar'. I have Stellar TV, what do you have? Oh, we have Ultimate, actually. We used to have Mindblowing, but they didn't show TNA wrestling, so we had to switch.

6. We had company over last night, which let me confront my slight fear of nursing in public again. August 1-7 is the World Health Organization's International Breastfeeding Week. Check out http://www.ottawanaturalparenting.com/ for my article about feeding in public. If I get it finished, it will be posted tomorrow, if not...well, sometime this week!

7. When my husband and I moved from a very large urban area to a very small rural area, I anticipated a lot of changes. Strangely enough few of them ever came true, and the things that did change were things I never would have thought of. Until this afternoon, when the baby and I went for our afternoon outing, and decided to go to an antique store nearby. There was a little handmade sign on the door saying "I am across the street, come to the back door and holler."
We followed instruction and were met by a lady who, after introducing me to her family, cooing over the baby, insisting that we coo over her grandson and explaining her store alarm system to me, gave me her keys (the store keys, her car keys, her house keys, everything) and told me to lock up when I was done. I found what I was looking for, a pair of curtains for the baby's bedroom, and reset her alarm, closed the door and came back across the street. There was some more cooing, and then she said "Oh just take the curtains, as a baby gift."

Talk about reviving your faith in humanity! I feel like baking a cake for a complete stranger now!