7-Quick Takes Friday

Join Jen and the other Quicktakers over at the Conversion Diary.

1. I have been following three blogs that were BIG Obama supporters last year. Not a peep out of any of them about the deficit, the economy, health care, or homeland security. One is blogging about the weather, one continues to blog about homeschooling as if nothing ever happened, and one is blogging about sex toys. Is it that they no longer care? or haven’t a clue? or both?

2.I recently stumbled upon the documentary Grey Gardens  and then ordered the movie Grey Gardens from HBO from Netflix.  It’s a fascinating true story about the a mother and daughter both named Edith or “Edie” who were in fact the aunt and first cousin of Jackie Kennedy.  I knew Mr. Pete would be mildly interested because Grey Gardens is a beautiful old estate that fell into severe disrepair and then was eventually fully restored. I had a number of thoughts while watching the movie.  First was the mother/child dynamic.  I totally understand wanting to be close to adult children, but the Beales were certainly a study in an unhealthy dependence/co-dependence. It also occurred to me that there are many people who live in what would be considered “poverty” but live quite well compared to what the Beales went through and the first part of that was a modicum of clealiness.  I wonder how adult women who knew what it was to live in clean and organized surroundings let it get so bad.  I also wondered about Mrs. Beale’s two sons that let everything get so bad as well.  The whole story has my thoughts spinning this morning.

3.  Calvin found an apartment yesterday.  “It’s only $500 a month and includes everything except gas and electric!”  he tells me.  But it is close to here.  I guess we’ll see if he goes through with getting it.

4.  Mr. Pete and I   have been using my mother’s old Breviary this week to start praying the Divine Office together.  Pete had asked our pastor if he thought it was okay to use this old book and he told him, “Prayer is always good.”  So we started.  I have also been reading The Divine Office for Dodos: A Step-By-Step Guide to Praying the Liturgy of the Hours.  As I dig deeper I notice that there really have been some significant changes since Mom’s Breviary was printed in 1951!  But more on that later.  So far we have only been using it for morning prayer and what I find so interesting is that the psalms and hymns for every morning have been so much of the “gird your loins” variety.  They really are meant to make you feel strong and confident and that God has your back!  It’s almost invigorating!  Will night prayer make me feel restful?  We’re going to add that to the mix next week.

5.  I made the mistake I think of putting my 6th and 8th graders into the The Screwtape Letters this month.  They had just finished The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and I wanted to stay with C.S. Lewis and push them  a little.  But Screwtape is just a tad over their heads.  I think I will just have them read the letters that go with the Bravewriter lessons and then move on to short stories and more writing for a while.

6.  We have some action going on over at Visits to Candyland.  My co-blogger Kelly seems to be making some headway.  Candy and I had had some e-mail discussions in the past and they didn’t end well.  Maybe Kelly will have better luck.

7.  Do homeschoolers take snow days?   No.  They just try harder to get everything done before their neighbors who are out of school for the day, start coming over!

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