7 Quick Takes Friday

-1-

L's birthday party is this weekend.  (This means I have some mega cleaning to get done.)  She's going to be 2.  Two!  My first born is 2!  Oh my baby girl!  Do you remember when she was born?  Golly, that labor lasted forever.  The backlabor pains were horrible.  And I still remember holding her for the first time.  What magical words are, "reach down and hold your baby".  After all those years and then months and then hours, I got to hold my baby.

And now she's 2!

-2-

Ben has cut a tooth.  The bottom right.  With this development he has also started sleeping for longer stretches.  Yes!

-3-

Earlier this week I was at a mom's group at my church.  Women from other churches had been invited and one of them decided to talk about how wonderfully ecumenical we were being.  She then continued by saying that when she was a girl (maybe 50 years ago) Catholics were not allowed to own or read Bibles with "I'm so delighted in how far you Catholics have come tone in her voice and look on her face".  I was so insulted I got up and left in tears. 

You can't be ecumenical and perpetuate misunderstandings and flat-out lies about the Catholic Church.  Comments like hers are just an example of what I consider to be anti-catholic propaganda, based mostly on hearsay.

-4-

And just so you know, my grandfathers and great-grandfathers all had Bibles in their homes.  They've told me so.  They were allowed to read it.  As a way of protecting her members from heresy or schism, the Catholic Church did warn it's members to not interpret Sacred Scripture however they wanted.  Historical context and knowledge of the original languages of the Bible are just two things that should not be ignored when reading Scripture, and most of us laymen are not trained enough to use these tools.  But there's a huge difference between reading Sacred Scripture, being familiar with it, memorizing it, loving it, and reading it and drawing your own conclusions.

-5-

I've wanted to find cheap cleaners, and I've also wanted to cut down on the chemicals in my house. When we were a two income household I bought Method cleaners, but they don't fall in the cheap category. And then I was introduced to vinegar, thanks to Finding Great Joy's post on it awhile ago.   So far I've used it to clean the kitchen, remove hardwater deposits in my white bathroom sink, and as a bug killer (that one was improvised).  I plan on using it in my dishwasher once the jet dry is gone to help with the residue left on my glasses.  Vinegar, I love you!

-6-

Am I prude that I don't want to dress my son in sleeve-less clothing and I refuse to buy my daughter a two piece swimming suit?  I guess the boy clothing has more to do with what I think is cute, but I think that bikinis on little girls only adds to their oversexualization.

Do you disagree?  Why?

-7-

Do you ever wonder about the celebrities of your youth.  Like Eminem.  What's he doing?  Dr. Dre?   Where's he at?   I guess I wonder mostly about rappers, because I have no idea how a bada** lives. 

Who do you wonder about?