Seven Quick Takes 5: Round and About

Since I changed my blog description to "my eclectic  life", here's a quick tour.

1. I'm an Englishwoman married to a Texan mathematician, living in Mississippi. We have one daughter who's at the local residential Math(s) and Science School and about to leave for college, a sixth grader, and a (surprise) baby on the way. Normal? Where's the fun in normal?

2. I teach English part time at Mississippi State University, homeschool my younger daughter, and try to cultivate a writing life that is continually interrupted. Somehow a new baby is going to fit into all that.

3. People keep asking us how we're going to cope. We think we're pretty organized: we have a family cradle - and we've even removed the mattress to dissuade the cat from sleeping in it. Add a nightgown, socks and a packet of nappies (daipers), and we're ready.

Now the cat is forced to sleep on a king-sized bed

4. Rain, rain, rain - here in Mississippi, we seem to get about two pretty spring days, then it rains until the weather is hot. Five members of our household are very happy about that - however, they also happen to have webbed feet and waterproof feathers.

OK, not my photo - but we do have Kahki Campbells

5. They are joined by chickens, two cats, three rats (good combination) and the various fauna that takes up temporary residence on our breakfast bar - currently one tank of bullfrog tadpoles and another that's a  mini wetlands ecosystem.

6. I really enjoy editing. Maybe one day I'll get paid for it. In the meantime, I get to make my tiny contribution to authors such as Amy Dupire, Anita Davison, Maggi Anderson and Katherine Pym.

 
                         

7. Online: Blogs I currently keep up with are Zero Waste Home, Liturgical Time, and This Ain't the Lyceum. I keep up with British news by perusing the Daily Telegraph (I've given up the Daily Mail for Lent), but am still wasting too much time on Facebook.

For more Seven Quick Takes, hop over to This Ain't the Lyceum.

Seven Quick Takes 4 A Pregnant Lent

I decided to take up Kelly's invitation to share Lent in my own way and offer seven quick takes on why 2015 may just be my Best Lent Ever.

1. I'm unexpectedly pregnant in my mid-forties. My other children are 11 and 18. Surely that alone gives the blessed Zelie Martin a run for her money.

The big three:
2. Prayer. Lots of opportunity for spontaneous prayer. Oh God, how long am I going to be pregnant? Please let me get to the loo in time. Why is everyone around me suddenly so irritating?

3. Fasting. Being pregnant, I already can't eat anything I actually like. Spinach-yogurt-flax seed smoothie, anyone?

Maybe not today

4. Almsgiving. We got rid of most of our baby stuff years ago, so we're pretty much a charity case in that department. Plus, I have to give away a least a tithe's worth of our belongings so we have somewhere to put the baby.

Plus:
5. Lots of opportunities to resist temptation, such as: speeding on campus because they're not real police, plus I can just tell them I have to get to the bathroom RIGHT NOW (see #2). Or, not snapping at the woman who thought it was OK to get into the elevator in front of me, even though she has all four limbs intact.

6. Following the "action" part of my Lenten study book is super easy.  Take time to contemplate the mysteries of creation. Glance down at belly. Check.  Put up with someone to the point of complaining today.  Ok, so about two minutes, then.

7. Need some sufferings to offer up? Pregnancy has it all. Nausea, vomiting, random excruciating pains. Worst of all, I have to grade essays without the aid of any alcohol whatsoever.

For more Seven Quick Takes, join Kelly over at This Ain't the Lyceum.