7 Quick Takes (vol. 24)

--- 1 ---

Even though we had time to prepare, I'm finding this whole Sede Vacante thing thoroughly surreal.  To help focus on praying for the conclave, we've each adopted a cardinal and committed to praying for him through the end of the conclave.  Okay, Alex and I committed... I committed for the boys.  But M is very good at repeating short prayers one word at a time, so Cardinal Dolan can be assured of the prayers of one very enthusiastic two-year-old.

Our cardinals:
Cardinal O'Malley, Archbishop of Boston
Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop of New York
Cardinal Rouco Varela, Archbishop of Madrid
Cardinal Monterisi, Archpriest Emeritus of the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls (Rome)

If you haven't already, go adopt your cardinal today!  Also, Jimmy Akin has a great post about the Cardinals' choice of Pope being God's choice (or not).

--- 2 ---

Are you ready for something really exciting?  Alex is (mostly) done with his thesis.  This. Is. Amazing.  I mean, it's nice for him and all, but mostly I'm relieved and thrilled for my own sake.  I have a tendency to stress vicariously over academic-type things, and I'm sure my "it's halfway through the semester and I've missed four classes when the absolute limit was three and now I'll never graduate" dream earlier this week was due to Alex's thesis deadline.  Almost three years since I finished my masters, and I'm stilling having those dreams on a regular basis...

--- 3 ---

In the same dream I also inexplicably found myself in a parking lot lacking certain important articles of clothing (as in, most of them).  I immediately got back in the car, but everyone else was talking about it behind my back for the rest of the dream.  And then I dreamt that Michael was running unrestrained through the parking lot and almost got run over twice, and I couldn't move fast enough to get to him.

My three least favorite dreams, all in one night?  So not fair.

--- 4 ---

On a more positive note I've been winning lots of things lately.  I won a gift certificate to Aquinas & More from the wonderful (and generous!) Dwija (and quite a lot of their inventory is on sale--go take a look!); I won a Mary Kay facial and gift certificate at the CO Garden & Home show two weeks ago; I won a book from CatholicMom.com (and you can too).  Alex was so impressed with my lucky streak that he made me enter in a raffle to win a Glock from our local gun owners association.  I have no expectations of winning that one...

But I do have very high hopes that my luck will hold out and I'll win Ana's Cabin Fever Creativity Link-Up.  She's extended the deadline, so you still have a couple days to join in if you haven't already.  You should totally link up, even though you already know I'm going to win.

--- 5 ---

I also won myself a couple hours out of the house this afternoon.  I "won" this prize by whining to Alex after M wouldn't nap (for the second day in a row) and both he and L were being Needy McNeedyPants at the same time (all I wanted to do was have a few minutes in the bathroom all by myself) and the non-existent nap time was over and I had accomplished about 7% of what I had intended to accomplish during that precious time and Alex still wasn't going to be home for another hour and a half... you get the picture (right? because I could go on...)  It's a good thing they're both so sweet... most of the time...

Anyway, when Alex got home he very generously kicked me out of the house and sent me up the street to Dazbog for a (very decaf) vanilla latte and a whole hour and a half of uninterrupted work (/blogging).  Bliss.

--- 6 ---

Well, mostly uninterrupted.  The baristas (who look waaaay too young to have jobs) are blaring Neon Trees and Silversun Pickups.  I only know this because I was curious and asked Google about the lyrics (as if my time here wasn't short enough without wasting it on frivolous internet searches).  It sounds like stuff I would have liked during my poser-phase in college (ooh, more potential procrastination... I should blog about that sometime...).  In other words, I wish I had thought to bring my iPod.

--- 7 ---

I had my first Shutterfly experience this week.  I had a coupon for a free photo book that expired yesterday. I figured, what the heck, I'll just quickly put together a bunch of pictures of family, especially my parents and sister and brother-in-law, and mine and Alex's grandparents, so the boys will have a picture book of distant family to look at and practice saying names.  Well.  I don't suppose it would have been good marketing, but it would have been more accurate to call the website "Enough Options to Drive you CRAZY."  I was the kid who took the idea of collages to an absolute extreme of inclusivity in elementary school.  Needless to say, it was a good thing I did this at the last minute--I had to make decisions and get it done.  If I had started early enough to explore all the options and agonize over the hundreds thousands of necessary decisions I would have no sanity left, instead of just the minimum to appear functional.  And it's a good thing it was free, because when it comes and I realize the other dozen or so pictures I should have included, I won't need to kick myself (hard).

Go see Jen for more quick takes!  Happy Friday :)