7 Quick Takes about Food, Clothes, & Saints!

Happy Friday and feast of St. Jerome, everyone! As I mentioned on my previous post, life has been a bit of a whirlwind around here, but my baby just fell asleep so-instead of working on things that I desperately need to get done-I'm stopping in here to tell y'all about life. Because that's what bloggers do, right? ;) Hop on over to Kelly's happy place for more quick takes from the blogging world! 



1. So much food in my kitchen right now! 
In preparation for this weekend, I had different food-related items on my To Do list: A 5K run (or walk, in my case) with a few friends followed by a snacky brunch, taking a meal to a family in our parish who just had a baby, and providing food for the Altar Society's table at our parish's Octoberfest, which is Sunday (which is basically a church-and-neighborhood-wide party to celebrate the epic saintly feast days). Oh, and about a month ago, I promised a friend of mine that I would get her some beet brownies from my freezer, but despite the fact that I've seen her at least 3 times in the past month-including having her over to our apartment for breakfast-I've neglected to get her those brownies. So, I figured, I should make her a fresh batch, and I'll just eat the ones in the freezer. A great excuse to feast on brownies all week long ;)

2. As you can imagine, then, the past 24 hours, I have been a Maniac in the Kitchen. 
Yesterday, my sweet little boy woke us up at 4 a.m. with a fever and screaming, so all morning was Operation Help Him Get Better (by early afternoon, his temperature was way down and he was back to his normal self, thankfully!). I was exhausted, so with two cups of coffee in my system, set out working in the kitchen. After making a massive double-batch of Shepherd's Pie, though, I was pretty spent-but I hated the idea of leaving the rest of the food-making for Friday, in case something crazy happened on Friday. WELL, last night, Peter finally settled down to watch some video game live streams with my husband, so I decided to get to work. Yes, at 9:30 last night I was throwing together mini crustless quiche, washing the mixing bowls, baking brownie bites, and putting together my husband's lunch. I'm pretty sure he thought I was crazy. But it felt really, really good to get all that accomplished. 

Beet brownies, a.k.a. Heaven in a Pan. 

Peter slept awesomely last night, and then this morning after being awake for about an hour and a half or so, decided to nap. Well, I was still tired from yesterday, so I decided to nap with him. And we slept for 3 1/2 hours. Oh my goodness, I don't know when the last time was that I napped that long, and I felt so insanely refreshed (and grateful that I had done so much last night, since my whole morning was spent in bed). This afternoon after quite a bit of playtime, Peter happily watched me from his chair while I made dinner and threw together a batch of beet brownies. And, since I can't give people bad food, I'm taste-testing the brownie bites and the beet brownies, to make sure that they came out okay. The brownie bites need frosting, so once I figure out what kind I want to make, they will be done completely. Whew! Sorry, this is turning into a novel. But now you can see what my past several hours have been like. It's been crazy, but loads of fun :) 

3. It's Falltime! 
Which means that while other people around the country are talking "sweater weather!" I'm excited that it's finally down to the 80s and I can play with Peter outside before 7 p.m without being stifled by the heat. 

4. So many epic saints have been celebrated lately, and it's awesome.  
This is one of my favorite stretches of Ordinary Time each year-the marathon of epic saints being celebrated in the liturgy every single day! Tomorrow is Little T, a.k.a. St. Therese of Lisieux, a.k.a. The Little Flower, and it'll be awesome. And, of course, St. Francis the Epic is on Tuesday! I've been working on a blog post of ideas to celebrate his feast, and hopefully I'll get it finished before his feast ends. But we'll see what happens. 

5. In the future, we should consider celebrating the Feast of the Archangels with Jane Austen.
As some of you are probably aware, yesterday-September 29-was the feast of the Archangels Gabriel, Raphael, and Michael. Social media was abounding with ideas to celebrate the feast, and all of them-while awesome-revolved around St. Michael. You know, pounding on a devil pinata, eating blackberries, wearing leggings, etc. But what about St. Raphael? (because we can also celebrate Gabriel on the Annunciation on March 25) Since he's the Angel of Happy Meetings, and totally helped get together Tobiah and Sarah, I think of him as a bit of an angelic matchmaker. So, I propose celebrating the Feast of the Archangels with movies that revolve around matchmaking. For example: Emma, Fiddler on the Roof, and Mulan. Peter and I weren't able to watch any of those movies, so instead we sang "Matchmaker" while dancing around outside. 

6. Y'all remember those thrift store dresses I found recently? 
Going off of Rachel's advice, I rummaged through my closet and found a purple skirt and a tan cardigan that I think work fairly well with one of the dresses. 

I then pulled the shirt dress in a couple inches on the sides and cut some fabric off the front. It fits a lot better now, and I like how it's comfy and something that I can wear when I sprawl around in the dirt and grass outside (like I was doing earlier today). 

7. Can I just talk politics for a second?

I almost never talk politics, but this election year is doing crazy things to everyone, you know? And, without getting to deep into specifics, I just want to say that I have major reservations concerning both of the main two candidates. And even though lots of people try to tell me that one of them is the "lesser evil," and I should vote for that person, there are so many things about this candidate that I can't stomach, that I just don't feel right voting for this person. A couple days ago, a friend of mine posted an article to social media that takes so many of my thoughts about this and discusses them so well-I really like the simple logic and morality that the author discusses: You Don't Need to Vote for the Lesser Evil.  

 I hope that you all have a great start to your weekend!