7 Quick Takes Friday: Volume 3

--1--

Short hair fever has taken over the Poust house. Olivia had her long locks shorn just yesterday. Here she is looking sophisticated yet adorable.

--2--

My yoga teacher has been gone for one week and I have NOT followed through on my plan to use her yoga CDs and do the practice at home. I did, however, get back to running and using my exercise ball. Problem is I decided to do 100 crunches after not doing crunches for quite some time. Now I can't sneeze without being in agony.

--3--

We are gearing up for summer vacation. As I write this Dennis and the kids are in the kitchen debating the pros and cons of General Mills cereals vs. Kellogg's cereals. (One of the big treats of vacation is that we buy the kids those little individual boxes so they can eat a different forbidden cereal every day. Yeah, we're wild and crazy.)

Anyway, Noah was going to the computer to use the "dictionary" search feature to get more information on the cereal crisis, when Dennis stopped him. I thought Dennis was going to be the voice of reason, but instead he said, "Don't use Dictionary. Use Google." Sigh. The great cereal debate rages on...

--4--

Fred the Cat and Mirabella the Kitten continue to entertain us with their antics. We surely are going to miss them when we go on vacation and have to leave them behind.

--5--

Every weekday I get an email-generated spiritual thought called Word of God Everyday. Here is a quote from St. Teresa of Avila that came up this week and stuck with me:

"Before beginning to pray and while praying,
let your interior glance rest
on the One who is there."

--6--

I am on a library book kick these days. Used to be I had to own every book I read. Now, in my older and more simpler age, I prefer to borrow the books and not add to the clutter. I still love the smell and feel of a new book just waiting to be cracked open, but I am much more willing to save that experience for the really special books I want to keep on my shelves. Right now here's what I'm reading:

"Running to the Mountain: A Journey of Faith and Change" by Jon Katz. An interesting book about a non-religious person's search for the spiritual through solitude and an infusion of Thomas Merton.

And here's what I will be reading:

"Come to the Quiet: The Principles of Christian Meditation," by John Michael Talbot. This one explores the often-overlooked meditation and contemplation of Christian tradition in relation to the highly popular Eastern forms of meditation. I think this one might come on vacation.

And then there's this one waiting to be picked up at the library:

"Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating," by Mark Bittman. This one, which will also get packed with the sunscreen and flip flops, focuses on smart eating -- eating that won't harm the environment and is good for you and is, above all, tasty. I have his vegetarian cookbook; it's the only thing I trust when cooking tofu since I figure if a meat eater came up with a tofu recipe that passes muster, it has to be good. Great stuff. Check out The Minimalist, his recipe column, and Bitten, his blog, in The New York Times.

--7--

PACE Magazine, the publication of my alma mater, Pace University, featured a little blurb on my second book, The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Catholic Catechism in its current issue. They sent me not two, not three, but eleven copies of the magazine. What could I possibly do with that many copies of one little blurb? I feel bad for all the trees that had to die for my clip box.