Seven Quick Takes--Welcome, Fall!

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Welcome, Fall!

I’ve always been a big fan of fall. I like the sense of new beginnings, of school starting, of football….and I love that the weather has cooled down and I can walk outside and not burn up! Yay!!!!

The leaves are looking really lovely this year too. And I love lighting candles in my house again and wearing my sweaters and fun socks!

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This week on the blog:

The new Take Up and Read Study is out! Essential Holiness is perfect for fall!

A Rock Solid Clinic

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I’m glad my eye has healed up although my doctor said I might be developing cataracts and to be honest I’m freaked about this because I depend so much on my eyes. So if you could pray for them I’d appreciate it. My next appointment is in February so I could worry for, um, months, and I really don’t want to do that! :)

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Lace knitting is happening….slowly. It has to be done slowly or you end up ripping it all out. At least you do if you’re me. :) I’m also reading the History of the Lord of the Rings series, which is JRR Tolkien’s original writings and drafts compiled by his son, Christopher. So it’s a great look into a writer’s process and the evolution of the story. If you’re a Tolkien nerd, they’re great. If you’re not, they’re probably really boring. But since I’m in the former category, I love them! The first one I read was Return of the Shadow, which goes until the fellowship reaches the Mines of Moria; next up is The Treason of Isengard.

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Some new Patty photos? YES PLEASE.

Patty with the stuffed lamb I got her for her baptism.

Patty with her brother, Johnny.

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Since it’s officially three months to Christmas….

If you want a signed book, email me . They’re $20 and that includes the signature, shipping, and the bookmark and prayer card! I can also inscribe it to the recipient, just let me know!

I also have Catholic 101, my ebook, for $5. You DO NOT need an e-reader to read it! You can read it on your laptop or desktop!

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I am really glad football’s back. I am also glad that both Pitt and the Steelers are 2-0. We’ll see if they’re still undefeated come Monday morning…

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Seven Quick Takes--My Book's First Picture, Gallbladder test, and more!

linking up with Kelly!

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Look at my beautiful baby’s first picture! Thank you Ave Maria Design Department!

Isn’t she pretty?!

So yeah, I love this a lot. They also made me new graphics for Facebook and Twitter so if you follow me there, you’ll see those lovelies!

THANK YOU to everyone who has pre-ordered! If you want to, go here. (It makes a good Christmas present!!!! It’ll just come later, which extends Christmas joy!)

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So on Monday I had a HIDA scan at OSU East hospital. The test wasn’t terrible. Well, at the time. But it did require an IV—to stay in for a few hours.

Well, that was a lovely piece of information….

It’s also a two part test, which I didn’t know.

So, the first part is: Put in IV (poor guy who had to do it…I was laying on the gurney [which was supremely comfortable! Really!] thinking, if we don’t get access, we can’t do this test….) We got access. It wasn’t very comfortable. I have bruises all over my arms right now, so my veins need a break for like, two weeks, minimum.

Anyway!

So we got the IV in. The contrast was pushed in. Then I went out to waiting room for an hour while the contrast worked. OK .

Came back into the room, took the pictures, took about four minutes. Great.

Then we went to part two: AKA, nap time. (I had woken up at 6 AM for this test. I was ready for a nap.)

This part is the “stress test”. They take was is basically the fat content of an Ensure drink and drip it very very slowly —as in it takes an hour—through the IV. This stresses the gallbladder. Then pictures are taken to see how it is moving through.

So I took a nap, then woke up an hour later when the IV beeped. A nurse came, rolled me back to the scan room, took the photos, took out the IV, and I was free.

I was insanely thirsty because I couldn’t drink anything, so I got some Sprite Zeros from the cafeteria, and Dad and I went to lunch. (He had to drive me, per their rules.)

Fortunately I had some phenergan left over from my previous hospital adventures….

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because over the next few days, my stomach was not happy with the stuff that had been forced into me. So I felt nauseated, tired, and just weird for two days. Sigh. But I feel better now, so I hope that I don’t need to darken a medical doorway for the next few months!

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With the newfound energy, I have written out all my Christmas cards and begun mailing Christmas gifts. I want to mail them early. I also live right down the street from the post office so it makes mailing things and getting more stamps insanely convenient.

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I take Christmas so seriously that I have a gift and card spreadsheet.

Yup. I’m weird.

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If you missed it: my post on how girls need a plan!

And: The Real Lucy Pevensie (whose feast day was last week!)

It’s also St. Cecilia’s Day, so here’s some music! And the poem by Dryden!

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Still looking for an Advent journal? You can get Take Up & Read’s!!!! And it’s on sale RIGHT NOW! (as of this writing, Thursday night. I hope it still is when this goes live!)

Seven Quick Takes--Winter Came, and an Advent Devotional!

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Yes, winter showed up in Ohio—it was in the twenties and teens on Tuesday this week, and Orchard House got its first snow. Since I didn’t have to go out in it, I didn’t mind it, and the snow looked beautiful with the Hawthorn tree outside my window—the red berries make a lovely contrast. So I enjoyed it.

And it’s also November. Snow in mid-November is fine in Ohio. When we get it in October, I get a little grumpy. But I’m OK with snow until about the first week of January and then it can go away. :-p (I really only like snow around the holidays.)

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Advent is coming, and I want to show you the newest Take Up & Read Devotional—O Radiant Dawn, for Advent and Christmas….

We’re doing a special focus on the O Antiphons, and the book goes from Advent through New Year’s Day. It’s exquisitely gorgeous—our designer, Kristin Foss, has done wonderful things with this book. All of our books have great production values because of her, but this one really takes the cake.

O Antiphons, drawn by Kristin Foss.

Look at the lectio pages

We work really hard to make these beautiful and useful devotionals for you, and I hope you enjoy them. If you are a long-time fan and customer, thank you! If you’re new….come check us out!

You can get your copy here.

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Being home from the Resort means that my sleeping schedule is still weird…..I’m staying up too late and sleeping in, so I’m all over the place. And the house is still sort of a mess, although I’m working on getting it back to baseline. Basically, being in the hospital demonstrates how true the concept of entropy is—that everything is working toward chaos all the time, ALL THE TIME!!!!!!

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What are you doing for Thanksgiving? We stay pretty low key; Christmas is our big family holiday. So it’ll just be my parents and I. My brother spends it with his wife’s family, and my sister and her husband are staying out in Colorado.

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On Monday I’m going to one of OSU’s branch hospitals to have a HIDA scan done. Basically it’s a test that stresses my gallbladder and sees how it does, and also we can get a scan of what my gallbladder looks like. If there are issues, it’s coming out. If there are sort of issues, I think it’s staying in until it acts up again, and then it might come out? And if it looks fine, we’ll just watch it. Three options. By the end of the day Monday we’ll know which door we’re going through. I’m sort of on team take it out, but…not my call!

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Obviously, massive thanks to everyone who has pre ordered the book! If you haven’t, you can do so here. Pre-orders are so helpful, both in building buzz and in letting the publisher know how many copies to make for the first printing!

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I have Disney+, and I like it an awful lot. Having a the Disney movies at my fingertips? WINNER. And I’m also loving rewatching Boy Meets World, except that I had forgotten that the class in the show was my age—it debuted in the fall of 1993, when I was in sixth grade, so that’s how old the characters are. This was brought home in an episode where Mr. Feeny had them imagine their futures and threw a mock 20th class reunion….that took place in 2020.

As in, next year.

Seven Quick Takes!

Linking up with Kelly!

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Lent is coming soon! (It’s in a little over a month, if you can believe it.) Take Up & Read has a beautiful new book for Lent, focusing on the Gospel of Matthew, called Hosanna.

We have new writers, some new design and prayer pages, and all sorts of other goodies that you can read about here.

Making it EVEN BETTER is that right now the book is ON SALE! That’s right—price drop! We don’t know how long this will last, so go grab your copy!

I love the gospel of Matthew, so I was thrilled to contribute an essay to this book. I’m sure you’ll love it!

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Did January feel like it lasted FOREVER to anyone else? Whew. I’m glad that month is over. February always feels like it moves pretty quickly, but it’s also the last full month before my move, so it feels like time moves even faster.

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I’m still Kon Mari-ing the house. I’ve done clothes, books, papers, and I’m in “komono” (AKA EVERYTHING ELSE), but even that is moving well so I should have that done in the next week or so. Yay!!!!

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A brief bit of policy wonkery (if you’re new here, I worked for the state government for ten years, so in a past life I lived, ate, and breathed policy wonkery). This really isn’t about policy, per se, as it is about common sense:

If you are contacting a representative about a policy proposal that you support or do not support, please remember to be respectful, to be brief, and to contact your representative. Please don’t call a representative that doesn’t represent you (as in, you live in Ohio, but you’re calling a senator from Colorado or Hawaii). This irritates the staffers and does not make them happy. They want to know what their constituents think. Not what everyone in the country thinks.

And if you call your elected representative for any reason, please be nice to the person on the phone. It is not that person’s fault that you are having issues with whatever you’re having issues with. If you are mean, that does not make them want to help you! Do not make the person answering the phone cry with streams of curse words! STOP IT!

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Do you re-read books? Please tell me you do. To me, half the fun is in re-reading. I read so quickly that if I didn’t re-read, I’d be really bored. Re-reading is good!

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My friend Richelle asked me if I’d read all of Dickens’ novels. I haven’t'; I’ve read 10 of his 15 novels (A Christmas Carol is considered a novella, and I have read that as well). The last five I have to read are Nicholas Nickleby, Barnaby Rudge, Martin Chuzzlewit, Our Mutual Friend, and his unfinished The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

If you’re looking to start reading Dickens (he’s not my favorite, but he is an important writer), I’d suggest starting with A Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist (because just about everyone knows the basic story), and A Tale of Two Cities, which is one of my favorites. These are all pretty short, too, which is a plus, given that some of his novels are the size of bricks.

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I’m also watching Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat on Netflix. The series is good, but he book is even better (same title), because it EXPLAINS THINGS, like why you should boil potatoes in salt water before you roast them! I had always wondered about this and now I know. (It’s because you get the salt in to the potatoes—if you just roast them, then you toss salt on top of them and that doesn’t really penetrate said potato).