Seven Quick Takes (1)

1. As of yesterday, Keith is an official PhD Candidate! Before, he was simply a PhD student. But now he has proposed his thesis, withstood intense grilling from his committee, and passed their deliberations about whether or not he's ready to advance to the next stage of his degree. I am so proud of him! Since it was a big deal, and since we never got around to celebrating my graduation (what with having a newborn around and all), we went out to dinner last night to celebrate.

2. I also thought I'd bake something to celebrate. I've had a recipe on Pinterest for some time that I thought Keith might like--honey chamomile muffins. The recipe calls for almond flour, which the little grocery store on the block didn't have. I was tired and had a tired baby on my hands, so instead of going out in search of almond flour I decided to substitute wheat flour and hope for the best.

They are ... interesting. Edible, but interesting. In a way I don't think the original recipe intended to be interesting. They're pretty dense, for one thing ... I'd really like to try the recipe as written, because I think it would be pretty delicious. (Keith has eaten three muffins so far, so I think they taste alright, but the texture's just odd, and they look a little bit like dog food. :-/)

3. Keith has adoration at 9am on Thursdays, and since his proposal presentation started at 9:30, Michael and I took his hour. It was the first time I'd gone to adoration since before Michael was born. What a blessing! I know that Christ has been inviting me back to adoration for a long time, and for various reasons I haven't responded. But he keeps calling, gently. (Often through Father David, who I swear always looks RIGHT AT me when he promotes adoration from the altar, and who, a week or two after Michael was born, said that each parent should make sure the other is able to make it to private adoration.)

4. Our first anniversary is on Monday. We are going to enlist grandparents to babysit and go on a date ... we're still deciding whether we should go someplace with special meaning from our dating relationship (mostly up North where my parents live), or to a nice restaurant down here in the city.

5. And Michael's three month birthday is the day before that. (His due date was the day after our nine month anniversary. My cousin got married three months before us and was also due the day after her nine month anniversary ... we found it pretty funny.) He is so much more aware of the world than he used to be! He gets frustrated easily because he knows what he wants to do with his hands (which he finds fascinating), but isn't able to grab things or reach them very well yet. He's been smiling and "talking" for a long time, but last weekend I actually got these big belly laughs out of him, not once but twice. No laughing since then, though.

6. Like I said, Michael gets easily frustrated ... and easily bored. He also resists napping. Right now he's dozing in the swing (prime blogging time). This morning Keith discovered another way to keep him entertained. (Sorry, you'll have to tilt your head sideways!)

(Please note that I am fully aware of the dangers of leaving children alone to play with plastic bags. I was sitting there the whole time. :) )

7.  The other day someone came to the door trying to get us to join a group for local activism. (I feel like this happens a lot in our neighborhood? Maybe it's just living in the city.) Keith answered the door, but I thought her voice sounded familiar, and concluded from his description that it was someone I knew from school. 


Keith didn't sign anything, but asked for some literature about the organization, which she gave him before returning to talking to our downstairs neighbor. Which is normally the end of that kind of thing, right? Except that five minutes later she rang the doorbell again to ask what he thought of what he'd read. I joined him at the door this time to say hi and, I admit it, to show off Michael. 


We chatted a bit--Keith doing most of the talking. In the end we joined the mailing list but not the organization. We agreed with most of the issues that the group addressed, but we weren't sure we'd always support the ways they chose to address them, and so weren't comfortable with giving our money. I'm not sure how well the woman understood our point, so she might have left with the feeling that we don't care about local issues. But it was friendly conversation, at least. 




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