1.) Camping
We recently became the stewards of my grandparents' old camper trailer. My grandfather passed away this past spring, and so my grandmother has been downsizing. She wanted to keep the trailer, but she just isn't capable of keeping up with the maintenance on it. So my husband and I are taking care of it/ cleaning it/repairing stuff on it. In return, we get to use it.
We chose this past weekend for the inaugural trip. My dad, a few of my brothers, and my in-laws decided to camp on the same weekend, in the same campground. So we had a three family get together that, thankfully, went really well.
Hiking, campfires, bugs, rocks, dirty kids getting worn out...quite glorious.
2.) Halloween!
We live out in the middle of a cotton field, so every year for Halloween we go into the city and spend the evening in my sister-in-law's neighborhood. My other sister-in-law and her family, and my parents in law also go over, and we all eat pizza and then take the kids out.
It's the type of neighborhood where most of the kids have grown up and moved away, but they bring their kids back regularly and there's a ton of well-established, financially well off doting grandparents. Most of the houses were giving out name brand candy (Skittles, Snickers, Reese's...) instead of the generic cheap 'grab bag' stuff that...uh...I would buy if I lived in the city.
We went as a Dungeons and Dragons campaign family costume. The kids and I went as adventurers and Hubby went as the Dungeon Master with a game board showing the street we were trick or treating on and three little figures that looked like us. He also added a jack'o lantern 'big boss' monster, which thankfully we did not encounter in real life.
3.) The campaign against the rats continues.
We have yet to catch anything in the trap we bought, which is this lever platform thing that chucks rats into a barrel of water when they walk out onto it.
I checked the water in the barrel recently, and there were no rats, but a quite healthy colony of mosquito larvae in there (in late fall...#VivaSouthTexas). So I emptied it out, refilled it, added a ton of orange oil to keep it from getting re-infested, and coated pretty much the entire trap in peanut butter.
A couple nights after this, I noticed that some of the peanut butter was gone, but it looked as if whatever ate it carefully reached out and scraped it off with its paw rather than lap it up. There are tons of little nail marks left rather than an area that looks like it's been cleaned.
I'll keep you updated on what happens next. We're hoping to lull the rats into a false sense of security, then hopefully the trap will be able to do what it's actually supposed to do.
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| Texas A&M Bonfire Memorial. Photo Credit: Creative Commons |
4.) November and Mourning
November is the month of Dia de los Muertos, and the Church remembers those who have died in a special way for the next few weeks.
I took the kids to our local Catholic cemetery on All Soul's day. My dad met us there, and we spent some time visiting the graves of many people who were related to us in one way or another, or who dad knew growing up.
The next day happened to be Sunday, and our pastor led everyone out in a procession after mass. He blessed the graves while we prayed the Rosary for the deceased.
November is also the anniversary of the Bonfire collapse at Texas A&M, this year marking the 20th year since it happened. My dad's younger brother Lucas died in the accident, along with eleven other students, at age nineteen. His was one of the graves that we visited.
Between the liturgical season and the anniversary of my uncle's death (highly traumatic for my dad's family and very, very, very public when it happened), November is a very somber month for us. There's a lot of memories and old wounds that get stirred up. It's especially poignant this year because my younger brother, who attends Texas A&M as a member of the Corps of Cadets, in the same division my uncle was in, is in his senior year.
My brother, Nick, reminds me a lot of Lucas. I was only six years old when Lucas died, but I remember the way that he interacted with us was very similar to the way that Nick interacts with my children-- very affectionate and mischievous.
Seeing Nick, in the same role that Lucas was in but never got to finish out, get to complete it and live it out brings out all sorts of feelings and memories. I know from things that he's said that Nick feels the weight of that as well.
So please pray for my extended family this month, the Kimmels, as well as those in Purgatory. We could all use a little extra grace.
5.) Dredd
This EPIC picture of an assignment a student from my husband's Government and Economics class completed.
It just made my life a little better when I saw it.
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| Photo Credit: Creative Commons |
When I go into the town to attend home school co-op or mom's group and run errands, I usually take the kids to eat a picnic lunch in a certain city park.
Recently they installed one of these little houses for people to leave and take books in the park, and apparently the neighborhood it's in has a retired elementary teacher or school librarian in it. It's been stocked with a ton of late elementary level paperback chapter books from the 90s and early 2000s lately, and I found a children's poetry book and adaption of the legend of King Arthur in it today.
I've got to stop checking it, the shelf where I keep my stash of books for the kids to grow into is rapidly getting full. I've been trying to clean out and donate books I don't ever see us using in order to make room, but it's been difficult.
Evidently having a ton of books in your house is a sign of a greater chance of being well educated or something though, so maybe that's not a bad thing?
Right?
(Note: I know that how these work is that you're supposed to really make an effort to bring books to replace the ones you take in order to keep the library in 'balance' with decent reading material. The one we frequent has been full of the same types of books every time I've looked at it (sometimes even with multiple copies of the same book), so I feel comfortable with the amount of books that we've gotten from it).
7.) I'm (sort of) viral!
I have a Facebook page for my writing. It's actually super small; I only have 38 'likes'. Usually I just use it as a place to put new blog posts, but once in a blue moon I'll write something on the 'wall.'
The other day I wrote a little post about Halloween and All Saints' and Souls' days, and it got shared by a Catholic blogger with a much larger following than mine on her Facebook page.
Usually something I write on here gets about 50 views. If I'm lucky and write something clever or somehow manage to do or time something right with promoting it, I'll get 200. The most I've ever gotten was around 500.
This little post, done on the spur of the moment and posted without any real thought to promoting it, reached more than 4,000 people.
Guess I need to pay a little more attention to my Facebook page.
For the rest of this week's Quick Takes, click here.https://thisaintthelyceum.org/sqt-book-deadlines-paperwork-and-enrichment-activities/
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