7 Quick Late and Busy Takes

I am late posting my 7 Quick Takes this week because we are fulfilling the last requirements for reopening our home to fostering and adopting. My takes this week will be reflecting that!

--1--

Transcripts

One of the easiest items we had to provide was our high school transcripts. Apparently the State of Texas had a run on foster parents who couldn’t read and therefore couldn’t assist in the schooling of foster children. Knowing full well that literacy can not be proved by a diploma, I feel a little frustrated by the requirement. It isn't the requirement itself and I don't mind fulfilling requirements, but every time I hear the reasoning behind this, I comprehend more fully why subsidiarity works better than big
bureaucracies.

--2--

Well Water Tested

This isn’t as hard as it sounds, nor as expensive. We simply have to remove the screen, clean the spigot, and then bring a sample of water into the lab. That's on the agenda Monday.

--3--

Rabies Shots for All Pets

This is in our own best interest and would have been done anyway. We have neutered everyone and shot them all up full of vaccines. We have two dogs and four cats, so the vets know us well. I am one of those people whose curiosity is aroused easily, so I am now the proud owner of the knowledge that best practices for cat vaccines is to give them in the hind legs. Cats' immune systems sometimes attempt to isolate a problem area from the rest of the body. When the immune system attempts to isolate a vaccination site, it can turn tumorous and malignant. The vet tech said, "It's a lot less fatal to remove a hind leg than a head, so we do our shots back here!" She pointed me to a ton of studied on it, which will interest my husband. He's more into the gruesome medical details than I am.

--4--

Speaking of Gruesome

We have mice. We thought we'd gotten rid of them with zealous use of traps, but wouldn't you know it, as soon as it warmed up, they woke up and went on the hunt for food and water. In our kitchen! Did I mention we had a warm spell during the social worker's visit? She saw three mice. That's the bad news.

The good news is that I'm related to half the town, so of course I have a cousin in the extermination business. Not only do I get rid of the mice, I get to visit with my cousin and catch up on news. In fact, I told his secretary (his wife) to schedule the consultation close to a meal time and I'd feed him while he was over.

--5--

Swap Bedrooms

The girls room had an outside door. Foster children are not allowed to have access form their bedrooms to the outside. We can’t seal he door because our house is L-shaped and that would mean one part of the L wouldn’t have an easy exit in case of fire. The simple solution was to swap rooms with them.

Most of my week has been involved in moving our room and office out of the huge bedroom we were in, organizing the girls' belongings and redoing the decorating. We’re almost moved in. The girls are thrilled, which surprised me. We'd chosen very dark colors for the room because Andy had been on the night shift and needed to tone down the daylight as much as possible. The room is a battleship gray, officially called Timberwolf Gray, with a dark purple trim. I thought my little princesses would balk, but they have the concept of "neutral" down pat already.

--6--

Saw The Hobbit

We needed the break and it was my dad's Christmas present to Andy and I. He treated us and our oldest. We loved it. Still, I wonder at the physics of Middle Earth. Does it have the moon’s gravity? All that falling down chasms and surviving. Hobbits bounce marvelously, apparently. Dwarves, too, have the near miraculous ability to ride splintering, shattering wooden structures down a fall of what looked to be at least 800 feet without breaking a bone or pulling a splinter out of an eyeball. Orcs are not so gifted. They died wholesale which led me to wonder idly during the “under the mountain” scene, how many unique and interesting ways could an orc fall into an abyss? Interesting was 3. Unique was also 3. After the number 3, I seemed to have lost count. Must have lost it in all the excitement. My Precious.

--7--

New Evangelists Monthly

I'd like to draw your attention to New Evangelists Monthly. It is a new endeavor hosted over at Convert Journal. On the first Saturday of the month, participating Catholic bloggers post their best posts from the previous month. If you are looking for a convenient way to peruse some of the best of Catholic blogging, this is for you. Just like 7 Quick Takes, it puts lots of great blogging right at your finger-click.