7 Quick Takes: Volume 11

-- 1 --

I've had my eye on these colorful, folksy, nordic gifts at Ingebretsen's for over a year.  Look at these beautiful tiles.

This is pretty much what I want my house to look like, complete with live-in gnomes.  I think I'd like the wooden panels to be vertical and white-washed, so they look more like this:

Don't judge me.

This, of course, will all come to fruition when I live in a Welsh cottage in Snowdonia, write full-time, and raise sheep. . .

-- 2 --

Here's a quick meal I've been meaning to try for the family, though now I'll have to wait until after Lent.

Like Phili cheese steak sandwiches?  You can make your own by cutting up some roast beef, mushrooms, peppers, and onions (preferably pre-sliced, for optimum time-saving), mix it up all in a bowl in the microwave or on the stove with some provolone cheese, and eat it on grocery store Italian bread.

I totally forgot I already posted about this.

-- 3 --

I never realized how much waste a small family of two and half (one and a half, while my husband is away) generates.  We have bags full of trash going out about once a day.  What the heck?  Does everything have to be wrapped in triple layers of packaging?

I can't think how we can decrease our waste, except by recycling (we already do that).

-- 4 --

My little boy turned two years old last Wednesday (yes, Ash Wednesday!).

Happy birthday!

-- 5 --

Now that he is old enough to get into mischief and know better, I've started disciplining him.  I'm mildly concerned about spanking him.  I don't like the idea of hurting my child, even though one could say it's just a matter of natural consequences: if he touches the hot stove, which he is not supposed to, he'll get burned, and know not to touch it again.

Interestingly, the spankings do very little to deter him (and I am NOT going to swat him any harder than I have been).  Time-outs, or putting him in a room away from everyone else, yields the best results for curtailing bad behavior.  He hates it.  So, in actuality, the spankings could be relegated to mild correction, the time-outs for serious ones.  It just goes to show you every parent-child relationship is different.

Needless to say, discipline is a work in progress.

-- 6 --

Took this nifty I Write Like analyzer several times, where I got Anne Rice, Ursula K. LeGuin, and Ray Bradbury, in that order.

Try it out.

-- 7 --

Finally, the kindle edition of the 2012 Tuscany Prize for Catholic Fiction Collected Short Stories is available.  Please consider supporting us.  What a blessing it is that some faithful, art-inclined Catholics saw the absence of quality contemporary Catholic fiction being published and did something about it.  You can read my short story "The Debt," which received an honorable mention, published under L.C. Ricardo.

Find the winners for the novel and novella prizes or submit your own manuscripts at Tuscany Press's website.

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You can find more Seven Quick Takes where they're hosted over at Conversion Diary.