Seven Quick Takes

1.  This is my very first quick takes.  I've been reading other's posts for months now.  Let's see if anyone reads mine.

2.  Our family went to Legoland in CA last weekend.  It was a blast.  My son is five and just the perfect age for the park.  My daughter is two and a bit small for it, but she was free so I didn't worry about it.  We met up with an old friend and her family.  It has been almost a year since we had seen each other.  This was the first time we had seen her new baby.  I wish we lived a bit closer.

3.  I haven't lived in San Diego for about eight years, and I realize after each trip how much Arizona has become my home.

4.  Tonight Thomas's school has a Halloween Carnival.  Though, I think it is called a Fall Festival.  I really don't understand why Halloween has been replaced with other festivities.  Back in my day, Halloween was universally celebrated by going trick or treating.  That was it.  Nothing more and nothing less.  I long for the days when you could just celebrate a holiday without having to make a statement.

5.  I bought Simcha Fisher's new book.  I should have realized it was written for people who are in the NFP club.  I don't belong to the club.  I don't use hormonal bc or IUDs, but I'm more from the FAM camp.  I haven't been able to make the leap to NFP for a few reasons.  Oh well, maybe someday.  And that may just be the point about the chapter about the future you.

6. Last week, I read a book called "Escape from Camp 14".  It is the story of a man who escaped from the North Korean prison camp in which he was born.  Everyone speaks about the human rights violations by the Chinese government, but North Korea is so much worse.  Please read the book and pray for those living in those inhumane conditions.  They are largely forgotten.

7.  Can you believe October is rapidly coming to a close?  I can't.  Time really passes so quickly now.

Have a great week!

Tuesday's Thoughts

When did Catholics cease celebrating Halloween and substitute All Saints Day in its place?

I grew up in the '80s.  Catholics were normal back then.  We didn't do weird things like the protestants with their fall festivals in lieu of Halloween.  Yet, the past few weeks I've seen these posts about celebrating All Saints Day with costumes in lieu of Halloween.  What?

Back in the normal '80s, the Catholic schools threw Halloween carnivals.  On November 1, you would go to mass because it was a day of obligation.  End of story.

I really don't understand how much of the protestant culture has seeped into American Catholic culture.

Paying the babysitter

My SIL posted an article about how much to pay a babysitter.  The premise of said article was that teens should be thankful to receive $5 per hour for babysitting three children.  Both my sister and I disagreed with the premise and laughed about it because we were making that much back in the late '80s.

You'd would have thought we were committing blasphemy with the responses going back and forth.  Do normal people (unlike the cheap author of the original article) really pay their babysitters that little? My husband and I agree that $10 per hour for two kids is an honest wage for a babysitter.  I think the vitriol coming from the "babysitters should be grateful" crowd was more of a testament to the particular religious culture of the Utah based author.  My husband comes from that same culture and after so many years married into that family, I still don't quite understand them.

The name of my blog

I thought for sometime about what to name this blog.  The name needed to have significance for me without defining it as any specific blog type.  The idea of being a ger (stranger in hebrew) always resonated with me.  I've usually found myself on the periphery of any group or association I've had.  Rarely am I in the middle of a group.  Even in the rare times when I'm in the middle of a group, I usually gravitate back to the edges.

Created

This is my first try at blogging.  Forgive me if I am boring, redundant, unoriginal, or I commit any other blogging sin.  Writing is not a love of mine.  However, I read so many blogs now that I often feel compelled to respond to what I read, but the com box always seems so inadequate to really delve into a subject.