Seven Quick Takes

1. My husband has a remote control helicopter that his sister gave him for his birthday a couple years ago. He used to fly it around the bedroom when Will was first learning tracking. He'd follow it around the room with his little head and then when it went behind him, it was all over. Then he abandoned it for several months. Remembering how cool it was, Brian took out the helicopter and again flew it around the room for Will. You would have thought that was the coolest thing there ever was in the entire world! But then the battery died and would need several hours of charging to be revived. You would have thought all of Will's hopes and dreams died right along with that battery. He was so devastated when it wouldn't fly anymore. The way he carried on boo hooing and howling well past bedtime, I hope that helicopter never makes its way out again.

2. Speaking of my husband, he has a blog now! He has written one post here about trail running. He's a very good writer I think, but I might be biased. He told me he was going to log how many miles he runs each week. I said really? Does anyone want to read that? His come back was that I post each week about what I wear to church. Point taken.

3. My parents are coming to town Sunday. They'll be here until Wednesday when they head down to the Rio Grande Valley where my mom's family lives. We'll be having Thanksgiving with Brian's family in Austin. I'm bringing butternut squash and Flossy's Fruit Salad.

4. We used to call the fruit salad C.C.'s fruit salad after my grandmother. My mom got the recipe from her mother in law in New York and made it and brought it to all of her family's gatherings for years and years. I'd be hard pressed to think of a holiday without that fruit salad. Last year we had Thanksgiving at my mom and dad's house where of course my mom made it. The thing is, my dad's Aunt Joyce was with us, C.C.'s sister. When my mom told her she had made her sister's famous fruit salad she became a little bit indignant and insisted that it was not C.C.'s recipe at all, and that their mother (of 10) had made it all her life and that if this was anyone's fruit salad it was Florence Slade (called Flossy)'s fruit salad. So that's what it'll be this week when I make it for my in-laws.

5. We're at the end of E week number one and I haven't done one single E week activity short of reading the Elves and the Shoemaker to Will. Most of the books and activities I'd found for the letter E revolved around either electricity or eggs. Really the only thing I want Will to know about electricity at this point is to not touch it. Eggs are a lot safer of course, but during the week before and during Thanksgiving, who wants to be boiling, dying and hunting for eggs?

6. St. Elizabeth of Hungary's feast day is tomorrow and at least that's something we can celebrate. I'm making my Hungarian Godmother's layered cabbage recipe and a St. Elizabeth's Crown cake, maybe this one.

 7. My turn finally came up at the library to check out Ken Follet's Winter of the World. I've read and loved both of his Cathedral epics, and the first book of the Century Trilogy, Fall of Giants. Fall of Giants I listened to on audio when I was commuting to and from Austin last year, but the other two I shut everything down and read straight for about 3 days. I'd really love to do that with this one, but instead I know it'll take me about a month of nap times to finish it. That's what you get when you read Little Blue Truck 7 times a day.

This isn't one of my takes, but just in case any Heisman voters happen upon my blog, vote for Johnny Football! He should get it. I mean, did you see the upset against Alabama last week? That speaks for itself. I'm expecting 77-0 against Sam tomorrow. That's all.

Go see Jen at Conversion Diary where about a thousand other people posted timelier and more important takes than these.