Seven Quick Takes, the real thing

1. I am the only one in the family who is both awake and home, and I have dozens of blogworthy things to catch up on so I am going to take the next 20 minutes or so to do seven quick takes the real noncheater way linking up to the amazing woman who started it all and everything. (there, one down) 2. I am going to space this all out but when I post it it will post all in one big jumble and like I've said before I don't have the time or the inclination to figure out how to fix that. 3. Two down and I haven't actually said anything yet. Well here goes... we had a fire in our backyard on Monday. This is a long story that involves burning leaves, weeds, and part of the Christmas tree over the weekend, dry brush and overgrown weeds in a yard that is small by most standards, but still the largest in our neighborhood, and very clearly too much for us to handle. It also involved fire fighters, a police officer, and a frantic call from my daughter who hasn't gotten this ruffled since she was about 6 years old. 4. Madi's call was to me to get home (I had almost made it to my overdue annual female appointment), not to 911. They were already here, we're still not sure who called them. Thankfully they were very nice about it. When I made it home the fire was out and the first responders were chatting friendly-like with my three pajama-clad children (yes it was pushing afternoon) in the newly cleared backyard. No one even asked why my kids weren't in school. 5. We have had a very warm winter, but Madi is going on a retreat this weekend to a camp with cabins that have no heat and temps are going to dip into the 30s. We don't use out heat at our house anyway, but we have it and we have good insulation something I imagine these cabins don't have. I think it was about 89 degrees on Tuesday, but Mike's father got here on Wednesday from Connecticut and that's when the rain and cold front started. 6. The mainstage show at the theatre (aka our home away from home) is Avenue Q right now. This weekend is the last weekend. It is very risque (I have never used that word so much in my life as I have the last three weeks), especially for our small conservative central Florida town, but it is such an amazing show. I've seen it three times, and it's been better each time. The first time I had trouble with the 'full puppet nudity' (most of the characters are puppets), but once you get past the vulgarity, it is an amazing show with a great story and an incredible cast. It makes me think about how so many people throw out the baby with the bath water, by not giving something a fair chance because one little part of it says or does something that they don't agree with. 7. What we do for Lent is far less important than why we do it. The time-honored traditions of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are less to benefit us than to draw us closer to God and improve the lives of those around us. — from Lent with St. Francis