Seven Quick Takes-Saturday, April 27

I was not really in the mood to blog yesterday, so I am late on the Seven Quick Takes Friday link in, but here I am now.

1. We closed on our house on Monday, meaning that we have a house to live in which is owned by a bank. We will make a monthly payment for years and years and one day will have our own house. Hooray!

2. Today we spent the whole day cleaning at the house. We primarily used our new Shark Vacuum and a Norwex cloth. The house had been unoccupied for 8 months, so there were a lot of cobwebs. The whole (finished) basement is entirely clean: every surface (including walls) wiped and the floor vacuumed. We did about half of the upstairs, but the rooms we have left will be done this week. All of the floors are done.

3. Friday and Saturday are painting days. We are painting two bedrooms, the living room, a bathroom, and the stair hallway. Hopefully we will get it all done on those days. :)

4. M is rereading Lord of the Rings for the billionth time; his goal is to read it seeing Frodo as an English middle-aged gentleman. I am going to start The Fellowship when he gets onto The Two Towers. It is nice to read a book from time to time that is really hard to put down.

5. I am almost finished with Catherine of Sienna by Sigrid Undset. Undset is such a great writer and portrays humanity so clearly; she had a great understanding of the Middle Ages and gives interesting insight into St. Catherine and the divisive times St. Catherine lived in. I am pretty sure that God put St. Catherine into the time he put her to save the papacy, by using her to bring the pope back to from from Avignon and then during the schism, use her to support the true pope. She was an amazing person who loved everybody with her whole strength.

6. Another great biography of a saint is Edmund Campion:A Life by Evelyn Waugh. St. Edmund lived during the suppression of the Catholic Church in England, and became a Jesuit and did secret ministry, and was martyred. What is so great about this biography and Catherine of Sienna is that they were written by really talented authors who knew how to write and loved the Church.

7. I never linked it here on this blog, but I thought some might still find it worthwhile. I wrote this post for the Truth and Charity blog a couple of weeks ago about how procreation is an end of marriage and how those who choose to have no children (in marriage) are not fulfilling its ends.

Head over to Jen at Conversion Diary for more Quick Takes!