Our Lenten prayer basket, a hole-y surprise, and a nice number of bananas (7 Quick Takes)

~1~

When I filled our basket with prayer intentions for Lent, I didn’t count the slips of paper. So, we might have 47 names in the basket, or we might have 74. We will also keep adding intentions as Lent continues.

I love having a prayer basket for Lent. I don’t know why pulling an intention out of a basket feels so ceremonial and important, but it does. And just walking past it reminds me to pray.

I hope your Lent is going well so far.

~2~

Part of my job involves writing and preparing scripts for events. After I print the scripts, I punch holes in the pages to put them into binders for the podium.

I have a traditional three-hole punch I can use, but a while ago, I realized there was an office on campus that had an extraordinary automatic hole punch that punched dozens of pages at once with the push of a button. So, I often drop by to use it, but it’s not always convenient, especially because my office is on a different campus.

Over the years, I have dropped a few hints about wanting an electronic hole punch of my own. Apparently, I hadn’t said it to the right person or with the right sense of excitement. The other day, I was getting ready for an event, and I stopped by my supervisor’s boss’s office to use his printer.

I asked whether he had an electronic hole punch, and he didn’t. I might have spent a little too much time describing the amazing hole punch that another office had. I might have mentioned that I have always wanted one.

The next day—Ash Wednesday—when I stopped by to meet with him about a project, he had a brand-new automatic hole punch waiting for me. His assistant had ordered it just for me, and it had arrived overnight.

I was excited to get such a hole-y gift on such a holy day.

~3~

Yesterday, after I fed everyone breakfast, I put the ingredients for pepper steak in the crockpot for dinner. When I make a crockpot, I like to think of how happy my future self will be. If only my current self could always see so clearly what might make my future self happy.

Or perhaps it would be best if my current self always had not just the insight but the energy and ingredients to make my future self happy.

That would really be something.

~4~

The signs of spring are starting to pop up, and I am so happy.

We may not have had the harshest winter, but I’m ready for sunshine and warmer weather. I saw some forsythia starting to bloom the other day.

There’s something so beautiful about those first yellows of spring.

~5~

We made it to Confession as a family this weekend. I always marvel at how much better I feel walking out of the confessional. There’s a sense of renewal and peace that I just can’t get any other way. Every time I go, I ask myself why I don’t go more often.

~6~

When I go grocery shopping, I almost always walk the pet aisle just in case they have something fun for our finches. The finches do not generally care for anything new or different, but I love giving gifts, and I have to try.

On this trip, I came across an irresistible package of Finch Fries, which are bird treats shaped like French fries. I had to have them. I could not wait to show them to my human family, all of whom thoroughly appreciated them.

Then I put them in the cages, where the birds have, of course, stared at them from a distance for hours.

I was really hoping they would try them. Maybe they gave up Finch Fries for Lent.

~7~

As I was leaving for the grocery store, I texted my sister Treasa to see whether she needed anything. She said they could use “a nice number of bananas.” When she orders groceries online, she is apparently limited to 10 bananas at a time.

I have two children—neither of whom care for bananas—and she has five, all of whom like bananas. I was determined to buy her a nice number of bananas, even though I was not clear on how many that might be. It clearly had to be more than 10.

I picked out the most beautiful bananas I could find and dropped them off at her house, where her children ran to get their favorite toys and books to show me, one by one. It was wonderful, and if I hadn’t had ice cream in the car, I would have stayed longer. But I said goodbye and headed on my way, leaving her with a house full of fun and bananas.

I’m not sure how many bananas she expected me to buy, but I delivered 42.

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