There’s no rule that a recap post has to be on a weekend, right? This was written on Saturday, but I hadn’t “finished” it so I didn’t post it. I still haven’t finished it (there are a few more books and some articles that caught my eye this week that won’t get shared) – but I figured that what’s here is still worth posting.
In my spirit:
- Working on confessing sin and “plowing my heart” rather than just “moving past” situations I’ve become (or am becoming) bitter about
- Nearing the end of my time in 2 Thessalonians and still no closer to having figured out what the “man of lawlessness” refers to – thank God that His word accomplishes His purposes without me having to understand it all!
In the living room:
- I did the leg workout as I described last week (20 seconds on, 10 seconds off for three sets, separated by 5 minutes marching in place) – and I both kept my balance and could still breathe when I was done. Score! Next week, I think I’ll try 30 seconds on, 15 seconds off
- I watched a television show BY MYSELF this week – The first episode of “Call the Midwife”. It was fun, but I’m not certain I’ll be repeating it – if I’m going to be doing nothing, I’d rather read a book.
In the kitchen:
- Daniel couldn’t stop raving about this Thai curry (I used wax potatoes instead of sweet potatoes, upped the amount of snow peas, and skipped the Bok Choy. It was mild enough that I felt no qualms serving it to Tirzah Mae.)
- We don’t cook for man’s applause – but this Herbed Ricotta Gnocchi will get you it nonetheless. I tried something different this time – made a double batch and froze half. We’ll see how the frozen gnocchi turns out.
- Made this chicken cacciatore and wasn’t tremendously impressed – it was pretty watery and I wasn’t too fond of the texture of the chicken (which was probably my fault, since I didn’t completely thaw AND DRAIN the chicken before searing it.) Daniel did say that the mushrooms weren’t bad (high praise from someone who’s been telling me since we got married that mushrooms taste like dirt to him. He gave me permission to use them though, and after this he said something to the effect that I’d “trained him well” – they’re still daunting in large pieces like this recipe includes, but he doesn’t really mind the flavor anymore.)
- I made both cornbread and zucchini bread with my sourdough starter this week – and both recipes turned out well. Hurray!
In the nursery:
- Days are great, nights are terrible. Tirzah Mae is developing in leaps and bounds, with fun new experiences every day – but she’s back to waking every 1.5-2 hours at night. Her night waking’s are particularly difficult because I either have to walk her to exhaustion (hers – I’m already there) or take her back to bed with me (where she’ll nurse until I decide that I need some sleep and get up to walk her to exhaustion so she’ll sleep another hour and a half in her crib.)
- We’ve been feeding her 6-8 oz of expressed breastmilk (with her Vitamin D in it) each evening – and she’s now drinking milk from her 22nd day of life. I pretty much stopped pumping and freezing after she came home, so we have only another two weeks or so worth of milk – then I’ll have to start nursing her before bed! (Now that the freezer is emptying, it’s ready for the hog that went to butcher this week!)
In the craft room:
- I cut out a pom-pom maker, intending to make some multicolored yarn pom-poms for Tirzah Mae to play with in an old egg carton, but I haven’t yet gotten around to actually making the pom-poms
In the library:
aka “Books added to TBR list”
- The Travels of Daniel Ascher by Deborah Levy-Bertherat (added based on Elizabeth’s review at 5M4B)
- Gone-Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright (added based on Amy’s review at Hope is the Word)
In the garden:
- I’m LOVING doing cucumbers on a trellis, it’s so much easier to pick (and takes up so much less room.) My tomatoes (the semi-determinate Celebrities)? I think I’ll be trying cages (maybe like these ones) for them next year.
- Starting to think a lot about what I’ll do the same and what I’ll do differently next year – and wondering how much get-up-and-go I’ll actually have to garden next year when I’ll be settling from a move.
On the land:
- We signed a contract with our builder – so now we’re in the process of getting our construction loan (where, among other things, they determine how much they think the home we plan to build will be worth on the market vs. how much we’ll be paying to build it.)
- The removal of the trailer left behind some miscellaneous rubble – cinder blocks, broken cinder blocks, metal sheeting, and bits of lumber. We spent Saturday afternoon cleaning it up and figuring out what we’ll be doing with it (I’ve already called dibs on the cinder blocks for my next raised bed, and on the broken cinder blocks to prevent erosion in the wee ditch/stream that flows through the back corner of our lot.)