MONDAY
This was a pretty good day! It started out with a drop-off trip to the thrift store, where I unloaded a whole trunk full of outgrown clothing and toys. SO nice to get all that junk out of my house and hopefully into the hands of someone else who can use it. My daughter and I followed that up with a quick trip to Costco, where we bought such exciting things as toilet paper and bulk garlic (I'm nothing if not relentlessly practical!). When we returned home, I cleaned, did a little bit of writing (226 words), and read a book from my Goodreads To Read list before getting a text from a friend, wondering if we wanted to have an impromptu park playdate. We sure did, so I threw dinner together (a homemade pizza, using some of that spaghetti sauce from last week, and the food processor dough recipe from The Complete Tightwad Gazette) and then we were off. My daughter played with a friend, and I hung out with the friend's mom. It was a super fun way to spend an afternoon. After dinner, I read and did some editing.
TUESDAY
OOF.
The stupidest thing about chronic pain conditions is that one day can be great, and the next day you can feel like you were run over by a semi. There's just no rhyme or reason to any of it, and this was one of those days. My daughter and I ran a bank errand, and by the time we got home, I. Was. Hurting. I spent the day icing and heating my back, reading a book from my To Read list while my daughter played around me. The icing and heating (and Celebrex) helped, fortunately, and I was able to go to the day-early Independence Day parade and fireworks with my husband and daughter.
You'd never know we're a suburb of a major city.
"No, really, guys, we farm here! Totally!"
I'll spare you pictures of the horse poop that lay right in front of us. Hurray, not-really-small-town-farm-life!
Wednesday
Time for a family get-together! We had a lovely meal with relatives, and while our children played together and the adults visited, I worked on my stripey blanket. I save up all the scraps from other knitting projects and turn them into a massive knitted blanket. For this particular blanket (my third), I'm doubling up scrap yarn with some very thin peach yarn I bought at a thrift store. I have a TON of it and it's not great for much else, so into the blanket it goes.
So stripey!
Once the blanket is longer than I am tall, I'll bind off. It's great mindless knitting, perfect for taking places where I'm chatting with others but don't need to concentrate much on what I'm doing. During my daughter's naptime, I finished one GoodReads book and started another, and then started a list of potential Christmas gifts for family members. It's early, but I like to make gifts, so it's never too early to start that!
THURSDAY
Despite starting off on the wrong foot (ANT INVASION IN THE KITCHEN!!!!!!!!!!!!! SO. MANY. ANTS), this turned out to be a great day. I took my son to the doctor, ran errands, did Reading and Geography lessons with my daughter, and then I practiced the piano. During her nap, I prepared Slow Cooker Red Lentil Stew with Chickpeas and Orzo, but since it was already 2 pm, I tossed it all in the Instant Pot and cooked it on Manual for about 16 minutes. Do you have an Instant Pot? This thing has saved my butt so many times when it comes to dinner. Instead of picking up a five dollar pizza from Aldi or grabbing something frozen (or worse, going out to eat!), I just chop stuff up, toss it in, poke a few buttons, and dinner is ready to go without much fuss. We got ours on Black Friday two years ago or so, and it's absolutely been worth every single penny. The stew was fabulous, and I added some spinach that needed to be used up. 10/10, my daughter loved it, and I'll definitely make it again.
After I finished throwing dinner together, I did some writing (1000 words, woohoo!), and then we had a MASSIVE storm that both scared the crap out of me and knocked our internet out, so I read a book from my To Read list (which I later finished, hurray!). After dinner, I ran to the library to pick up a book from interlibrary loan, read a little bit of another To Read book, and started knitting a Christmas gift dishcloth.
Whooooaaaaa, we're halfway there...
FRIDAY
Yard sales this week were a dud- they usually are on holiday weeks- so my daughter and I came home and did Reading and Geography lessons, and I practiced piano. During her naptime, I whipped up dinner (lentil loaf and roasted cauliflower. I used the rest of that homemade spaghetti sauce and it worked perfectly in this recipe! This is a fantastic recipe, by the way, and it's awesome on sandwiches the next day, with ketchup). After dinner, I mowed the lawn, where I discovered our newest little veggie friends, and then watched TV with my husband after my daughter went to bed.
SATURDAY
Ahoy matey! Husband and daughter and I went canoeing at a local forest preserve. I was the back-of-the-canoe steering paddler, which was...interesting...at first. I got the hang of it quickly, though, and we had a great time. My daughter wasn't so thrilled with it, but hopefully she'll enjoy it more as she gets bigger. My best friend had her wedding reception that evening, so my mother came to babysit, and my husband and I got to get dressed up and have conversations that weren't interrupted every three seconds with demands to play Thomas the Tank Engine, so that was fantastic.
Plus we got to walk by this famous sign in person!
SUNDAY
A day of cleaning, laundry, ferrying my son places, and packing. This upcoming week, I'll be traveling with my mother and children, so getting things done will look a little different, but hopefully I'll have some pretty pictures to show you when I get back.
Goodreads To Read List: 167 books
Writing: ~1226 words, give or take a bit
I hope your week is fantastic! How have you gotten it done this week?
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