I shouldn't complain. So many more people are suffering the effects of Hurricane Florence. The reports and pictures are just devastating. My heart goes out to everyone in its path; may your recovery be swift and your spirits be strong.
As I mentioned in my last post, technology failed me this week. My computer decided to eat the document where I keep track of my daily activities, so I'm just going to do a broad recap of what went on, using nothing but my memory (EEP!), so bear with me! It may happen that I have to send my computer in to be fixed, so if I disappear for a bit, that's where I'll be. ;)
COOKING
It's been a good week on the food front here. I made Cajun pasta with white beans and kale, Samosa wraps, beans and rice, and I cooked an entire chicken in the crockpot for my husband and kids (I don't eat meat, so that was all for them). I was pretty proud of that; I had it in the crockpot with potatoes and carrots by 7 am. It cooked all day and everyone enjoyed it (especially my husband! I had leftover pasta that night. The Cajun pasta is actually better as a leftover, since it gives it time for the flavors to blend together). I also baked a batch of pumpkin chocolate chip cookies for my son's lunches and for us to have around. They were pretty good. Not the best cookie ever, but decent.
Sunday was a kitchen day. I got our remaining cherry tomatoes in the dehydrator. I made a pan of cinnamon roll baked oatmeal for my son's breakfasts before school (next year it'll be for both kids, but my daughter doesn't go to preschool until later, so I'm more awake to actually make her something!), I used the leftover beans and rice and Samosa filling to make wraps for my son's lunches (18 wraps are now in the freezer!), I scooped out two huge containers of kiwis I bought on huge markdown and ran them through the food processor to freeze for smoothies, I made a batch of bananadoodles for lunches and snacks, and I threw together a mushroom and tomato pizza for dinner. PHEW!
CLEANING
Nothing major on the cleaning front, no major projects going on there, but I *have* managed to keep the kitchen looking 100% clean for an entire week now. I've been following Flylady's 'shine your sink every night' rule. I clean the sink out, then toss the rag into the wash, and the sink has been empty at night- and clean!- all week. I'm pretty happy about that.
DRESSING NICER
As I discussed in my last post, I've been trying to dress a little nicer this week. It's helped me feel not so schlumpy. My husband has complimented my clothing several times, which I've appreciated. It's been kind of fun, and I think it's something I'll keep up. Maybe not every single day, but more often.
I did it again yesterday.
Thrift store skirt, again. :)
My daughter loved the skirt. The shirt is something I wore for the first time at a dinner back in college, which my husband (who was at the time and would remain for years just a friend) attended as well. He remembered the shirt from all the way back then. I have to say, it's held up well and is in great condition for being twenty years old! Frugality at its finest right there. ;)
PHYSICAL THERAPY
It's going well. My strength is improving, which is a good thing (and it SHOULD; I do 40 minutes of exercises every night!!!). I'm definitely in less pain overall, though the area to the right of my tailbone is still kind of awful, and the muscles around my right hip still hurt all the time. It's definitely a lot better than it was, and honestly, it's still pretty weird to be able to do things like walk up stairs without having to use the railing to shove myself up. There have been times when I don't even have to use the railing at all, so I can absolutely see improvement!
KNITTING
I'm still working on the second gift I'm making for my husband for Christmas; that should be finished sometime this week, and I'll make a post about it when I'm done.
I do have something complimentary to say about a yarn company. Earlier this summer, I knitted a pair of mittens for my mother for Christmas using Malabrigo Rios yarn in English Rose.
Remember these?
The yarn kept...trailing off. Stopping. Ending. Probably about ten times throughout the first mitten. It was kind of a pain, especially at the end when I had all those extra little ends flapping around. It was the first time I'd ever worked with Malabrigo yarn, and it wasn't cheap, so I emailed the company and asked if that was the norm for their yarns. Apparently it's not, and not only were they extremely apologetic, but they asked for my address to send some replacement yarn. It arrived yesterday, and I was shocked, because...
Twice as much as I was expecting!
Not only did they send a replacement for the Rios in English Rose, they included a skein of Mecha in Volcan as well. Isn't that gorgeous??? I gasped when I opened the package. What a lovely surprise!
So if you ever use Malabrigo or are considering it, not only are their yarns gorgeous, their customer service is 10/10 and exceeded my expectations. Now my only problem is trying to figure out what I'm going to make with all this gorgeousness! :)
BURNING THINGS
No, no, I'm actually serious.
Fire!!!
We're slowly getting to the end of burning what was our apple tree (*sniff*. If you're just joining me, we had to cut the tree down this summer, as it had been taken down by insects and the trunk was hollowed out in several places and wasn't healthy at all. We got zero good apples the past two years, so it was past time). So we've been slowly toasting the tree down in our fire pit. It burned for four straight days this week. I'll be glad when this is done!
INSECTS
It's been a week for pests around here. There was the mouse we caught in our basement (no picture; you're welcome), the disgusting bugs that crawled out of the logs from the apple tree and then sizzled on the fire, and the following:
Backyard grasshopper; aren't those markings on its back leg neat?
Hard to tell, but this was a HUGE spider at the library! Nice carpet, too.
Ladybugs love my daughter! This is the second one that landed on her this week.
READING
This hasn't been a great week for reading; I've just been too busy doing other things. But I did finish one book from my own shelves and one from my Goodreads Want To Read list, bringing my total of books on that list down to 151. Still far too high, but I have a stack of books waiting for me to finally sit down and get busy, so now I just have to quit doing all the other things. ;)
WRITING
I did manage to blast out a bit of writing this week, putting the total word count of my latest...thing...over 10,000 words. I'll write more about that sometime this week.
PIANO
I managed to sneak in a little practice time here and there this week. I think I'm moving on from Angel Eyes, finally; I think I've gone as far as I can go with that piece, and next up is another Jim Brickman song, this time in conjunction with Michael W. Smith, Love of My Life. This song was played at my wedding, so it's special to me. I'm able to get through the first page with zero problems as long as I'm playing slowly, so we'll see how it goes from there.
So that's about it! This week is shaping up to be similar, with two PT appointments, a party for my son's school music department on Thursday, and my daughter's first day of her second year of preschool on Tuesday. My husband is taking the day off for that; we'll drop her off together, and then I'll have to run to PT, which starts soon after. He'll pick her up while I'm still getting my back pounded into shape and then we'll all have lunch together to celebrate her going back to school. She's SO excited; she loved being there last year and is really looking forward to going back. :)
How was your week???
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