Odds and Ends

Yesterday was a busy day. Had to run errands all over the place almost an hour from here. To the bulk food store, to the bread store, to the health food store, to visit daddy at work since we were nearby. We also stopped at a book store because the three children in tow wanted to ride the escalator. :) We had some art appreciation time by looking in the windows of a very cool store that sells art in various forms. Everything in the place is breakable and expensive, so we appreciated it all without going inside. :) Much less stressful that way.

At Wild Oats...oh. my. lands. Everything there is ridiculously expensive. $7.99 a pound for organic red sweet peppers. Right. Two peppers equaled a pound. I am sorry, but I am not willing to spend $4 per pepper! What nonsense. Hopefully now that I have started reading Barbara Kingsolver's new book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle I will be inspired to have a garden next year and get my organic peppers for free in the back yard. I would like to do the Square Foot Gardening idea, and have a notion to give each child a square and just one or two items to grow in them.

We've been having a debate about our chickens. To keep or not to keep. That is the question. My daughter wants to start a pet sitting business and thinks the chickens will hamper her ability to get dogs to care for. (hard to accept dogs that like to eat chickens....) She said she wanted to get rid of the chickens, I found a potential home for them, and then she burst into tears. Methinks she's feeling a little conflicted about this whole thing. Eh? Personally, I love having the chickens although they are very messy and I think we should have a family project of getting them set up properly in a bigger chicken house and with their own fenced in area instead of having them running all over our yard making a mess. (it's amazing how much poo four chickens can produce!!!) I told her now that I've started the book, the chances of getting rid of our chickens dropped dramatically. I love getting those eggs every day, and seeing how bright and orange the yolks are. Superior eggs! From our own back yard!

I think my daughter is trying to protect her heart. Our long-lived hamster Napoleon died last week. She had taken a turn for the worst in her health, and because of her age (well over the average for a hamster) we figured she would not be with us long. We did everything we knew to do for her, gave her lots of extra TLC, and within a week sent her off to hamster heaven. It was really sad, actually. Napoleon (later renamed Napolea when they realized he was a she, but the new name never really stuck) was one of the sweetest hamsters we ever had, and the one that lived the longest. It always stinks to have a pet die, and my daughter knows that having raised her chickens since they were tiny little chicks means it will be terrible when they finally kick the bucket. I guess she's already learning that vulnerability lesson about loving your children ....

I'm loving Sonlight for all the same reasons I loved it before. Good stuff! Today the kids asked me to keep reading because the book was too good to put down. I love it when that happens.

Yesterday my son had two tag-along friends when I picked him up from marching band practice. One needed a ride home, one needed to hang out at our house until his dad could pick him up. Again, I'm loving being at this stage of life. I love my kid's friends and having them in our home. We have a new high school being build very, very near our home. I am already looking forward to the kids getting into that school. Not only will that mean they can walk to and from school, but that stray friends can come on over here any time. This is the kind of real life ministry opportunity I have been waiting for. I can hardly wait. :) And, I don't just mean that as far as trying to get people to come to church with us or whatever, although we did enjoy taking our son's friend to church last Sunday and I would happily load up with car with anyone that wants to go along. I'm just talking about the opportunity to get to know my kid's friends, and the opportunity to really love and like (!) these kids, and give them some TLC in the form of healthy ice cream, unhealthy :) brownies, a welcoming place to hang out, whatever. The more I get to know people, the more I'm becoming convinced that I may have a larger-than-average capacity to just love and care for people. (now that I've said that I can hardly wait to see what unlovable soul comes into my life! hahahahaha) So maybe that's some sort of special gift. Whereas some people that are Christians see others as people to care for in order to get them to see things their way, I just see people that I really care about. I don't think of people as a missionary assignment or a project. I don't do fake relationships very well, and have no desire to improve.

We're on a new kick, trying to cut out as much meat from our diets as possible. So, it's all vegetarian all the time for this two weeks. Last night I made homemade calzones, using my own whole wheat bread dough, and a filling made of Ricotta cheese, shredded zucchini, chopped tomatoes, onions, etc. Very good, and the recipe ended up making more than twice what our family could eat. So now I have a meal in the freezer plus leftovers in the fridge. Bonus!

Lunch today will be spinach cheese somethingorother. Looked yummy. Is in the oven right now.

Also in process:
4 kinds of beans either soaking or now into the crock pot. Hopefully all the beans will be cooked and ready to turn into lunch and dinner by tomorrow night.

Soaking buckwheat so that we can sprout it and make some raw Chili Lime Uncorn Chips, which are very, very yummy.

On the stove top, a large pot of simmering vegetable stock that I'm making from scratch. I even used leeks, which I believe I probably never used or purchased before today. Leeks are cool. :)