General Conference - Saturday Edition

 I love conference weekend. I sit through all the sessions and write and read and listen and think. I was thinking today that I really don't have to wait for six months for the next one. I could have a deep dive weekend like that any time really. I guess the thing about this weekend though is everyone knows it's conference so they don't expect you to do other things. 

I didn't have a notebook ready so I didn't take notes today. I went and bought myself a new notebook tonight so tomorrow I'll get back on track. I've felt a bit ho hum lately about my scripture study. Perhaps I can turn things up a notch by re-listening and take notes from the Saturday sessions. Jill came over for the afternoon session...and lunch!

Now and then Allen likes to cook. Today was one of those days. He made us grilled cheese sandwiches that were to die for! I had turkey, swiss cheese and cranberry spread. It was a lot of calories....but it sure was good!

He doesn't skimp on the cheese, for sure! There were layers of cheese and turkey. So good!

Blessed Drudgery

 Today was a great day. I have started on my new goals and I accomplished a lot! That always makes me feel great. 

One of my goals this year is to NOT scroll on my phone when I'm in bed. It doesn't mean I can't scroll during certain hours. If I want to, I just have to get out of bed to do it. To remind myself, I put a sticky note that I had written my morning routine on my phone. The idea is that I have to move the sticky note to use my phone. It was a good reminder! I got up right away and got my exercise clothes on. 

I'm reading a great book called Atomic Habits and he talks about habit stacking - which is similar to what Gretchen Rubin calls the strategy of pairing - where you do something when you're doing something else. For example, I used to always read scriptures when I was on the treadmill. Reading every day was no challenge at all. Then I started walking to school and I didn't have my pairing. I decided that each morning I am going to do some time on the treadmill for two reasons: One is because I want to become a runner. This month I'm committing to running for one minute every day (pathetic, I know....but it's something I know for sure that I can do!) Today I did it and I stayed on the treadmill for an hour because I also was reading at the same time. It was terrific! 

I also did quite a lot of housework. I did my usual Saturday House Blessing (vacuum and mop and generally tidy up) but I also got a bucket with some good soapy water and bleach and cleaned some floor spots that just don't get clean with a mop. What a difference that made! I also cleaned the oven. I sprayed it with oven cleaner and left it for two hours, but that wasn't quite enough. It required some scrubbing. Actually, it required a lot of scrubbing....and it was brutal! I did get the glass clean though! I promise myself I will never let it get that bad again!

Ain't that something! I posted the before and after and my cousin asked me how I got it so clean. After I told her, she said she figured she'd just buy a new oven. Honestly, I don't think that's a bad idea. It was exhausting work!! I'm eager to get back to school so that I don't have time for things like this anymore. LOL

More drudgery: I got groceries and made my lunches and snacks for next week. These are the things that make life so much better! It's a breeze if I don't have to think about lunches all week. 

Okay. That was a lot of drudgery - but it sure feels great to get it all done! Life is good. I'm grateful to have time for such drudgery.

 

2021!! Thank Goodness!

 Well, the whole world sure seems to be ready to be finished with 2020. It was a hard year and hopefully things will start to get better. 

Last night we had a ton of snacky food and watched a couple movies. Well, I watched one then the rest of them watched another. I'm really not one for staying up until midnight....even on New Year's Eve. Ah well! 

We watched Death to 2020, which seemed appropriate! It was hilarious!! I can't believe all that has happened this year.

We had WAY too many snacks left over. I quickly cleaned everything up this morning and took it down to the food storage room. I don't mind having snacks in the house but I DON'T want them being front and center so that we snack on them all day long. It seemed to work. And now we'll have some snacks for, er, next Friday?

This sunrise this morning was BEAUTIFUL!! I plan to enjoy a lot of them this year. I guess you could say I'm pretty set on my early to bed and early to rise gig.

Today we started off the year with some great food! Allen decided to try making pancakes for the first time ever! They were amazing. He used mango kefir and coconut. Of course, there was bacon and hash brown. Yum! 

It was great to have Jill over again. She and Peirce tried making a tiktok. It made for some good laughs anyway!

I didn't really expect that Allen would make another meal, but he did! We had an amazing cajun chicken based on the dish Cactus Club serves. Yum!!

I spent way too much time scrolling through twitter to get angry over people with political positions in Alberta who took trips to Hawaii and not enough time on my bullet journal. Tonight though I made some good headway. I'm excited for 2021 and have some good goals to work on! I also got to spend a bunch of time reading today while Jill and Peirce were out hanging out with Zoe and Daniel. They had a great time together!

I'm wondering if Chico set a goal to get along with Bentley this year. THIS has never happened! They're both on my lap.

Double Blessings

I am part of a group on Facebook where you can post stuff and give it away. It's the best way to get things out of the house quickly. I posted our fridge and it turned out that someone I know in the church was desperate for a fridge. I had promised it to someone else though. In the end, they couldn't come pick it up so I was happy we could pass it on to my church friend. A blessing for her. Tonight the guy assigned to be her ministering brother came and picked it up. Our kitchen seems so roomy now!

We decided maybe we should put a picture of our old fridge inside our new fridge so we always remember how good we have it now. :)

Look at that beauty!

Busy Day!

Wow! We did a lot of big stuff today! Besides a serious boat load of work and walking 5 km. We bought a car, got it insured and registered. It's going to be my car to drive and I'm quite excited about it. Pretty fancy! It's a Dodge Stealth.

We also bought a new fridge! Buying a fridge has a domino affect. Of course, there's the cleaning behind the old fridge (man, there were pounds of dust back there!) It was too big to come through the door, so we took the door off. While the entry way was all cleared out I did a real good cleaning of the tile floor, then noticed the walls and cleaned those. Putting the door back on meant it had to be cleaned too. Eeeesh! Exhausting!

 Missing door.

 Oh there it is!

The new fridge. It's a beauty.

 Ran out of time and energy to get this emptied out and put in the new fridge so for now we're styling it up with an extra fridge in the middle of the kitchen. Yeehaaa.

Happy Easter!

Our day started out with Easter Bunny treats. Allen is so funny. Since his stroke, he is NOT a morning person, except for days like this! He went out and bought surprises for everyone, which meant he couldn't sleep. Luckily, most people in our house are early risers so he didn't have to wait too long. There were new shirts, a jean jacket, beautiful scarves, and of course, candy.

Frank wanted some treats too - so we got out the special dog treats. LOL

We had a pretty quiet day with plenty of time to read and visit with friends. Jill did a call with all her soeur friends - which sounded like it was a lot of fun. I made pita bread today! I haven't made it for years and was pleasantly surprised to remember how easy it is. I'm always so amazed to see how it puffs up and makes a perfect pocket. It's like magic! (You can tell how super proud of it I am. I took more pictures of my pita bread than anything today! LOL) For those of you interested in doing the same thing, here is the recipe.

Peirce worked today from 8-4:30 and so when he got home we had our Easter Dinner. We had green salad, ham, potatoes, carrots, zucchini, waldorf salad and peacan pudding pie for dessert. Allen is a big pie fan. Me, not so much. I need to work on my pie skills though because he sure appreciates a pie now and then. We had our dinner French style again, with the salad course first. I am starting to really love having dinner that way. Everyone seems to eat slower and enjoy the food more and visit more.

We were super pleased to hear that the NAckroyds really loved the bunnies. Somehow they figured out that it was us. Actually, they had a hunch and just straight out asked if it was us. :) Apparently, last night when Allen and Jill dropped them off the girls were already in bed. It was a great surprise for them this morning! I love that the bunnies got carrots on their plates :) Also, one has a shirt on and another has a hat on. Fun!

French Dinner

Jill really loved the French way of meals. They take longer to eat. They serve dinner in courses and have more conversation. We thought we'd give it a try.

Our first course was Ceaser Salad. Jill made home made dressing. It was delicious! Start off with a plate full of salad seems like a good way to start a meal. I had two servings!

The main course was chicken breasts and broccoli. We cooked the chicken super slow and it was juicy and delicious. I've been tracking my food lately. I should eat more broccoli. Much more bang for the buck!

We then had a cheese course. When Jill first brought up this idea she mentioned a cheese course. That sold me right away. She got some special French cheese from Springbank Cheese. It was deliscious!

We finished up with an old family favorite that we call Moose Poo. Not very fancy and not very French. Oh well.

Kitchen Duty

I wish I had a more altruistic reason for cooking. I hear stories of people who find great joy in creating a beautiful and delicious mean for their family because simply having others enjoy the food brings them joy.

I tend to feel jaded about the hours I spend preparing and cleaning up, only to have people appear in the kitchen, wolf it down and then get on with their day without much notice about how long it takes.

Then again, when I have gone through times where I push back against the labor of meal preparation, I notice the lack of connection in our family. When those times come, I regroup and get back to spending more time in the kitchen.

I have a friend who is an amazing baker. She says that she bakes because she loves to eat. I should remember it. There are many great things that come from the hours in the kitchen....one being that I get to eat great food!

We have made some seriously great food lately:

I made this creamy potato soup. It is to die for!! It is really filling and so delicious.

 Allen made macaroni in bacon bowls! When we were first married, macaroni and cheese was something we specialized in. I find I need to have less of that stuff these days....but I sure love it! This was an amazing dinner.

 Frank doesn't get why he can't have some too!

Get down, Frank!

Allen made this amazing salad. It had tuna steak, tons of different vegetables, nuts and crispy somethings that made every bite a delicious experience. He said he's been working on it in his mind (and sampling it at Joey's trying to figure out what makes it so good) for about a year now. Good food definitely takes time!

Okay. I didn't make this one....we went for dinner and spent way too much money at Shoe and Canoe, a restaurant in a hotel downtown. They had a beet salad that was ah-mazing!! It was inspiring. Who would think to put hummus with beets?! It was delicious.

New Year's Eve Dinner

One of my goals for this year is to have special meals on special days. I figured today is a good day to start! This was our special New Year's Eve dinner

 I decorated with twinkle lights that the sister assigned to minister to me gave me.

 Dinner is served! We had cod, brussell sprouts, carrots, rice and sparkly non-alcoholic juice.

 Pretty!

For dessert we had pudding that is made from avacados and coconut milk with a large helping of cocoa. It was seriously so good and so filling!! Definitely a do-again recipe. You can find the recipe here.

Busy Saturday

I love Saturday mornings. For years, when Jill and Peirce were swimming, Saturday mornings were filled with practice. Now our Saturdays have a new life! This morning I got up and made a breakfast casserole! It was the first time I've made one of those. Loved it. I also made muffins and all my salads for next week!

This morning I also went to a brunch with a bunch of friends. What a wonderful bunch they are. It was terrific.

Tonight was our staff party. I made monkey bread! It was my first attempt and I think it turned out pretty well. I made one for home and one for the party. We'll see how long they last.

Miracles!

I have been nursing this plant back to life. Look how it has responded! Every time something flowers that I have had a hand in, I am amazed!