Saturday, May 19, 2012

Long Weekend

It's Saturday afternoon of a long weekend.  Theoretically I'm home alone; Bram's off on Sonshine tour to BC while Rose has flown back to YK.  However, Ruth is also over here as we've been busy cooking and I haven't driven her back home yet.  She has a book in hand and is well satisfied.  Besides, I can't take her home until we finish cleaning up.

What have we made so far?  We started with two different types of mini muffins for Bram to take with him on tour.  Got groceries first, were back at my house by 8 am and had both types done and packed away by 9:15. We made blueberry banana muffins and apple streusel muffins (I had some apples that needed to be used).

While I worked on muffins, Ruth got started on making salads.  We made current quinoa, vegetable pecan, and Moroccan chickpea barley.  We still have nutty wild rice and broccoli salads left over from last week; so this gives us five different salads in the fridge.  We've decided we'll invite everyone over for Sunday dinner so it's good to have lots of salads.  I've got a turkey in the freezer and if I don't cook it before it gets too hot out, we'll have to experiment with barbecuing it and I'd rather have the freezer space.  It also means that I have to get the house cleaned up a bit (which is a good thing).

We have lots of dishes to do, because we cleaned out the fridge a little; and the living room needs tidying because Bram packed in the living room and have left what he didn't pack spread around.  Oh, and the family room needs tidying because I was just in there and it looks pretty bad.  The bedrooms also should be done but they're not public areas and I can just shut the doors.  We'll kill two birds with one stone because I'm having people over Monday night as well (because we won't have The Party as it's a holiday.  It'll be a time of prayer and sharing (and potluck).

Right now we're having a bit of R&R time before we go at it again.

Thursday, May 10, 2012

It's Time

I have been informed, several times, that it's been awhile since I've updated my blog. However, Thursday mornings are my time that I can do things - so I've decided to update. Blogger has updated their format since I've been here last and I can't figure out how to do paragraphs - which makes this harder to read. Sorry. I've tried several times, and it seems to be stubborn this morning. So you'll just have to read it as one large paragraph (I didn't write it that way, I assure you).

I slept in this morning - until 5:20; didn't actually get up until 6:15 or so. Most mornings I'm up well before 6 so that I can pick up Ruth and drive across town to Curves for the two of us to work out. The mornings are hectic. Work out for half an hour; add a (very) few minutes to shower and change, then drive back across town to go to work, dropping Ruth off on the way. I get home about 7:45 - need to be at work by 8; still need to ensure lunches are ready and my kids are up and getting ready for school. However, Thursdays are at a much more relaxing, slow pace. Get up, finish cleaning up from having people over last night for supper. Unload and reload the dishwasher. Wash the dirty pots and pans from yesterday. Get lunches ready. Start a load of laundry perhaps or fold and sort one. Check Facebook - play the next round of Scrabble with Sandy. There's a lot to be said for a slower pace one day a week.

Rose has been here for a week now, and flies out after the wedding on Monday. I've been trying to figure out how to get my kids to Moose Jaw to visit with their Grandma before she leaves again. However, evenings are so busy with different activities, I haven't managed to figure it out yet. I thought we'd go Tuesday night, but Bram had Sonshine practice. Monday's impossible because we have The Party. Wednesday's the evening when we always host the family and visit with them. (Last week we had 15 over, this week there were only five extras). Thursday nights there's Friendspeak. Normally we go on the weekend, but last weekend I was in Briercrest for the final quizzing tournament of the year, and this weekend there's a wedding in Saskatoon. It's looking to me that the only possibilities are to get someone to cover Friendspeak for me tonight; to go Friday night or to detour to Moose Jaw on the way to Saskatoon Saturday morning. The problem with going in the evenings though is that Mom Thiessen has supper so early and we'd interrupt it I think. We will manage it somehow, because I think it's very important, I just haven't figured out how yet. The kids would really like to get to Eyebrow and visit everyone there as well, but I just don't think we can squeeze that in.