Thank you everyone for praying! We got there and back safely! I have a hairline fracture on my right ankle. It will be 6 to 8 weeks of wearing a boot, a walking boot and resting. Because of my cold I don't have the strength to leave the house again and do those three flights of stairs. So I will not be able to go to church. Thank you again for praying.
I have an appointment for 10:30 AM tomorrow. I am greatful. It's hard to get appointments here. They have X-ray machine. The person told me there's no reason to get an x-ray today when I will have it tomorrow. I have been in this situation before so I understand it. I'm very grateful that I have an appointment so soon.
I've done this all before and I know what I need to do. It won't be easy but God can use it.
My main prayer now is that I can see my future godson be baptized right before Holy week in our local church.
By the time our medical people actually talk to me, it was 8:00 p.m. for various reasons that I'm not going to talk about, I did not at all want to go to the ER locally. One reason I can tell you about is years ago they almost killed my friend at that hospital. But I won't talk about that anymore. I called and they were full and it would have been hours and I just couldn't take the idea of having to leave my home when I was actually comfortable with my foot carefully elevated. I probably should have just gone directly to the hospital but that didn't happen. We're trying to figure out how to make me warm enough so I can sleep. Unfortunately I can't have a lot of anything near my injured foot. In other words, my foot is cold which really actually impacts if I sleep.
I already have a list of doctors who I'm going to call in the morning. I'm hoping to go to an orthopedic doctor and have the X-ray and probably have a cast and have it done. I can't remember if they do a cast right away or not.
I would love if this is only a bad sprain but I don't know. If I broke my foot. I broke it. It would only be a fracture, though it's not that bad. The hot water bottles are already helping!! I have a really good husband.
I had my candles blessed today this morning! I actually had gone back to church for a memorial service at 4:00 and then I went and got a few groceries. I was really tired but I really wanted to walk more. Maybe that was a mistake but I also trust God's will.
I'm about to get in a cab. I slept on that little piece chunk of snow and twisted my ankle badly and it hurts. My husband knows and Hilly is at home waiting for me and will take care of me. Please pray that I didn't actually injure it badly. Thank you
I woke up on this Saturday the last day of January 2026 as usual before my beloved husband. I enjoyed a small pot of caffeinated tea. I chose yorkshire's Biscuit Brew this morning. It was so good with my lactose-free milk. I read some of Dorothy Sayers, a cloud of witnesses, which I've read before. Isn't this the most gorgeous copy of it? I love everything about it, the color of the style that it's hardcover and that the pages are good quality. And it's so funny and witty that beginning. I just love it. Peter Whimsy is just arrived on the scene at his brother's place. I felt a feeling I'd forgotten about. It was the feeling that I used to feel when I was younger. It was fun to revisit that feeling. It was that I was reading something fun that was British and a bit sophisticated in a unstated way. And that I was eating something fancy. Meaning my tea. And I ate dry toast with my egg salad on top and it was perfect. In other words, I felt satisfied, happy, and I guess rather urban in a youthful, perhaps vainglorious way that I rarely feel nowadays. So it was fun and kind of funny at the same time to experience it today unexpectedly.
For lunch we had leftovers from the Chinese takeout we had gotten. It was perfect sick person food because it was spicy and helped get gunk out of us. It's one of our secret tricks is to have spicy Chinese food when we're sick like this.
Yesterday I read Elsie's offline algorithm-free report and in it, she linked to an amazing hour-long video of a overhaul of a schoolhouse over 4 years into a home. It's a 100-year-old building in Indiana. During my I need to rest because I'm sick day yesterday I watched it. I too was transfixed. It's a very well done video and a very interesting life trajectory of this young couple. I enjoyed watching a little more today of some other videos. There's some repetition but they were very fun to watch and interesting. I watched some of them while making soup! Thank the Lord. I was able to make this simple soup that I hope to make yesterday that I wrote about wishing to make.
So I had two little Pyrex containers in my butter drawer in my fridge of butter. So I melted those chopped up an onion and added the organic baby carrots rainbow colored. Usually we don't buy these baby carrots because they're actually chemically washed to get to be the way they are usually. So however! Because I was sick I took an easy way out. Next time I will just buy pre-chopped organic carrots which are grocery delivery service will provide and be happy that we're paying them to chop them. I know that's ridiculous and over the top but when you're sick it sure is nice. So the picture above the collage which I figured out that I can make with Google photos very easily shows the steps.
Step 1 wasn't totally shown which I just mentioned that is melt the butter and then saute onion, barley chopped garlic cloves (3) and put the carrots in. Because I used a very large pan. I added some water pretty quickly so that the butter didn't burn. If I'd used my Dutch oven, I would not have had perhaps to add this water because I don't think the butter would have burnt as easily. But the thing is my Dutch oven which I rarely use actually. It's a gorgeous, unique shape by staub that we got on an amazing sale years ago. 75% off actually! But the thing is it's heavy. And this pan is not. So eventually I added probably an inch or more of water and I just let it simmer away and tell the carrots were fairly soft. It took a while.
Step 2. Before the carrots were super soft, I added three jars from the freezer mason jars quart size, which means the if it was fully liquid it would be a good inch and a half or more from the top so that it had room to freeze and expand. Anyway, I added three of those which I've gotten out and thawed enough to get out.
Step 3. I added the box of Applegate pre-cooked and cut up chicken. I cut an organic lemon in half and made sure there was no stickers on it. I put that in the soup after squeezing lemon juice out of it. And getting any seeds out before putting it in the soup. Then I let it all cook for a good while. The lemon really added a nice "zing" to it.
Step 4 was unexpected. It was after my husband asked if I added the celery. I had meant buy container of onion, carrots and celery all chopped together from my grocery delivery service. However, I made a mistake and ordered just chopped celery. Organic at that! It ended up being a perfect mistake and I added it at the very end. My husband suggested rightly that I should add more water in case more boiled off and I added some better than bullion liquid, basically chicken bullion, to make more broth by then adding boiling water. So then I threw all the chopped celery on top boiled it more on low and the celery basically melted into the soup. I took out the lemon before it was served.
And then it was done and enjoyed by both of us today.
While the soup was cooking, I managed to get out my baskets which always have the linens in them from our closet. And then I got out a bunch of our new candles and put them in. I always do it that way so I know that the baskets I have fit what I'm taking. And yes that is a lot of candles. We're taking it to church tomorrow for the next day. That way they go in the car! They'll come back God willing by cab! My godson and others will help me on that end on Monday God willing.
I later closed these boxes after getting the candles in for tomorrow.
So they are all ready to go now.
I rather love Google photos giving photo memories. This one from 8 years ago which I screenshotted was fun to see! I remember winning that little sachet of tea. Really good. Tea was something I was still getting into back then and this was one of them.
I've been listening to a lot of music today that is calming and beautiful. This one called
Is beautiful and I've had on repeat. YouTube is good with that.
In the midst of it after breakfast, I started writing what I would call a practice essay. I can write really quickly if I get an idea. And I'd had one percolating for a while. So I wrote about nine pages. That's a lot, but that's how it happens sometimes.
I'm really excited to get back to my Einstein book. This author also wrote two on another physicist. I got these two books from my NYC library. This quote "semester" in my life, I'm devoting a lot of it to quantum physics. I will never understand how to do the science of it or the math, but I can understand concepts if they're explained clearly. David C. Cassidy so far, with the Einstein book, is an excellent writer. My understanding of his 1992 book on Heisenberg called Uncertainty is that it's from his doctorate and a bit more technical. His later book much more recent called Beyond Uncertainty is an updated version of that and also more accessible from what he the author himself says. I'm guessing he grew as an author as well. His Einstein book if I remember correctly, that's in this picture, it was written between these two books. I'm reading it slowly underlining and going back and writing notes in a journal that I have for my writing project on physics. So in other words I'm reading it slowly, but because of that I'm really getting a lot out of it. And he's putting things in a way that make a lot more sense to me personally than other books I read 2 years ago or even recently. So I'm really excited about that! And I found a potential link for what I've written already in my first draft with what I'm reading now and that of course is quite exciting!
So that was a pretty amazing Saturday! And unusually we didn't go to vespers. Plowing has been so so and there was no parking because we live in the city. And it was bitterly cold. Because of that I was able to get everything done. I'm so excited God willing to have candles blessed soon!
I'm not over being sick yet but clearly God gave me the grace and strength to do a lot today. The soup is basically cooled now and I will put it in covered in the big pot in my fridge. Tomorrow. Hopefully I can take care of that. I hope to freeze some of that soup for emergency soup for later. I'll be getting more groceries delivered Monday night.
So that wraps up January! I basically had a run of almost a month of not being sick and after being sick for 2 months that was rather nice. That I'm sick again now is something I just have to accept.
Because I was able to make the soup, I canceled the homemade soup from my grocery delivery service. I would have ordered just that but it had been out of stock when we ordered for our Friday delivery. We're trying to reschedule the two things we had to cancel this weekend and we'll see how that goes.
It's silly how I sometimes want to rush through things. Will I ever learn to just pay attention? To enjoy each day? I think blogging and taking pictures helps with that. I know I look back at my blog from years ago and it all looks so nice. I have to work to remember the backstory and how there were times of real suffering that I didn't blog directly about.
But I'm thankful for today and for the music I discovered today. I had already listened to music by this author that I linked to above. But I had never heard the particular song I linked to before today. Music has become very important to me and something that gives me a lot of strength and steadiness. I'm grateful to God for that.
May God have mercy on all of us as we enter a new month! Hard to believe we will be in the second month of the new year already! Our February is forecasted to be very cold. I think there'll still be a lot of illness because of that. I remember in Elizabeth Goudge's novel The Scent of Water. There was an older couple that every winter they had fear because of the illness that they would suffer. I understand that more now that I'm older. How easy it is to get ill in these months. And it's not just for the elderly clearly.
May God have mercy on us!
(note: I wrote most of this on my phone by what I call 'talk texting' so sometimes my Grammer or spelling my not be right because I did not read over this as carefully as I should; but it's late and I must get to bed!)
1. Agatha Christie book The mystery of the Blue Train (1928)
2. Groceries delivered so thankful!
3. I got my yearly shipment of beeswax candles!
4. Next week is fast free week. I I have ordered some sliced beef for sandwiches!
5. The care and love of family and friends
6. Soup
7. Hot tea
8. Honey
9. Sumo citrus
I'm hoping for the strength to make soup tomorrow. I got three jars of homemade chicken broth from our freezer in the garage. I have some vegetables already prepared but would need to chop up an onion and some garlic. This in general isn't a big deal, but when you have a cold and have that level of fatigue, it's more difficult.
About theAvgolemono — Greek Lemon Chicken Soup.- I appreciate the comment that the egg will not show up in taste. I believe it. But I can't do it now. One, the egg has to be room temp and the recipe is new enough and I am now down for the count, and I just can't do anything new. I no longer have the strength or wish to. I hope to when I am better.
My husband wisely suggested that I buy pre-cooked chicken from Applegate, a well-known brand here in the States. So all I would have to do was saute the vegetables put in the three things of broth and the chicken and I would have the soup. I just hope I will be able to make it. I am coughing a lot now, my energy levels have tanked and I don't know how well I will sleep tonight.
I managed to do the dishes today except the dinner dishes that were dirtied after the dishwasher was running. I've napped and rested and read. I feel incredibly blessed.
I'm still going through a grieving process and it's rather confusing in a lot of ways but it is something I just have to go through.
I got news of a dear friend's illness day. That was quite the surprise. But not a surprise to God.
We were going to have a very busy weekend with Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. All days having things to do. Now, both lunches Saturday and Sunday will have to be rescheduled. We're going to stay home all day. Tomorrow is going to be very cold and the roads are not properly cleared and we're not well enough to take light rail at the moment.
I hope however very much to go to liturgy both Sunday and Monday. Monday I hope to get candles blessed. But I don't know. Our plans and wishes don't always work out the way we hope. One of my friends said that where she is, people are getting the flu and it takes 2 months to recover. I have no idea how long I will be ill. All I know is I can trust God in the middle of it.
About G-J question about me as librarian. YES. I was a reader as a child. YES. libraries inspired me to become a librarian in many ways. And a certain librarian actually, at my Univeristy. But the Reason I did it was more practical: I graduated with a BA Hons English and had no job skills and had a hard time finding a job. So my MLIS degree was really because I needed to become employable. I was very fortunate, Canada pays librarians more than the States and overall I was OK - though I did go through an unemployment stretch that was difficult because Ottawa requires French for a lot of jobs and I do not know French. I just loved Ottawa, Canada and my life there. God sent me the totally right beloved Husband for me and I moved to New Jersey over 13 years ago now and here I am. Now I get to do my big dream: write my dream book. Which will take me many more years. A lot of what I read (esp. nonfiction) is for that project.
Meanwhile, I have to get over this illness and see what is next.
One moment at a time with God's mercy. May God have mercy on us all!
