Monday, April 30, 2018

A wonderful weekend!


We had a wonderful weekend with our goddaughter and her Mother!
They left today after lunch... 
I hope to blog again soon, but for now, just popping into say this.
This picture is from the epic brunch I made! 
Hope to be back soon! 
God bless you all! 

Thursday, April 26, 2018

For C.


The round oval picture of needlework my Great Grandma W. gave my +Aunt Karen
for her wedding... Aunt Karen gave it to me a year or more before she died... 


My buffet with icon lamps (called lampadas) lit...


Cleo on top of my chair, as per usual... she snuck a bit of my pizza at lunch!




I got special ice cream, a pint of it pound cake flavour, for our dear friends 
coming to visit this weekend...




Weeping Willow like cherry blossom tree that I mentioned ... 




















All pictures of my walk today while talking with C. on the phone
via headphones... don't worry, I was careful when crossing the road!







The beautiful row houses I was telling C about just before I called a taxi...

Wednesday, April 25, 2018

Cleaning Day + Organizing and Planning Breakfast and Dinner




Finally, a bath! Began a new bar of soap, a gift from a 
kind dear local friend!






I am really excited to be planning both breakfast and dinner for 
our goddaughter's Mom and goddaughter! 
I have quite the menu dreamed up, will report back DV later
about the success of it... I am hoping to have a lot of it made a day in advance
so that it is not overly hard to do the day of... 
I have 4 breakfast recipes from Marion Cunningham's book planned 
plus some other things... I want to make basically an amazing breakfast feast!
I love breakfast .... 



I've had a lot of travel and a lot of Mr Husband working late.... 
so I was excited to make this meal for the two of us....
....boiled potatoes, a few coconut scrimp from Trader Joes + their Indian spiced veggie burgers 
with half of an excellent hamburger bun and spinach for our salad! 
I've had 1 meal a day with Mr Husband all week and it's so nice!
***
I am still feeling the loss of my +Aunt Karen; 
I guess I always will, but it is still early days.
***
I ordered some organizational things for our garage freezer, 
which is often a huge mess, and I am so excited to get better
organized... I got a corner shelf for the bathroom too....
coming Friday..... hopefully that will work out well!
***
I feel like I am having some more normal days and they just feel so good.
I did need a short nap late this afternoon though,
whew, cleaning and the like is work and I am still regrouping 
from losing a lot of sleep in Holy Week and the week I was in MI.
But things are slowly taking a new/old form, like a kaleidoscope that
makes new pictures but uses the same pieces...
I guess one of the big pieces for me is cooking and baking 
and planning a dinner party and breakfast too is a real joy.... 

Tuesday, April 24, 2018

Preparing for my goddaughter and her Mom to come DV this weekend




 After saying I really needed to order some new hangers,
for about 5 years, I finally got some.
I love the pant/skirt 5-skirt hanger + I got some "felt lined" type
hangers that *finally* my wider neck shirts/sweaters do not fall off of.
So that's great. 


Breakfast Tea :)





Gift for my goddaughter, dresses from gift shop at Holy Dormition Monastery... 
I managed to get the box and do the bow and ribbons myself... 




Some cute little plastic totes (made in Israel) for my godkids + Munchkin
with things from St John from my visit to SF CA back in March! 

\

I finally changed the table cloth from dark green to white
for the Paschal season :) 
I did a lot of tidying/sorting/preparing today for my 
goddaughter and her Mom's visit later this week... 
Tomorrow is cleaning + laundry day.
I got recipes for our dinner on Saturday... 




Now I just have the get the ingredients and plan the prep time needed! 
Meanwhile, not surprising after leaving for NYC about 8 AM and arriving back close to 7 PM,
yesterday, today I was tired.... :) 
Well, one thing at a time.
I managed to get the guestroom/library/chapel ready, 
put away a bunch of stuff, prepared gifts and got a handle on the menu for Saturday.
I'd say that's a lot right there!
Today was the first day I really had to myself in weeks; between 3 trips (MI/CA-AZ/MI) 
in 1.5 months, exhaustion/sickness before Holy Week, and last week
being gone everyday (Wednesday being home in AM only), it's 
no wonder I am feeling a bit weary + had no time before today to just be home.
I am reading for the first time L'Engle's Acceptable Time and it's nice to read.
I am definitely going to need some down time/more reading time soon.
Hopefully next week.... 
but as God wills...