Saturday: Why Can't You Be Everyday (other than Sunday?)

Woke up early, made a good breakfast,

enjoyed reading more Soviet food/history... 

and tea.  It took me a long while but I LOVE black teas... 

Today I was very much in my happy space: planning a real Sunday dinner...

Above from the letters of JRR Tolkien... the first part, when I read it to 

Mr. Husband recently, was so "spot on" as they say...

(Esp the first part...if only people knew that today!

Just because one can does not mean one should!)... 

***

Just love Tolkien's wisdom...

His and her ice cream :)

Mine is the ice cream cone... 

The dusting on Mr Husband's is cocoa, a trick I learned

from the Crepe place in Quebec City, on our honeymoon...

 Vespers tonight! 

Was really good to be in church...

Mr Husband took me out to eat...

I went and bought a few groceries first... 

Afterwards, I made this pie:

Sour Cream Cherry Pie to be exact!

I already know it's going to taste SO GOOD.

You should have smelt it baking :) 

 Then I made Marion Cunningham's Rescue Biscuits from her book,

Lost Recipes.

I know from baking her cream biscuits recipe that I did not need to 

knead it separately (did it right in the bowl) and I made them 

more "free style" so they have wonderful shape with lots of crevices... 

Here's basically what the table will be tomorrow...

the biscuits, of course, are put away for now

(otherwise, as Mr Husband pointed out,

I may have ruined biscuits and a broken tray ala 

Cleo the Cantankerous Cat... :) 

***

Menu for tomorrow:

Chicken Paprika (from the Joy of Cooking)

Boiled potatoes (the way my Mom taught me)

Green Salad (spinach with small cucumbers, croutons, tomato)

Fruit Salad with Sour Cream Dressing (strawberries, orange, bananas) (my Mom's recipe) 

Rescue Biscuits (from Lost Recipes by Marion Cunningham)

Sour Cream Cherry Pie (from the Joy of Cooking)

French Vanilla Ice Cream (Trader Joe's, by Mr Husband's request to go with the pie) 

Tea, Coffee, Lemon Water... 

***

We have a good friend coming over for dinner...

and then we will have leftovers for Monday-Tuesday before the fast

starts on Wednesday... 

***

I still remember when a longtime blog friend pointed out to me

that I really love to cook and bake... 

and that some don't really... and it really hit me...

I guess I was living under the false assumption that everyone gets

joy, satisfaction and happiness from baking or cooking...

or at least those who do bake or cook...

but of course not... we are all different...

I sure love it thought... it feels like everything is going right when I am

planning and preparing a meal for others... 

***

Of course I love a meal out as well... 

I guess I love food :)

***

Well, tomorrow is a busy day, God willing...

liturgy, meal with friend who is having her birthday,

hopefully visiting the candle desk man,

then home and I need to make the chicken, potatoes, and salads... 

***

I am so grateful for all of this...

***

May God have mercy on us!

Tuesday blessings and reflections

My Husband and I went to NYC;

he went first and I joined him a bit later!

We made a quick trip to a comic book toy store, then on to the Strand bookstore, had tacos on Tuesday :), later we split a salad and had hot apple cider. 

I went home after this, Husband had another meeting.

I was so tired by the time I got home!

My foot is doing better this week, 

we will see how things go long term for that.

I took more pictures of the new things in our home

and we had lamb and rice again for dinner,

with candles glowing...

We got out the rest of the seed cake to eat

as this week we are calling "Hobbit Week" as we are re-reading

The Lord of the Rings. 

The unbloggable things are progressing in good ways from 

what we can tell but is still in work in progress.

We are hopeful for some good to come out of this HARD

and I trust that God will help to this end.

***

I am thinking a lot of Alana,

eleven years of blogging and no one can ever dream that one day

one will wake up and find out that one's Husband has

terminal cancer.

It's one of my biggest fears, I think a fear of many of us

who are blessed to be in good marriages.

But our times are in God's hands and I have a lot of hope

for Alana to get through this, though it rend one's heart in half. 

You can go to her husband's obituary via her blog.

***

Well, tomorrow Mr Husband and I hope to do a lot of resting

and Tolkien reading.

I am going to make DV Trader Joe's Veggie Marsala Burgers for lunch

and it will be quiet day, we hope, with quietness.

***

I think so often on how blessed it is to have ordinary days

and Jane Kenyon's poem Otherwise comes to mind:

Otherwise by Jane Kenyon: 

I got out of bed

on two strong legs.

It might have been

otherwise. I ate

cereal, sweet

milk, ripe, flawless

peach. It might

have been otherwise.

I took the dog uphill

to the birch wood.

All morning I did

the work I love.

At noon I lay down

with my mate. It might

have been otherwise.

We ate dinner together

at a table with silver

candlesticks. It might

have been otherwise.

I slept in a bed

in a room with paintings

on the walls, and

planned another day

just like this day.

But one day, I know,

it will be otherwise.

~Jane Kenyon

*******************************

and I think of this one of Jane for Alana and her loss...

Let Evening Come by Jane Kenyon: 

Let the light of late afternoon 

shine through chinks in the barn, moving   

up the bales as the sun moves down. 

Let the cricket take up chafing   

as a woman takes up her needles   

and her yarn. Let evening come. 

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned   

in long grass. Let the stars appear 

and the moon disclose her silver horn. 

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.   

Let the wind die down. Let the shed   

go black inside. Let evening come. 

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop   

in the oats, to air in the lung   

let evening come. 

Let it come, as it will, and don’t   

be afraid. God does not leave us   

comfortless, so let evening come. 

~ Jane Kenyon

A belated Hobbit Day

I made seed cake for the first time! 

It was lovely, still warm with butter melting into it and honey!

I also made a lemon poppy seed cake!

The seed cake is the round one; the lovely tins

I used to bake them in are from +Patrick's home and 

I treasure them very much. 

My Beloved Husband brought home the cute little 

cookies with chocolate centres for our belated Hobbit Day

(yesterday was Bilbo and Frodo's birthdays according to 

Shire reckoning)... 

we had a nice Hobbit "elevensies"....

***

Cleo got extra milk also!

***

Well, the rest of the day was mainly spent reading the end of the last

books in the Lord of the Rings. 

The end moved me deeply, even to tears.

I had last read it 17 years ago and I think I got perhaps more

out of it this read than last; December 2000 seems a few life times ago for me!

***

My foot is having a hard time still, paining me I guess you would say.

***

I am thinking very much of dear friends who are suffering.

So much of this in the world.

Yet there are also beautiful books like Tolkien's and

Hobbit day and seed cakes and most of all:

HOPE.