Saturday Night Dinner with my Goddaughter and her Mother

Description of dinner that I wrote up last week:

1. Chicken dish with cream mushroom gravy with garlic and pearl onions
2. Not made by me but instead pre-made (fresh direct, they are super) mashed potatoes
3. Crudités (red/orange/yellow pepper + carrots and a broccoli) chopped and in clean cold water in fridge
4. Need to make: spinach salad which I have small chopped peppers ready for  (edited to add, that salad was never made!)
5. Above mentioned fruit salad

Also for dessert...

1. Pound Cake ice cream from local ice cream shop
2. Blessed Pascha (Easter) cookies, waiting in freezer
3. Strawberries and cream
4. Tea, etc!

Pictures from Saturday Night Dinner 

It was such a lovely time! 

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.... 

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... 

Time with our dear friends and our goddaughter

We had such an enjoyable time.
The meal was as follows: 

Fast Friendly Delicacies :)

Salad

Fruit salad

Nuts

hummus, pita

avocado 

guacamole and chips 

yellow / red / green peppers

tomatoes

watermelon

strawberries, oranges, pineapple and banana salad

blessed grapes

shrimp roll with cocktail sauce

Dates
Indian Junk Food :)
Nuts

lemon water
Still water
***
I had great fun playing with my goddaughter who
loved the IKEA 'bang the coloured pegs down' toy!
I read to her, we gave her a beautiful icon of her Guardian Angel from
Holy Dormition Monastery, which I forgot to photograph...
Another special memory was carrying her downstairs (we live on the second floor)
and singing to her...
***
It was so delightful to see our old dear friends...
***
I am in a really busy time of year already now,
I wanted to mention,
so if I don't blog as much,
it's not that I am unwell,
just busy and figuring out when to do what.
***
I am glad I got a moment to capture this evening, that was
a week ago tomorrow!

Wonderful Visit!

It was so wonderful to see our goddaughter again!

I hope to write more later this week,

lots to do right now, 

but wanted to quick pop in!

She's so cute and loved playing in the kids station/area! 

I loved seeing how she 'Crosses' her self too! 

So precious! 

Do you see how she is on her 'tippy toes' to play? 

One happy godmother here! :) 

8th day of Christmas... (a beautiful dinner, a farewell and prayer requests)

On the 8th day of Christmas 

I baked and baked...

Did a roast chicken this way:

butter under skin with garlic cloves,

one small onion in quarters, fresh organic sage and half a zested lemon in the cavity,

French Lemon & Ginger infused extra virgin olive oil over the skin,

with salt, pepper, dried ginger and lemon on top...

450F for about 2 hours... I think next time I will take the chicken out a bit 

before 2 hours.... it was great though and I trussed the chicken 

for the first time (did not want the cavity onion and lemon falling out!)

I made two casseroles 

from a cookbook I got before Christmas:

Bake Until Bubbly

 Potatoes with goat cheese a gratin 

and carrot casserole (with onion, cheddar cheese and bread crumbs).

From the same cookbook I baked for dessert,

stuffed peaces with raspberry sauce.

I only had half the amount of canned halved peaches...

I made the full amount of the mascarpone cheese sauce...

next time I will half the half cup of sugar...

Of course it was super fun to use my Christmas dishes.

Peaches baked and then mascarpone cheese with sugar

and raspberry syrup on the bottom (under the peaches

as they baked at 375 F for 20 minutes) and slivered almonds on top

of the cheese...

*

And so I made what was the farewell dinner for 

my friend, the Mother of our Goddaughter, and our

Goddaughter as they leave for TX at the end of the week.

She is 4 months old now and very healthy, with a cute smile.

She wore a cute Christmas reindeer outfit for the occasion! 

It was a lovely dinner and I thank God for this time.

*

So as I mentioned earlier it's hard to see them go.

I am pretty sure the grief part of this (they were one of the two

main first couples in our book club, some of our first

new friends as a couple here) is why I am not sleeping well.

*

Also a family friend who is prominent in my families life

is in hospital with pneumonia and possible other complications

and a family member is waiting for a biopsy at the end of January

(it was postponed).

*

And my friend's son is still in hospital with unexpected complications...

 *

So that's a few difficult things.

I ask your prayers

and I thank God for them!