My vacation continues apace, but the meals are planned. The kids are still going to do much more of the work themselves, however. We had two birthday celebrations last week. Mariam turned six, and Jerome had his birthday party with his friends. This week is the last week we have of no school or extracurricular activities, though there is a not back to school homeschool picnic. I'm excited to have a week in which all I have to do is knit, read, and rest. I intend to take a good dose of prayer and quiet time this week, too.

• Sunday
  Breakfast: Oatmeal with Brown Sugar, Bananas, Milk and Coffee
  Dinner: Borschty, Sour Cream Noodles, Salad
• Monday
  Breakfast: Blackberry Yogurt, Peaches, Buttered Toast, Tea with Honey
  Dinner: Ham, Buttered, Steamed Green Beans, Scalloped Potatoes
• Tuesday
  Breakfast: Blackberry Yogurt, Sliced Cantaloupe, Buttered Toast, Tea with Honey
  Dinner: Ham and Hutterite Beans, Cornbread, Summer Squash Casserole
• Wednesday
  Breakfast: Fried Halloum, Sliced Tomatoes, Toast, Sliced Apples, Tea with Honey
  Dinner: Butternut Squash Pasta with Fried Sage, Fruit
• Thursday
  Breakfast: Scrambled Eggs with Cheese, Toast, Fruit Plate, Milk and Coffee
  Dinner: Slow Cooked Chuck Roast, Tomato Salad, Rice
• Friday
  Breakfast: Banana Nut Bread, Fruit, Milk and Coffee
  Dinner: Muscgovian Vegetable Frittata, Home Fries, Fruit Plate
• Saturday
  Breakfast: French Toast or Pancakes, Fried Eggs, Bacon, Milk and Coffee
  Dinner: Tray Kofta (without the rice) with Potatoes and Tomatoes, Rice, Fruit Salad

What is on your menu this week? If you want a recipe, ask and I will provide it as soon as I can. If there are any starred recipes, I will follow up separately with a weekly recipe round up.

Labels: Birthday, Family, Homemaking, Menu Plans, Tales from the Kitchen

This is my first week of summer break, so if you are looking for a menu plan, you won't find it. The kids have been handling most meals, so I can take a break from all of the stuff they needed me to do all summer. This week and next week, we have nothing on the schedule, except for rest and fun, so I'm enjoying that break before school starts again. Especially since we decided to host a big teen party just before school starts for everyone again, too.

The Marine Layer scarf is finished now, as is another sample of the mitts in a different colorway. My photographer and model friends and I got together to do it all again this past weekend for the final photography, so I can send the entire set of pictures I want to use to the editor this week.

I lost Stash Dash, but I picked up that top up there again. The one that has been nearly finished for almost ten years. I'm starting to hate it. Rich thinks I'm throwing good yarn after bad, and ought to rip it out to make something I actually like, but I am thinking that if I finish it, I can give it to someone who likes it and never have to see it again. Rich and I have a lot of driving to do next week, so I think I can knock this out then, if I don't finish it this week. Between that, Nejat's blanket, and finishing another mitt, I should be able to add three more finished objects this month, which isn't too bad, even if I didn't meet my goal.

My last Magnolia Society Sweater Club shipment finally arrived:


Madelinetoash DK Twist in Dapper
I know I'm not going to get to it right away, but this yarn is for a vest for Alexander. He probably won't get it until next year, either for his birthday or Christmas.

Rich and I have read a couple more sections of Theology of the Body in Simple Language. He's been reading aloud while I knit. I read a couple fluff books last week. One was a fun, happy, little murder, Wicked Stitch, and the other, Going Vintage, I would not recommend at all. This week, I'm reading a slightly more literary, happy, little murder, The Suspicion at Sanditon.



Also posting to Keep Calm and Craft On.

Labels: Books, Crochet, Design, Family, FOs, Homemaking, Knitting, Yarn, Yarn Along

My deadline is looming, so I didn't get the recipes posted on Saturday for the Buffalo Chicken Burgers or the Peach Upside Down Cake, but I will try to do that in the next week and a half. This week is fair, as well as Jerome's birthday, as well as the week of our dance, as well as the week I need to do the final photography for the patterns that will be published in October.

There were a couple of schedule shifts we had to do last week, so there are some repeats this week. Normally, we do our fair food night on this night, but we have been so exhausted and busy, so we just did dinner and then milkshakes. We're still doing a lot of cooking out of the freezers, and doing some preserving. I've put up about 18 jars of blueberry preserves, and I'm getting ready to make peach chutney. We have blackberries in the freezer, so I'm going to try for blackberry peach jam and blackberry lime jam. I wish we could still get good crab apples. They made the best jelly. They looked like stained glass.

I forgot to mention the quotation on the service books for the wedding. Here it is:

I have taken you into my arms, and I love you, and I prefer you to life itself. For the present life is nothing, and my most ardent dream is to spend it with you in such a way that we may be assured of not being separated in the life reserved for us . . . I place your love above all things, and nothing would be more bitter or painful to me than to be of a different mind than you. - Saint John Chrysostom (What Husbands Should Say to Their Wives)

• Sunday
  Breakfast: Blueberry Oatmeal, Coffee
  Dinner: Beans, Ham and Mustard Greens with Garlic, Marinated Carrots, Fruit
• Monday - Feast of the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary
  Breakfast: Dirty Eggs and Toast, Peaches, Milk and Coffee
  Dinner: Arabian Meat Sauce, Rice, Leftover Carrots, Fruit, Chocolate Milkshakes
• Tuesday
  Breakfast: Yogurt and Jam, Buttered Toast, Tea with Honey
  Dinner: Leftovers, Slow Sauteed Green Beans
• Wednesday
  Breakfast: Fried Halloum, Toast, Fruit Plate, Tea with Honey
  Dinner: Butternut Squash Pasta with Fried Sage, Fruit
• Thursday
  Breakfast: Scrambled Eggs with Cheese, Bacon, Toast, and Fruit, Milk and Coffee
  Dinner: Meatloaf, Scalloped Potatoes, Steamed Green Beans with Butter, Chocolate Cloud Cake with Chantilly Cream
• Friday
  Breakfast: Caramel Apple French Toast Strata, Hard Boiled Eggs, Milk and Coffee
  Dinner: Falafel, Khoubz Araby (Pita Bread), Harissa, Hummus, Veggies and Olives
• Saturday - Feast of Saint Bernard
  Breakfast: Scrambled Eggs with Cheese, Toast, Fruit, Milk and Coffee
  Dinner: Loaded Baked Potatoes with Bacon, Vegetable Cheese Sauce, Chives and Sour Cream, Salad, Fruit

What is on your menu this week? If you want a recipe, ask and I will provide it as soon as I can. If there are any starred recipes, I will follow up separately with a weekly recipe round up.

Labels: Birthday, Church Year, Faith and Morality, Family, Homemaking, Menu Plans, Tales from the Kitchen

I made another set of Marine Layer mitts, and started the scarf, but realized I had cast on too many stitches, about five or six inches into it, and had to rip it all back. So what you see up there is where I was last night. Which means that the deadline to have it finished and photographed is a lot tighter now, so I'm starting to be a bit nervous. The exciting news is that this set and variation will be in an online magazine in October. The designer is supposed to provide the photography, though, and we all know that is my weak spot, so I bartered with a photographer friend and a model friend of mine and did an actual photo shoot, with them doing their work, and me directing what kind of shots and feel I wanted. That was kind of cool. We're going to get together to do it all again in about two weeks to get the final photography done, and I'll send it on to the magazine editor. She already has the patterns.

Still no July shipment or even shipping notice from my Magnolia Society Sweater Club. Hmmmmph. It's supposed to be shipped by the end of this week. I know I'm not going to get to it right away, but this yarn is for a vest for Alexander, and I did want to be able to start it once I finished a few things this month. It would be nice to give him the vest for his birthday.

As for reading, mostly I've been reading The Beginner's Guide to Writing Knitting Patterns, even though I'm not a beginner, looking for some assistance with questions I had, and it has already helped me finesse my pattern writing. Rich has asked that we pick up Theology of the Body in Simple Language as a study for the two of us. It is often our car reading - Rich drives, I read aloud.



Also posting to Keep Calm and Craft On.

Labels: Books, Design, Family, Homemaking, Knitting, Yarn Along

I took an inadvertent break from posting this past week. I didn't have all the menus planned yet, and we had a whirl wind trip the week before, and then another trip to go to the wedding of one of our Laudate kids. It ended up being a longer trip than we planned, as our van started giving us trouble and we had to get it to a mechanic who couldn't work on it until the next day. Please pray for our van, because it still needs more work, and goes in for further diagnosis on Wednesday.

On top of all of this, we were literally at the gas station getting ready to take the three hour drive back home when Rich started getting phone calls and texts about a fire that was near his work and our home and was heading in our home's direction (though it would have had to cross a creek and irrigated land to get to us), and would he authorize the fire fighters to assist with the county firefighters. It was contained that night, but I was his secretary on the drive as he coordinated with various people and agencies, and the fire ended up being fought on both sides of the fence where he worked. At least two families lost their homes, and about ten buildings were lost, but no lives were lost. While we were figuring out if we were on evacuation or not, and how we might get our animals out, a couple hours later, we received news that the fire was contained at a dairy in a burning hay stack. Two and a half miles from our home. That was closer than I was comfortable with, for sure.

In any case, we got home late, exhausted, and had to get right to it the following day. By the time I had enough rest to try to post on the blog, most of the week was gone, and we had other things pressing on us. So, I took a rest, here. We are in a great season of feasting and fasting, with the Transfiguration this past Saturday and the Dormition coming up next Monday. What a treasure to share in these events in the life of Christ and His Church!

Speaking of which, attending Jordan and Bethany's wedding was such a treat and a beautiful experience. It was so wonderful to participate in celebrating and blessing their nuptials. The focus on their sanctification, and their marriage bed being kept holy and blessed was glorious, as it is so often ignored in weddings. I wondered if we would slip into being their "leaders" or teachers again, but happily, found that we could engage them as the adults they are and treat them as our friends. So, when his younger brother offered me a drink and I talked with him as a peer, he asked if we were, and I said, "You're an adult, I'm an adult, you're married, I'm married, you have a child, I have children, so yes, we're peers." Rich and I stole them away from their daughter and parents, and the work they had to do after the wedding, and had our kids watch their baby, so we could go out for coffee and talk, couple to couple. It was refreshing and a delight to know them as adults, and it was rewarding to know that we had a part, albeit small, in how these young men and women grew up, and they were adults that made us proud to acknowledge our effort. It was a huge compliment that Jordan said that he made a special effort to make sure we made the "A" list for wedding invitations, as we had been an important part of his life and that he felt that we always had wanted what was best for him, and to talk to Seraphim and Laurel and have them ask us adult questions and for our opinions on their lives and choices. We were honored to be asked and proud that we were able to do so without being their superiors, but rather their fellow brother and sister in Christ. Their family is our family, and when we think of the people we love in this world, they are pretty close to the top of our list.

So, the blog was neglected. But I'm back and here is our menu for the week. We have the meat from an entire cow (not steer this time, but an extra dairy cow that they didn't want to breed), coming tomorrow, so while I'm finishing this up, Rich and the boys are cleaning out both freezers, making room, and we are eating a ton out of the freezers this week. We're also going to take some time to do some canning. The goal is to make blackberry lime jam, blackberry peach jam, peach chutney, and blueberry preserves. Also, all the stock bags are being made into stock this week. Flat bags of stock are easier to store in the freezer than lumpy bags of bones and vegetables.

• Sunday
  Breakfast: Apple Cinnmon Oatmeal, Coffee
  Dinner: Grilled Buffalo Chicken Burgers*, Grilled Zucchini Planks, Potato Salad, Fresh Peach Upside Down Cake*, Ice Cream
• Monday
  Breakfast: Fried Eggs and Toast, Plums, Milk and Coffee
  Dinner: Indian Summer Gratin, Garlic Bread, Fruit Plate
• Tuesday
  Breakfast: Leftovers, Tea with Honey
  Dinner: Roast Turkey, Steam Sauteed Green Beans with Cherry Tomatoes, Garlic and Basil, Italian Bread
• Wednesday - Feast of Saint Lawrence
  Breakfast: Fried Halloum, Toast, Fruit Plate, Tea with Honey
  Dinner: Butternut Squash Pasta with Fried Sage, Fruit
• Thursday
  Breakfast: Scrambled Eggs with Cheese, Bacon, Toast, and Fruit, Milk and Coffee
  Dinner: Grilled Pastrami Sandwiches, Pickles, Fruit
• Friday
  Breakfast: Blueberry Banana Bread, Hard Boiled Eggs, Milk and Coffee
  Dinner: Falafel, Khoubz Araby (Pita Bread), Harissa, Hummus, Veggies and Olives
• Saturday
  Breakfast: Caramel Apple French Toast, Bacon, Milk and Coffee
  Dinner: Grilled Pizzas, Salad

What is on your menu this week? If you want a recipe, ask and I will provide it as soon as I can. If there are any starred recipes, I will follow up separately with a weekly recipe round up.

Labels: Church Year, Faith and Morality, Family, Homemaking, Menu Plans, Prayer Requests, Tales from the Kitchen