Time for Joys

Another week has passed with seven days to find joys. I hope I am never too preoccupied with myself that I cannot recognize the joys I am given each and every day. I look forward to reading these on New Year's Eve and reliving the entire year's worth of happy things.

And now there are only 9 weeks left in 2021! Slow down time! 

Friday: My beloved sister and I went shopping. Neither of us have bought clothes in several years and, though what I own is still perfectly good, I am tired of it. I decided to give it to a couple of non-profits who clothe women who are looking for, or just got their first jobs. I had no idea how many local females live under someone's thumb and are never "allowed" to be self sufficient until they have reached the point of no return. I hope these will help them along their journey.

And now I own a few new things (to liven my wardrobe a little) that will go with the things I decided to keep.

Later Friday, TheHub and I did our usual date night, but this time we drove to the bluff to watch the sunset before we picked up our takeout dinner. I am so grateful there is somewhere so close for us to watch the sunsets. On any given day there are about 10 cars parked there to do the same.

Saturday: We began our Saturday as we usually do, with a stop at the produce stand. Afterward we ran a couple of errands, a quick stop at Aldi, and the bank before coming home to put up groceries. There is a huge joy just having another set of hands to unload them.

We had a cup of coffee then ran out to do some "eyes on" research on an item we are purchasing as our joint Birthday, Anniversary, Christmas, Valentines, Mother's Day, Father's Day, and any other special occasion day of 2021 gift. 

When we had finished our recon, we had an al fresco lunch as a nearby burger joint, before coming home just in time for TheHub to get ready to go to the ball game with Son2. I was able to stay home with DIL2 and we almost watched the game, but mostly talked. Alabama won. Roll Tide!

Sunday: We streamed our church service while drinking coffee and enjoying the gorgeous day. Afterward we ran a couple of quick errands then came home. I am pretty sure a nap ensued!

Monday: Lazy was my key word for the day. I sat on the porch (it was gorgeous) and read, then came inside to "work". I did manage to remove excess (for Goodwill) from the kitchen while I watched/listened to two movies.

Tuesday: TheHub and I had an absolutely wonderful anniversary dinner. 

Wednesday:  I went to my Wednesday class and was thrilled to be able to interact with some real live people. I have missed contact with others. Fortunately everyone in the class is not only vaccinated, but everyone but me has had their booster. I was supposed to have it earlier but life got in the way. I am getting it either today or tomorrow.

Thursday: Thursday began as a gray and overcast day after an overnight rain which is ushering in much cooler temperatures. I had nowhere to go so I stayed home to do exciting things like laundry and such. Though I am still wearing flip flops in the house my walks in the yard suggest it is no longer a good thing to wear them other than inside. Sigh! They are so stinking comfortable. 

There is a certain joy when it is dark and drizzling to be able to stay inside. . .and read!

So enjoy your week and seek out the joys in it. They are always there even if you have to hunt for them.

I stole the line below from a comment on another blog, but I loved it and think it is a great ending for the weeks joys. I might continue to use it as a closing every Friday.

May All Your Weeds Be Wildflowers,

Anne

Build Me Up Butternut

Monday night I was just not feeling it. I had a severe case of the lazys, and watched/listened to not 1, but 2 movies while clearing items that I no longer use from the kitchen cabinets.  Do I really need 4 crockpots?

While I was sorting, I decided to throw a butternut and spaghetti squash in the oven. I thought I would bake them and scoop the flesh out to refrigerate and use another day. Until, I realized it was nearly 6 and I had done absolutely nothing about dinner. (Because I was busy sifting through kitchen stuff while watching/listening to 2 movies)

Thank goodness I always have quart bags of frozen chicken stock on hand, and also as a few other vegetables in the crisper.

I am sorry I did not think to measure anything but this is how I roll most of the time. I began with a cooked medium size butternut squash and 1 quart of frozen chicken stock. I chopped an onion and put it in a soup pot with the frozen broth, turned the heat up to medium and began stirring while listening to the last 20 minutes of movie number 2. We are still getting bell peppers and banana peppers from the garden so I chopped one of each and added it to the soup. There was also a slightly soft tomato on the counter which was, chopped and tossed it in the pot. When the veggies were nice and soft in went coriander powder, cumin, garlic powder, red pepper flakes, dried oregano, salt and pepper. I tasted it and it was still not quite what I wanted so I added about a tablespoon of cholula. Since I had already cooked the squash I took it out of the fridge, mashed it with a potato masher and added it. When everything was hot, I used an immersion blender to smooth it out. There were still a few small chucks of tomato but it was fine for us. I threw in about 1/2 cup of heavy cream, which was a little too much. I think 1/4 would have been a little better and would not have thinned out the soup as much as the 1/2 cup did. 

I served it in our pasta bowls, because we were only having soup with a side of coleslaw and a slice of toast.  To make it look a little prettier I sliced 3 limp scallions, and cut a small banana pepper into rings, put them on the top of the soup with a dollop of sour cream. (I had about 2 seconds to snap the photo before they sunk.) 

It was surprisingly good with enough left over for a lunch for me. I will be adding this to our fall /winter meal rotation.

If you have a squash hanging around you might want to try this and adjust the heat for your personal taste.

p.s. It was still not quite hot enough for me so I stirred a couple of teaspoons of chili crisp into mine. Ummmm, much better!

Plans Foiled By Everyday Living

Plans that are easily changed seems to be my forte. I make one, I change it, or ignore it. This is my life, I guess. Meanwhile the freezer stock seems to remain about the same. Curses, foiled again!

This was planned for the week:

1.Vegetable beef soup, cornbread

2.Grilled fish, tossed salad, something else

3.Stuffed bell peppers, Brussels sprouts, brown rice

4.Crack chicken, tossed salad, green beans

5.Hamburgers and fixings or Sloppy Joe's and coleslaw

6.Takeout

7.Whatever happens with whatever I thaw. No inspiration here

Monday: I guess this was the number 7 meal plan. It was later in the evening and I had taken nothing out of the freezer. Oops! TheHub called to tell me he was going recreational shopping at Publix, and asked if I needed anything. Yes! Something for dinner!

Rotisserie chicken, (Thanks, Publix!) mashed potatoes (yes I used instant) coleslaw (I keep grated cabbage in the fridge nearly all the time and have it almost everyday at lunch) 

Tuesday: The night was finally cool enough to have soup, which used all the bits and pieces of frozen leftovers along with the almost wilted beyond resurrection celery.  The only thing left to rescue was an apple.

Vegetable beef soup, Waldorf salad, toast or keto zucchini muffin 

Wednesday: I knew I would be out for a part of the day so I loaded up the crock pot early in the morning.

Crack chicken, broccoli

Thursday: TheHub had a business reception he needed to attend, so no cooking here. Instead I had leftovers. Turns out the reception only had heavy hors d'oeuvres 

Vegetable soup, 2 pods of pickled okra, keto popsicle.

Friday: New order date night meant we rode to the bluff to watch the sun go down before running by a restaurant for some take out.

Grilled flounder, coleslaw, turnip greens or new potatoes from The Shrimp Basket (decent but not great)

Saturday: TheHub and Son2 went to Alabama game while DIL2 came to our house to watch it and eat with me. I think I got the better deal!

Sloppy Joes, chips or none, coleslaw

Sunday: We ran around a little after streaming church, and wound up having a late lunch on the patio of a restaurant. We were not very hungry by dinner  time so. . . punt.

Tossed salad

What's up for the week:

1. Butternut squash soup, cabbage, roll

2. Chili, cornbread, roasted Brussels sprouts

3. Creamed collards with sausage (Jury is out on this but I am trying it anyway)

4. Anniversary dinner out

5. Grilled swordfish, salad, asparagus, and something else

6. Hub has a dinner meeting so leftovers for me

7. Chicken, rice (orcaulirice), green beans, tomato slices 

None of this sounds really good, but it does not sound bad either. I imagine things will change__or not!

Used from the freezer:

bag of assorted veggies from summer veggie meals

pack broth

half pack browned ground chuck

1/2 bag mixed vegetables

2 zucchini muffins ("forgotten find"one dinner, one lunch)

1 "banana" pecan chaffle ("forgotten find"lunch)

1/2 bag frozen broccoli

pack ground chuck (plus the other half of the frozen ground chuck)

Put into the freezer:

Keto pops 

bag of broccoli florets 

Have a great week staying on plan, going off plan, or with no plan at all.

Records Of Happy Moments

Can you believe we have just ended the 42nd week of the year. Now we are in the final countdown of 2021. T minus 10 begins today. Wow, this has been a short year!

As usual I keep up with things each day that bring me joy. There is something about recording them daily that always reminds me how many good things are in each day.  

I love Corrine Bailey Rae's voice. It is joy deliverered! .

Friday: Even though we went out to a real restaurant for TheHub's birthday on Thursday, we had our regular "date night" Friday.  This was the weekend of the annual Greek Food Festival downtown  where we go every year. They have a well organized drive through lane where you can order than pick up all without ever leaving your car. To be honest the food was not as good as it has been in the past, but it was still tasty, plus we got to watch some kids doing Greek dances while we waited.

Saturday: This is going to sound horrible because the day started out with a funeral for one of my favorite cousins. I knew he was sick but the end came unexpectedly and quickly. It took us about an hour and a half to get there so we left right before noon so we could get there in time for the visitation prior to the service. 

TheHub drove and my beloved sister went with us. She is known affectionately as "One Way Jane" (though her name is not Jane) because she knows only one way to get anywhere and would never use anything as treacherous as GPS to help her find her way. Since she had never been to this particular town before she did not even have "one way" etched in her brain. on the way up we had a pretty somber ride, because it was a funeral ride.

 After the service we hooked up with another cousin and her significant other and all went out to eat and talk. And laugh. We laughed a lot, and nothing feels better than laughing following tears.

We got home just in time to watch the Alabama/Mississippi State game. Alabama won, Roll Tide!

Sunday: What a wonderful day. We streamed our church's 8:30 service before doing a few chores then it was time to get ready for the kick off of our local Broadway series. This was the last play for the 2020 season. It had been rescheduled a couple of times, but now it was full steam ahead. I will admit I was a little apprehensive about going. They are not requiring masks and are not spacing seating. So we wore ours, tried not touching anything, and used sanitizer like it was going out of style. "Waitress" was a very enjoyable play, but I am thrilled there will not be another until January. Hopefully I will fill more comfortable going then

Later that night we celebrated TheHubs birthday with DIL2 and Son2.

Monday: The best part of Monday was a long conversation with one of my favorite neighbors. We caught up on everything, laughed, and solved most of the world's problems! Also late that night TheHub and I laughed at the workers next door painting the bedroom ceiling for the 5th time. I am wondering what all this paint might be hiding.

Tuesday: The day was gorgeous and work is still going on at the WM behind me, so I had a nice show outside my kitchen table window. 

I had long phone calls with 2 of my cousins. I always love talking with them.

And it is finally cool enough to have soup for dinner. I love it and can eat it year round, but TheHub only likes it when the weather is cooler.

Wednesday: I finally went back to the class I was going to pre-Covid. I was not thrilled to be going but I know I have to return to life as safely as I can. Another gorgeous day was just the icing on the cake, Afterward I ran a couple of errands then came home to do some research for our upcoming cross country trip. I am so excited to be thinking of seeing Pip live and in person instead of on FaceTime! 

There was a very poignant moment Wednesday when I read a blog that moved me to tears. I do not cry often or easily but this post touched every part of me. 

Thursday: My Beloved Sister and I had planned on going to look for some new duds to brighten our very dreary and ancient wardrobes. Mother Nature seemed to have other ideas since it started storming at about 5 am. There was no way we were going shopping in the rain.(The rain quit by mid morning and we could have gone anyway) I guess the biggest joy of the day was firming up travel plans for the Portland trip. TheHub had a great idea to rent a car and drive to Chicago, then take the train to Portland. Instead of driving 10 hours a day then stopping overnight to repeat the process for 4 days, we will leave here Friday afternoon and drive more than halfway. The next day we will hoof it to Union Station then spend the next 48 hours rocking and reeling on the train. 

So these are the highlights of my week. Some days the joys might seem bigger than others but joy is joy and can you actually measure the validity of anything that brings you joy? Have a great week finding your joys!

"Uncle"

  The trolls and bots are winning. Sorry but I am now going to have to moderate comments. I really dislike this but spent about 45 minutes deleting a computer generated comment that appeared on every single post from March 1 through yesterday.  I am growling, but, if moderating will keep it from happening it is just the way I am going to have to do things right now.

Dinnertime Time Warp

This past week began like every other week with good intentions, knowing we would go out to celebrate TheHub's birthday. Of course I had forgotten the Greek Food Festival which we always either attend or do take out.  Then we had an unplanned and unexpected Saturday occurrence which altered our day, so all aims to use a lot from the freezer went out the window along with most cooking. And all of a sudden the week had passed and time flew out the window.

Monday: Since I had taken the duck breasts out to thaw, I was committed to cooking them Monday. The bonus came serendipitously when I was deciding what side dishes to have.

Duck with orange ginger sauce, cauliflower slices sautéed in duck fat,  tomato slices

Tuesday: I had planned to really cook but when I was looking through the fridge I decided to go ahead and have the leftover cheeseburger casserole. TheHub did not want it but I remembered I had frozen some leftovers from a couple of weeks ago

Leftover cheeseburger casserole with salad or leftover frozen ziti with salad.

Wednesday: We try to have a vegetable meal at least once a week. This was that day. (Except that TheHub added something left from one of his lunches)

Squash casserole, okra, corn on the cob or none, leftover chicken or none

Thursday: We have always gone out to eat for our birthdays . Thursday we celebrated TheHub at Jubilee Joe's  

Soft shell crab and fixings or grilled grouper salad

Friday: Each year during the fall The Greek  Food Festival is held downtown. We go and either eat there or drive through.. This was one of those drive through years.  I was bummed out because I did not have room in the freezer to get the pans of frozen pastichio or the  koularakias I usually buy.

Greek chicken, rice pilaf, tossed salad.

Saturday: After a late lunch following a funeral, we were not very hungry. 

Dip with chips or pork skins, peanut butter and jelly sandwich (or none)

Sunday: Son2 and Dil2 came over to have another birthday celebration dinner for TheHub.

Grilled lamb chops, new potatoes, green beans, tossed salad, rolls (no birthday cake because we are not doing sugar)

Used from the freezer: 

2 duck breast

rack of lamb

2 packs green beans

Put in the freezer: 

Nothing

Planned for the week:

1.Vegetable beef soup, cornbread

2.Grilled fish, tossed salad, something else

3.Stuffed bell peppers, Brussels sprouts, brown rice

4.Crack chicken, tossed salad, green beans

5.Hamburgers and fixings or Sloppy Joe's and coleslaw

6.Takeout

7.Whatever happens with whatever I thaw. No inspiration here

Maybe this will happen and maybe not. Who knows?

Have a great week staying on plan, going off plan, or with no plan at all!

Oops, forgot to post this morning!

A Dose of Sunshine Is Good For The Soul

As is my usual weekly habit, I try to record the joyful thing or things that happened each day.

After a summer of rain, rain and more rain, this week has been gorgeous. The temperatures have been mostly in the mid 80's, but the nights are cooler, which makes the week all the more joyful.

 

This is the list of this week's highlights!

 Friday: We had our new normal date night, meaning we ran a couple of quick errands then ended up buying take out food to bring home for our dinner.  It was not an exciting date but we were out together and that is all that really matters.

Saturday: We ran our usual Saturday morning errands first to the produce stand, followed by a quick trip to ThePig to buy some sale items. After putting up the groceries we had 3 more quick stops before heading home to a day of ball games starting at 11 and lasting through the night. What I like best about a ball game day is being able to read with just occasional glances at the tv. 

Alabama lost to A&M but it was a fun game to watch. Roll Tide!

Sunday: We streamed our church service, but decided the day was entirely too beautiful to stay at home. There is a u-pick farm about an hour away that I have been wanting to go to for a couple of years. We drove there, had great conversations on the way, and explored an area neither of us had seen before. The farm is a beautiful well run farm, but I did find one thing wrong. I had worn flip flops, which was not the proper footwear for tromping through fields. Instead of picking we opted to just buy a few things from the farms store.  I will go back, but will be wearing tennis shoes!

Afterward we found locally owned restaurant  that was still serving lunch at 2:30 (Small towns in Alabama are mostly closed on Sundays so this was a true find!) We had a wonderful "country cooking" lunch before driving the rest of the way home.

Later Sunday night we firmed up our plans for our trip to Portland and bought our return flight tickets. (We are acting like nuts and actually renting a car to drive out and take Son1's family several things they are getting from Mom's house that I refuse to ship.)

Monday: After a difficult morning I was finally out of the closet, literally . We have a large walk in closet and the space is divided unequally as most shared closets are. However in our case I get bout 1/3 of the closet and TheHub gets the rest. I am not a clothes horse, plus I got rid of stuff regularly. TheHub never tosses anything, and instead of packing it away, if he has some deep emotional connection to one of about 50 Polo type shirts, he hangs every single item in our shared space. (  Or hangs his out of season clothes in one of the other 2 closets he occupies) It stayed this way until about once a year, when I take every single item out of the closets, put it on our bed and force some weeding out. 

I can't totally blame the hub though,  I did find several things I will never wear again including a pair of loafers I do not even remember ever buying. I got my donations sorted and boxed up for my next trip to Goodwill or the Exchange Club truck, whichever happens first.

Tuesday possibly the coat closet?

Tuesday: Well I did not make it to the coat closet but I did have  a conversation with two of my cousins, read a lot, and caught up on some neglected laundry. Even though we are not having fall temps yet, a beautiful day, some iced tea, shorts, flip flops, and the porch ceiling fan makes for a really good reading location and day.

Wednesday:  My beloved sister and I had some great laughs. I think there is something fabulous about a life of shared memories. Things that made us howl when we were kids still make us laugh   in the present. And the funny thing about shared memories is that it only takes one of us saying one word to get the laughs started.

Thursday: This was TheHub's birthday and being the extremely nice wife that I am I bought him nothing (but we no longer do birthday gifts because we don't need/want anything),  took him out to dinner (he drove) then let him pay. Anyone else want me to plan their birthday celebration?

So go have a great week finding your joys wherever you can. They are always there if we just look for them.

Donation list for the week:

 19 scarves, 1 pr boots, 1 pr crocs, 2 sweaters, 1 knit top, 1 pr loafers, 2 pr. black pumps, 2 pr never worn flip flops, 1 purse