Grasshopper Days

Grasshopper Days

For today, January 23, 2012

Outside my window...  rain.  And more rain.  It's a good day to.... stay home! 

I am thinking...  do you ever find yourself looking at your family and thinking, Good grief!  Do all these people need to eat?  Again?  Already?!  Yes.  Apparently they do.

I am thankful for...  just found out that my brother and his wife are having.... a girl! 

I am praying for... work.  Work would be good.

I am wearing... my soft, cozy sweats tempted me, but I went all-out and pulled on some jeans and a sweater.  (eyes rolling)

I am creating... cutting up perfectly good pieces of fabric into little pieces, and sewing them back together again.

I am going...  to plan some meals ahead.

I am reading...  old Quick Cooking magazines, looking for new ideas.  To modify. 

I am hoping...  for a peaceful, productive week.

I am hearing...  my good friends, Mrs. Washer and Mr. Dryer.

I am remembering...  my Nana was the queen of pies.  You know the Crisco/vinegar pie crust recipe?  Do you use this?  It's easy to make, but I can never make it go as far as she did.  I can get a pie and a half.  She could get two pies AND a crust pie, with sugar cinnamon.  How did she do that?

From the learning rooms...  I tweaked our schedule a bit over the weekend - figuring out what we ought to make up and what we can just drop (from missing three days last week).  Tate and Gunnar are easy, but Wyatt... not so much.  He has more work to start with, and then he takes longer to do it.  How can I light a fire under his bohonkus?

From the kitchen...  what?  another meal?  again?  That's how I feel after I've cooked all weekend.  But - good news - my parents came over for turkey dinner on Saturday, we had leftovers on Sunday, and now I have four turkey pot pies in the freezer (!!!!) and meat for baked turkey taquitos.  :D

And guess what?  I'll never make pies as good as Nana's pies, but I almost got four pies (top and bottom crust) out of a double patch of crust.  (I had a little clump of dough left over from making apple pie on Saturday that I threw in too, and that made the difference.)

Also, I remembered something I used to do, and had forgotten:

I rolled the dough between two layers of wax paper. 

You can get it a lot thinner and still be able to pick it up and get it into the pie dish.  Wa-wah!

Around the house...  still enjoying my winter decorations.    Though I nearly wrung Wyatt's neck.  I walked into the living room to find him

assembling a model airplane 

at this table

with Superglue.   

What gives?  Do they lose their minds when they turn fifteen?  When will it come back?

Something I want to remember later...  the boys take notes in church, which they turn in to Pastor Bert.  Tate usually draws pictures on his.  Good thing the pastor is ex-military.

On my mind...  the next quilt.

Noticing that...  I got my office all tidy, and then started quilting.  Need to beat back the mess with a stick before it breeds.

Pondering these words...   Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity.  Frank Leahy

One of my favorite things...  a clean kitchen.

A few plans for the rest of the week...  hmmm.  Monday night Boys' Club for Gunnar, Tuesday night CAP for Wyatt and Tate, then Wednesday night youthgroup for Wyatt and Tate, and Friday night movie (with their CAP group) for Wyatt and Tate.  They're all going to see (I forget the name) the movie about the Tuskegee Airmen.  But the stinking rotten theater doesn't have captioning.  They ought to let Tate in free.

Oh, and then Saturday is a potluck and game night at the chapel.

And Kerry complains that we don't have company enough.  You know.  Because our social life is so lacking.

Here is a picture I am sharing...   my parents got a bit more snow than we did... about 14 inches!