It was a busy-at-home, sick-at-home, trying-not-be-cranky-at-home week. The sun kept teasing us -- showing up when it was supposed to rain, and disappearing again just as we had our shoes on.We had no plans between homeschool rollerskating on Monday (which looked a lot like this day) and a playdate Friday, which we sadly had to cancel after a mild cold snuck up on us. In between, we just tried to stay well-fed and peacefully occupied, playing outside in between rain showers, watching our favorite movies...
doing lots of puzzles...
reading to each other...
...and eating, of course. It was just a cold, thankfully, not the flu!
Whenever we're home for a stretch, life seems to revolve around food. Not that that's a bad thing! I was glad I'd planned two big pots of soup into my menu. I decided to try a new soda bread recipe from "The River Cottage Family Cookbook." It uses yogurt instead of milk, and boy was it yummy! I made it three different times, just because I could.
On Wednesday a man came by selling flats of strawberries, and how could we resist? We ate a bunch, and then decided to make jam out of the rest. They were getting mushy anyway. So my oldest (who hadn't caught the cold yet) mashed up a bowlful of strawberries, and we made strawberry preserves together for the first time. Thus, the extra loaves of bread!
The jars that we sealed in a water bath ended up with floating fruit. So, we'll see later how they turn out. But the unprocessed preserves we've been eating this week are absolutely divine. Scott even said it was the best he'd ever tasted!!
Can I tell you how much I love my husband? He has been working so hard around here on his Saturdays off -- building the chicken fence, loading and unloading two tons of compost, even folding laundry and washing dishes.
This morning he picked up our CSA produce, went to the grocery store, came home and took the boys out back to pick oranges, fixed the fence, came in and fixed the door to the oven -- sort of a necessity in this house, went to three more stores to find me canning supplies and local honey, came home and played Frisbee with the boys. And now, hmm, where'd he go?! Oh, well, I guess he deserves a minute to himself. Since I finally found enough minutes to myself to blog...
Hope you're healthy and enjoying your weekend!
Yep, you got yourself a keeper there, but then I think you deserve him, being the creative, thoughtful and loving wife and mother that you are!
ReplyDeleteThat jam looks sooooo YUMMY! Strawberry is my favorite. I can't wait until we have strawberries up here:)
ReplyDeletewow! what a week! a couple of things: i love that picture of your boys cuddling on the couch- just makes my heart leap. your cookbook- tell me more...what kind of food, what's the story behind it? finally- a door to door strawberry salesman? do you have unicorns in your backyard too?
ReplyDeleteyour jam looks delicious!
Have I told you how much I like to read the stories of your family (yes, I have. This is just emphasis)? We missed you all this night.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a nice relaxing weekend. Sometimes I'm thankful for the mandatory "slowing down" that one must do during an illness (or a pregnancy in my case). :)
ReplyDeleteThat sounds an awful lot like our last few months, except that instead of being sick I was chained to the computer, and so was my husband. The kid son the other hand did a great job picking up the slack with the laundry and whatnot.
ReplyDeleteSweet about your husband--mine occasionally goes that route but usually has way too much work to do to do that sort of thing.
Mandi -- you're so funny! No, sorry, no unicorns. But at Christmastime the door-to-door TAMALE salespeople come by! We have a very high Mexican-American population here.
ReplyDeleteyou sure made a lovely week out of a sick-at-home one! Where'd your man find the local honey?
ReplyDeleteWe were all sick too! I feel your pain... Hope everyone is feeling better... God Bless
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