April 14, 2025: Come On In!

 

Apparently, we have put the welcome sign outside our door. And we've assumed others have their welcome signs out for us as well.  It's a very sociable sort of Spring around here.  Travis got his lunch and sat down to eat at the table on Saturday with John.  We went to church and had our own little group in the midst of the sanctuary after service that sat and talked.  Then we headed over to Kate's where we stayed far too late and too long, just being sociable.   Sam ran in today after lunch and sat down and talked until the kids were due home on the bus.  John is off this evening to Men's meeting.  

Frankly...I'm looking forward to a couple of hours or so alone.  I just am.  I've had enough of being sociable.  I slipped out of bed early this morning, hoping to get some time on my own for Bible study and journaling, but John was right behind me.  

I worked on cleaning our bathroom today, all but the shower, which I shall tackle tomorrow.  I need to mix up a special cleaner to use on the grouting at the bottom of the shower panels where mildew insists on growing.  I've been reading and apparently a solution of Dawn dish detergent (general all-purpose item that it is), baking soda and peroxide applied generously then scrubbed with a toothbrush is supposed all that I require to make it go away.  We shall see.

In the meantime, I not only cleaned the bathroom, I trimmed dead limbs off the palm tree, and sorted out the closet area, delving into bins and baskets and neatening everything up that I possibly could.  Then I cleared up our bedroom, took one look at the living room which now holds blinds, curtains and furnishings from the kitchen sitting area and sighed before moving on to the kitchen.

Yesterday Travis got the kitchen sitting and back entry areas primed.  He also hung some heavy moving cloths over the windows.  I'm going to say this again.  We chose the floor plan we did because I adored the sunny kitchen and breakfast area, and I am sorely missing the natural light we get even on the cloudiest days from those windows.  I can't remove the cloths hung up at the windows because he nailed them up (using existing nail holes but still).  I expect tomorrow I shall somehow figure out a way to drape those blankets in such a way that I get some light into the room because I definitely do not like being without it.

Despite the lack of light, I worked in the kitchen.  I have Tandoori chicken marinating.  I baked Souvlaki Chicken on skewers with a halved onion on each end.  I watched a video of someone making it last night and thought I'd like to try baking it in that way.  Sam and I both took a little piece when it came out of the oven and it's good.  I also made the Philly Cheesesteak Sloppy Joe mix (minus the mushrooms) and instead of making cottage pie, I mixed up a Tortellini Bake with the last portion of the ground beef.  That's something we haven't had in a long while.  I found some gluten free tortellini at Aldi I wanted to try last week and I thought of it today when I found a jar of tomatoes and sauce in the fridge that I needed to use.  I cut celery sticks, made a fruit salad using leftover fruit cup from the grocery yesterday and more fruits I gathered from my fruit bowl, and last I made a pan of roast beef hash using the last of the roast beef.  I sliced the last 1/2 pint of strawberries this afternoon and put them in the oven to dry out since I hadn't been eating them as quickly as I should.  

It was a lot of kitchen work!  I washed dishes and loaded the dishwasher repeatedly.  I swept floors and tidied the fridge and put things away as they ought to have been put away.  I worked a good two or three hours in there today.

Since John is going off to men's meeting, I think I'm going to have Shrimp tonight.  I thought I'd make a lemon dill butter using more broth than butter as a sauce.  I want to serve it over Rice with Asparagus.  I suppose I need to stir myself to go do that since it's now nearly 5pm.  After that...I would like to give myself a pedicure and perhaps watch something on Amazon Prime.  

It sounds like a lovely evening break for me!

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