Thoughts for Thursday

What am I cooking? My mother in law is bringing dinner tonight 🙂 But, I have been following the advice here to double up, so I made two rice and bean enchilada casseroles the other night, and a double batch of meatballs the night before.  It really is just as easy to cook twice as much and have a meal to freeze.  I am eating grapefruits, which I have grown to really love, now that they are in season.

What am I reading? The entire Anne of Green Gables series, and swooning all over again!  Most Januarys I find that I go back to the literature of my adolescence, from Little Women to Jane Austen.  This is my first visit with Anne in a very long time, though.  I can’t wait to get the mini series going!

What are my weekend plans? I have a 9 day weekend ahead of me!  My husband is taking the week off and we are headed to the Catskills to ski.  I will teach skiing most of the time.

What are my prayer intentions today? For a woman who is getting her cancer prognosis today.

What can my children do instead of watching TV? Choose a new game or toy from the Presents shelf.

What is one product that is making my life a little easier? New coffee maker!  Cuisinart grind and brew.  The old one served us well for several years.

What have I done for my marriage this week? Admitted that I was being grumpy and apologized.  I expect to have to do that several more times today.

What’s challenging me lately? Worry that I am worrying too much about my oldest child!  I know how crazy that sounds, sometimes I think that he is like an overworked piece of clay, I am often thinking about whether he is happy enough, too happy, growing in virtue, challenged enough, pressured too much, spending time with the right friends.  I don’t worry so much about my middle kids and they seem to be better for it!

Something that made me think? Martha Stewart Living.  I know, she drives some people crazy, but I picked up the January issue that has an article about re-doing your laundry room.  They mentioned that the design philosophy of the magazine is to have spaces that are functional, welcoming, comfortable.  I think that is my philosophy, too, and in that order.  The idea of painting my laundry room a cheerful, peaceful color like light blue or green, having pretty baskets to store things, and making it a happy place is so appealing to me.  I am not sure that I will get to this project anytime soon, but Martha has inspired me to add a little beauty to the functional spaces, since those are where I spend most of my time anyway.

On that note, I am also still thinking about my basement, and my mom had a super fun idea to put down that fake grass carpet (this makes me happy because I associate it with beach cabanas), put a white picket fence around the play space so that the kids can’t get into the storage/boiler areas, put in window boxes of artifical flowers and perhaps paint some of the walls light blue — indoor backyard!