Books, Bread, and Church

Sunday crepe-lunch aftermath:

These kids can put away the crepes. And when Rose is done, she often rubs Nutella in her hair.

At least three good things happened for me this week:

1. On Tuesday, I went OUT for FUN! I went to our book club. It was so pleasant to sit and chat with friends. We actually only discussed the book (Persuasion by Jane Austen) for maybe 45 minutes of the 2 hours! I love book club because it’s an excuse to get together, eat a treat, and hang out. And I love books too.

2. I made bread for the first time in a long time on Thursday, and now I’m addicted to it. It’s been hard finding things that I want to eat, and homemade white bread has replaced almost everything. My daily menu has shrunk (or grown) to smoothie for breakfast, bread n butter during the day, and McDonald’s fries and McChicken sandwich for dinner. I really did make Jeff bring me McDonald’s every afternoon this week! I’m trying not to think about how NOT healthy this routine is. Hopefully I can manage more of a variety soon—or start cooking again?

3. I went to church today for the first time in 6 weeks. It was so good to be back. I felt the Spirit so strongly while I was just sitting there singing the hymns. I remember feeling the same way when I went back to church after my Rose-sickness too—thinking “it’s been so long! I love church! Sniff!” Everywhere I looked, I saw someone who has helped us out in the past 6 weeks: with babysitting, dinners, or just calling or visiting to check on me. It made my heart so FULL of gratitude. And nobody said anything about my gruesome arm tube or my almost-mullet, shaggy, cut-it-this-week-no-matter-what hair. More proof of their kindness.

Sidenote/picture insert:

Jay loves to play on our Kindle Fire. Rose loves to watch him play. Lots of times they sneak off to the basement and watch Sesame Street on it before I notice. It has been a nice distraction for them when I’m feeling too tired or yucky to do anything.

I love it when Rose lays her head on Jay’s shoulder while she’s watching him play. That ray of sunlight snuck into this picture and lit up my little blondies.

Oh, today was the famous Primary Program at church! I felt kind of sheepish for just being a spectator because I’m a counselor and I didn’t do anything to help out after I wrote a few parts for the program way back in August. But I’ve got to admit (kind of sheepishly) that it was fun to watch all those sweet kids sing and speak without crawling around whispering lines in their ears or living through long tedious practices.

During the program, the older nursery kids who are already 3 years old got to go up and sing The Wise Man and the Foolish Man with the big kids. It was Jay’s sacrament meeting debut, and he did not disappoint! For the first half of the song, he stood there grinning and getting his bearings or something. Then he started singing and doing the actions to the foolish man verse. The funny part was he was completely not in sync with the rest of the kids—he just decided “ok, I’m ready to sing!” and he was doing the actions for the foolish man built his house on the sand while everyone else was singing the chorus! We might never have known he was off if there hadn’t been hand actions to the words. I was cracking up. I can’t wait till Jay is in Primary with me next year.

Here’s a short sample of Jay singing that great song. Jay is not in to unnecessary repetition, so he hardly ever sings each line enough times. He just moves on. I wish he had sung the chorus when I took this video, because he sings “the rain came down and the flowers came up!” instead of “the floods came up.” 3 year olds are awesome.

And last up we have a weather report: Air stagnation advisory! Well, actually I just have to comment on the eerie smoke hanging in the air. Over by Wenatchee, there are some big forest fires right now, and the smoke has been coming our way for a while. This week, the haze has gotten so thick that we can’t even see the brown hills on the horizon. The SUN has been so different shining through all that thick air. In the morning it looks blood red, and at night when we can see it, it becomes a giant orange basketball sinking into the fields. It’s intense. This is a picture of the sunrise, out our kitchen window. That net is strung across the whole back of the high school to catch soccer balls. Disturbs the view a tad.

This Thursday is my next doctor visit. Hopefully they can find something GOOD this time…