Preparation day

Last week, I promised myself that the only laundry I would be washing on Fridays is our sheets and pillowcases. So why is it that I have three loads of laundry to wash, dry, iron, and fold today?

I really should pick up some additional bread pans. Right now, I can only bake two loaves at a time. The first two loaves of banana bread are in the oven. If I can squeeze them all in before 1:00PM (after which is our expensive time of day for electricity), I should have 6 loaves baked. One for today, one for tomorrow, and four for the freezer.

Clutter

I can’t believe I slept for two hours this afternoon. I was sleepy after lunch, laid down on the bed, and woke up two hours later! Must have needed it.

Is it considered a good thing when I look around and am not sure if I have any housework that needs to be done? I know there is always housework to be done, but all the major stuff was done today. The kitchen floors have been mopped, all the dishes are washed, the toilet is clean, the carpets are vacuumed… I actually went into our spare bedroom and started cleaning.

Our spare bedroom is terrible. We still have stuff in boxes from when we moved in over three and a half years ago. That really makes me wonder if we need those boxes. If we threw them away, would we know what was missing? Some of the clutter is due to us selling our bookshelves a couple months ago, so there are piles and piles of books all over. We have nowhere else to put them. There is no furniture in that bedroom, so it’s just boxes, stacks of books, and clothes. Our dresser broke a couple months ago and all our clothes ended up in the spare bedroom so that the cats wouldn’t lay on them and share all their fur.

That bedroom is a mess! I’ve been going in there for the last couple days and (each day) finding five things that can be thrown away/recycled/given away. It’s already made a visible difference, though I have a LONG way to go. There are also several boxes of old baseball, basketball, football, and hockey cards. Still not sure what I’m going to do with those… I don’t want to keep them but I’m sure there are cards with value in those albums. Is it worth the time to sort through thousands of cards to find the few that are worth a few dollars? I haven’t yet decided. And so they sit.

Keeper recipe

I made the Vegan Soba and Mushroom Soup last night. It was really good! I was a little bit worried because there are only four ingredients but it was really tasty.

I’m going to need to play with the recipe a bit. The recipe didn’t specify how much noodles to include and I put in way too many. The dish ended up being pasta instead of soup. Next time, I’m going to decrease the noodles slightly, add an entire package of mushrooms instead of half, and use two cans of vegetable broth. The amount of tofu was fine. I also think it needed some green veggies, either spinach or broccoli.

We’ll be making this again!

Dishes and menus

I am happy to say that the dishes have been washed/dried/put away for the last two days! I don’t know why I struggle so much with keeping a clean kitchen, but I’m slowly learning to prioritize.

I also created a menu for the next week. My diet is being overhauled again and I’m trying to eat mostly fruits and veggies with a regular, vegan meal at night. We have fruit for banana/peach smoothies and peach/strawberry smoothies, both of which are very good. I’ve found that the more fruit I consume on a daily basis, the less I crave desserts. I haven’t had dessert in over a month.

Menu planning is always a challenge for me as I can never think of anything new to eat. We tend to rotate through the same meal options – haystacks, burritos, spaghetti, and orange tofu. All of these meals taste good but we have problems with variety. I decided to try a new recipe this week so I’ll be making vegan soba and mushroom soup this weekend. It’s a bit different than our normal dinner fare! Hopefully it turns out well.

Hydration

Hubby picked up a new water filter earlier this week. I highly recommend it. It’s bigger than our old one and filters the water so much faster. We’re not running out of water now, whereas the pitcher was often empty before.

It’s been a pretty laid back day. I’ve been feeling very low energy for the last couple days so I’ve been taking it easy. I’m reading a lot and keeping up on the dishes, but that’s about it. My desk is almost clean! Each day, I sort through 5-10 pieces of paper and either file, recycle, or shred each one. My pile is almost manageable now! Pretty soon I’ll have enough room on my desk for the cats to sleep. According to them, that’s what all the furniture is used for!

Animal pics

For some reason, I just feel like posting pics today. Last week, I was planning on writing a long post about our weekend at my brother’s house but life interfered. Instead, I’ll just post some recent pics that I took here at our house and some in Sierra Vista.

Laying on the top shelf is Susano; on the bottom shelf is Fiona. It is rare to capture a picture of the two of them together as they don’t like each other much.

Our cats are so spoiled. One day we decided to place Susano in the window above our shower. Usually he lays so that he’s facing outside, but occasionally he likes to turn around and watch whoever is in the shower. After we’re done showering, we leave him up in the window until the bathroom starts getting hot from our ridiculously hot summers or until he meows that he’s ready to come down.

These two are attached at the hip and love laying on my desk, whenever there is enough room. Bruno is our baby, the kitten we raised by hand last year. He was only a day old when he came into our house and Susano has been parenting him ever since.

Seeing this rattlesnake was one of the highlights of my weekend with my brother. I had never seen a live one in the wild before. We had just finished doing some offroading in Josh’s 4×4 and were driving along the dirt road back to his house. All of a sudden, we spotted a long snake traveling across the road. I’m sure we barely missed it with the tires. We stopped and ran back to look, just as he slithered into the brush at the side of the road. Josh identified it as a rattlesnake before I did and our suspicions were confirmed when he curled up and starting shaking his rattles at us. Hurray for zoom on cameras!

I recently spotted this dragonfly resting outside my kitchen window. I was washing dishes and feeling a little down when he flew by and landed on a bush. I snuck outside with my camera and managed to get a half decent shot. He stuck around for a few hours before flying off again. I love the deep orange color.

This little guy graces me with his presence every couple of days. There is a tall bush outside the kitchen and he lands on one of the branches sticking out the side of the bush. He’ll sit there for several hours at a time, usually during the hottest part of the day and just look around or groom himself. Until he started visiting, I had never seen a hummingbird sit so still for so long. I hope he keeps coming back.

Someday I’ll own a camera that allows me to zoom in and focus on hummingbirds without producing grainy photographs. 🙂 Until then, I’ll just continue to enjoy all the animals God sends my way.

Praise report

Praise the Lord! Today was a very good day for our car. We visited Jiffy Lube and had an oil change done (expensive, even with a coupon!). Then we had our emissions tested so that we could renew our car registration. The car passed!

I’ve been reading a lot lately. Today I finished the book Unveiled, the story of Tamar, by Francine Rivers. It was a quick read but very good. Tamar’s story is a short one, covered in Genesis 38. Only one chapter is written about her, but the story covers years in time. I had always wondered why Tamar chose to disguise herself as a prostitute, of all things. The book gave me understanding of one possible reason she made that choice.

I found the book at the library. If you have a chance to read it, check it out. It’s a great insight into a strong woman who is included in Christ’s lineage.

Milestone!

I found my 100th geocache tonight! I told Jeff that my next goal will be 1,000 caches, but he said I should aim for 150 first. Probably a smart idea!

This cache is called When Cows Fly. I saved this one for my 100th find because I loved the mural and wanted a memorable cache as my first milestone. The picture shows only half the mural. It covers the entire side of a building and I had no idea it was even there! That’s one of the best parts of geocaching – finding parks and memorials and art that you didn’t even know was part of your neighborhood.

I’m melting

It is almost nine o’clock at night and I’m melting. It’s still 95 degrees outside!! Why do I live here?

I realized today that the state is requiring emissions testing on our car this year before registration is due at the end of the month. I hope it passes!

Today was pretty laid back. Hubby brought home his first full time paycheck. Hurray! I caught up on the dishes, washed some laundry, vacuumed, worked on cleaning off my desk for a few minutes (the never ending chore), and played with the cats. I also wasted a bit of time today playing a free downloaded game – Blocks Annihilator. It’s very similar to the Yahoo game Collapse. A waste of time, yes. But fun. 😉