Potpourri Of Updates

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As you well know, we've all been sick. Seems like we've been dealing with one sort of illness or another for almost three weeks. It seems to be coming to an end, hopefully, I pray! The kids are ending their rounds of antibiotics, which is good. Rhys has a red bottom and I can't get Nadia to eat yogurt. I can actually breathe without opening my mouth and we are getting better sleep at night. I'm almost scared to go to church on sunday, for fear of what is circulating around there now. But I need my social fix. Church is a good place to be.

My house is slowly getting back in order. The entire house has been vacuumed. Laundry is washed and mostly put away (I have one more load to put away.) I got my ironing done, yay, I think I had two weeks worth of Andrew's dress shirts to do. I'm back to making real meals again. I had been doing things like leftovers, eggs and pancakes, and toasted cheese sandwiches and canned soup. Ew. It's all good and worked for us, but I was ready for some meals with body to them. Sometimes ya just need to crunch.

In the midst of all of this we had Andrew's grandmothers funeral to go to. The situation was sad, but I love seeing his extended family. And after learning more about Mom-Mom at the funeral, now I know why. It was good to see everyone. This is my little 'butterfly'. One of the cousins brought the wings to the dinner afterward and let Nadia wear them.



My grandmother is doing well, considering. She is in a wheelchair, motoring about. She celebrated her 93 birthday, which is really good. We taped a birthday greeting from all of us. It was funny. Nadia couldn't understand why grandma wasn't talking back. Hah. Funny girl. I also made up a collage poster of a bunch of pictures of the kids and us. I am told she loved both. I'm glad.For some time now I've been wanting a grain mill. But they aren't cheap, and well, until recently we didn't have the means. But the Lord blessed and Andrew said yes. Through the process of researching it I found that for what I wanted to do it would be better to have a Vita-Mix. Now my mom has one that she got when I was like 6 and it's still working, albeit it's wearing out. But this thing will pulverize just about anything. I haven't tried the grain yet, but the test smoothie I made for desert for lunch was just wonderful. I'm excited to try the hot soups they have in the recipe book. And yes, I cannot wait to try the fresh flour. I might do it for the pizza I have planned for tonight. I still have a bunch of whole wheat flour to use up, though and I have to order some berries. That order won't come in till the end of March. That's ok, it should give me time to use up most of that wheat.

Most of the time when I make bread, I use 50/50 wheat and white. But I noticed I was bloating a lot when I ate that bread. I finally made a 100% whole wheat batch and I can eat that and not get bloated. In fact my stomach is smaller! I'm very excited about that. This is the recipe I used. It's very easy. The only downside is, it only makes one loaf at a time. But that's probably good, because I've noticed 100% whole wheat bread goes bad fast. I made a Smashed Potato Soup last night and boiled the potatoes in a lot of water. I'm going to try using potato boil water in my breads. I've heard it helps with the texture and rising. We'll see.


Speaking of weightloss, I've lost another pound and a half inch off my stomach and hips. YAY!! Not much more to go now. Well, that's not true. I have like 5 inches to go on my stomach, which seems like a long ways away. But I'll get there. I've been doing the 200 sit ups challenge and just did the mid-way exhaustion test. I got to 150. Only needed to get above 60, so I'm doing good. YAY!! I'm scared, though, because I know I'm going to do the push-up challenge next and I know I can't do push-ups well. Oh well. I guess this is how to get better at it.



Rhys has been making up for his lost appetite from last week. It seems all he wants to do is eat!! Which makes me happy. I got a bit concerned last week when he would only eat a bit. But now, he just eats and eats and eats! Good, you keep eating boy.

Thank you for your prayers while we were sick. I hope you enjoyed the semi-randomly inserted pics. Have a healthy weekend and pray for spring!