Weekly Wrap Up - Anniversary Week (Stay at Home Week #6)

Mid-day last Friday, I received a message from my best friend that I had a package scheduled for delivery, and for me to let her know when it arrived.  Sometimes the generosity and goodness of her heart catches me off guard and this was one of those occasions.  The kids (big and littles) and I had a fun time wrestling a brand new, queen sized, compressed mattress out of a small cardboard box.  You have NO idea how grateful the husband and I were, and it's downright dreamy to sleep on!

Saturday morning I was able to bless another family with our old mattress, as well as providing milk and plantains to yet another family.  A continual circle of blessing coming in and going out makes the heart happy.  After we got those items taken care of I took Lindsey to town to deposit her babysitting money into her savings account.  This was her first time away from home since the stay-at-home edicts were put into place.  She was thrilled just to be away from the house for a few minutes.  When we returned, I took Olivia out for a driving lesson.  (Lindsey is not willing to ride along for the driving lessons yet.)

For dinner I made fried pork cubed steak, turnip greens and mashed potatoes.  I also made a chocolate pudding to use up some of the extra milk we still had on hand.   After dinner we had family game night.  We revisited Banangrams and added Archery Dice and Uno as well.

Sunday morning the girls and I slept in. We enjoyed livestream church with Elevation Church for the 11:30am service.  We spent the rest of the day just chilling out and watching movies.  For dinner I fixed a small piece of pork, made homemade noodle/dumplings in a chicken broth/garlic sauce and green beans.  Our neighbor brought over some fresh baked pound cake, so we had that for dessert.

Monday morning it was back to the "grind".  Bella arrived around 7:15am and the day was officially under way.  Olivia picked up a house/pet sitting gig for the week so she had to get up early to go walk the dog and feed the other critters.   Mid morning I went to do the school food pickup.School work went pretty smoothly.  Olivia and I worked on her driving skills after lunch.   I had a graduation Zoom meeting at 7pm and Olivia had a youth group Zoom meeting at 8.   Dinner was beef chimichangas with Spanish rice.

Tuesday was our 19th wedding anniversary.  Tom had scheduled a vacation day (back in December 2019 when his employer made everyone pick their vacation days for the whole year).  Bella's mom got furloughed due to lack of work at the hospital, so she wasn't with us.  We drove to a little bakery and picked up some fresh pastries, stopped at a tiny grocery store and picked up fried chicken and a loaf of fresh baked bread and then stopped for some to go coffee for the drive back.  The whole outing took us less than an hour, but it was SO NICE for us all to get out of the house.   We came home and had the chicken, bread and pastries for an early lunch.

The girls knocked out their school work.  I took Olivia out for a longer, more involved driving lesson.  We moved out onto a small back road and then onto the bypass around out city.  She did really well.  The people behind her probably cussed her for going slow, but that's ok.

In the evening we ordered dinner from our favorite El Salvadorian restaurant, and had a lovely chocolate cake for dessert.

Wednesday morning Jayce was sound asleep when he arrived, so Lindsey put him right to bed.  Bella was awake but barely functional when she arrived at 7:15, so she went straight to bed as well.   Lindsey was able to get all of her school work done before they woke up.  Olivia was up early as well to go do her early morning pet sitting job.

The weather was really nice so Olivia and I spent time working in the garden.  We got all the weeds out (again) and worked the dirt up to break up the hard places.  Then, we planted lettuces, spinach, beets, radishes and onions.   We also transplanted a lot of the purple basil that's already up.  I also had a blog post go live called Gardening and Foraging, not realizing I'd scheduled it for Earth Day.

The evening was pretty laid back.  My lower back was really tight from all the bending over in the garden, so I didn't do much after dinner.  We had frozen honey battered chicken tenders and veggies for dinner.

Thursday brought a gray rainy day.  Bella was fully awake and full of energy when she arrived.   Lindsey took her final Algebra 2 test and officially finished math for the year.  I ran out to do the school food pick up mid morning.  They had more turnips and actually gave me two bags this time (they apparently weren't a hit with most people last week.)  It was Ms. Kay's birthday (our elderly neighbor) so I picked up a bouquet of flowers and a single serve cupcake for her while I was out, and ran it over to her front porch when I got home.   Heavy rains moved in around lunch, so Olivia and I decided to forego a driving lesson for the day.   It was a pretty low key day, with nothing overly exciting to report.   Dinner was lasagna and salad.  Lindsey doesn't like lasagna (WHAT???!!), so she had a frozen pot pie instead.

We had heavy rains Thursday night into early Friday morning.  The morning itself was gray and dreary.   The day consisted mostly of light school work, reading and more laundry.  For dinner I'll be fixing cube steak in gravy, mashed potatoes and turnip/turnip greens.  Yum!

Have a great weekend!