Currently

Reading ... In the Bible I'm in Isaiah. Somehow the first chapter always gives me a thrill whenever I read it. It holds a big part of our faith journey and the reason we are no longer Amish. I shared a condensed version of our "story" in a blog post that you can read here.

In other books I am currently reading Song of  Years by Beth Streeter Aldrich. It's an old somewhat brittle book. The pages have foxing, but the story is still delightful.

My maternal Grandpa was an avid reader and this was a book he enjoyed. My Mom got her love of books and reading from him. This book was a favorite of hers when she was a teenager.

I've read it once over 25 years ago. I remember having enjoyed it a lot, but somehow I never did a reread. My loyalties lay with the Anne of Green Gables series after all.

Last week I decided I finally want to do a reread. So far I'm about 25% of the way through. I remember only key points from it and have been having a lovely time reading it. It is fun visiting the world of the seven laughing Martin sisters once again, and even though I already know, I'm looking forward to rediscovering who Suzanne was the beloved wife of.

Writing ... I've been working on copying family favorite recipes onto cards. I declare my hand is out of practice writing with pen and paper. Sometimes I have to sit and stare in disbelief at the weird way some of the letters have been formed.

I don't want my handwriting to deteriorate further and have decided that even after I'm done with this project I want to commit to a certain amount of handwriting every day in hopes it will slow down the getting worse process.

Watching ... birds. Not sure if they're migrating, but there are flocks that come in to rest on the trees outside the kitchen window, before whirling off again. I've been trying to catch them in motion as they come in for landings or lift off, but so far have been unsuccessful. 

I did get a small group of them in one of trees.

Listening ... to the light snores from Steven. We got up early to get all his school work done before heading to our homeschool co-op this morning. We ran some errands afterwards, and he was looking forward to coming home and getting back to a book he had started reading last evening. Only ... the book has slipped out of his hands and he's having a good nap. The first he's had in years.

Baking ... I have plans to make French Silk Chocolate Cookies. I'm out of one of the key ingredients, but hope to get that tomorrow and then bake them in the afternoon. The recipe makes only eight large cookies. Perfect for our weekend!

Cooking ... I love trying new recipes and tucked a few into our menu for the week. One was for Baked Potatoes with a Creamy Crawdad Sauce. I've never bought crawdads before, but have noticed them in the seafood section quite often.

For some reason, I don't know why, I just assumed crawdads would be cheap. Maybe because they abound in our creek and we have been entertained watching Kingfishers dive into the water, catching a crawdad, and then sitting on the electric wire or a tree branch to eat them. They didn't make it look expensive at all. 

As I stood there in the seafood aisle eyeing the crawdads I was not prepared for the price attached. I had two options. For the first one the crawdads came from China. My second option came from Louisiana. There was a five dollar price difference between the two, but in the end I decided to go with the more expensive ones from Louisiana. I had wiggle room with my grocery budget this week so I tried to ignore the price as I added it to my cart.

On Wednesday was the day to try my hand at making the recipe.

Getting started I had to read the recipe several time to make sure I correctly read the amount of butter needed. It seemed a bit outrageous. I chose to trust the recipe and followed it closely. In the end I was so glad I did. It turned out fabulously decadent and delicious. 

It's certainly not something I'll be making often, but we all agreed it needs to be added to our Christmas Eve menu. Having it once a year will be a special treat.

Feeling ... satisfied. Steven and I finished up a big project yesterday. It turned out even better than anticipated and the sense of satisfaction both of us are feeling is a pleasant one.

Disliking ... how dry our area seems to be. We got a nice rain and I was thrilled to finally have our waterfall running again yesterday after having been completely dry for several months.

But it hasn't lasted long. It's already back to only a trickle and unless we get more rain tonight I fear even that will be done by tomorrow. I really miss having the waterfall running all the time.

Loving ... moments of unexpected wit and humor with Steven. Laughter is so much fun!

Playing ... this week the games we played were all shorter ones. We had pulled out a larger game, set it up, but then discovered we forgot it is a three player minimum game, and no one else had the time or inclination to help Steven and me play it, so we packed it back up for another day. Instead we played:

Squirrels: The Card Game

This one is a favorite. Fun, easy to learn, and it has beautiful squirrels. What's not to love? I will happily play it when ever the opportunity arises.

Fruit Punch 

Fruit Punch has been a favorite for years as evidenced by the well worn box. It too is an easy one to learn and lots of fun to play. The box says it's for two to six players and even though we do play with only two players we find it's more fun with at least three. 

This game also goes by the name Halli Galli in which the cards and game play are the same but there's a bell to hit instead of a squeaky banana. 

Magic Dwarf 

Magic Dwarf is a fun little cooperative game that we have yet to win. One of these days we will, but this was not the week that finally happened.

Pass the Pandas

Pass the Pandas is a go to when ever we have only a little bit of time, but still want to play something. It's a dice game. It includes twenty dice with bamboo, water drops, pandas, or blank sides. On your turn you roll your dice. Discard the water drops, place the bamboo into the center of the table to build a bamboo forest, pandas you pass to the player of your choice, blank remains yours.

The object of the game is to get rid of all your dice. Careful though, if you roll and didn't roll a bamboo you have to take the entire bamboo forest to your hand.

They say it's for two to four players. Most of the time it's only two of us playing in which we each start with ten dice. Personally I think having only five dice per person isn't enough, but we do still play like that and enjoy it. I think it would be fun to buy another copy of the game and combining them to have more dice and be able to accommodate more players. The box is big enough to hold several games worth of dice so that wouldn't be a problem.

Top Trumps 

Top Trumps is another go to when we don't necessarily have a lot of time to play. 

There are many, many different themes of Top Trumps games. We have a few different ones, but our favorite is The Wonders of the World.

Thirty cards. Thirty different wonders of the world each with five same stats. Height/Depth, Temperature, Flight Time from DC, Danger, and Wonder.

On your turn you choose a stat from the top card in your hand and read it out loud. The player with the lowest number for that stat looses his/her card. Other players tuck their card to the back of their pile, and play continues until only one person has cards in their hand and is declared the winner. 

I like that the cards also include some facts about the wonder making it somewhat educational.

And now for the last game we played. MapGoMap

MapGoMap is the most educational of the games we played this week. 

Years ago I vowed our children will know the location of all the states. This game helps learn that in a painless way. 

It's not our favorite, but we still enjoyed our time playing. For the same educational purpose I would choose to play Scrambled States of America, which is actually quite a lot more fun. But this was good for something quick with a dash of fun.

With Christmas just around the corner I would certainly recommend Pass the Pandas and Squirrels The Card Game if you're looking to add some fun games as gifts.

Cleaning ... we finished cleaning the basement and decided it's time to get rid of all the bicycles the children have outgrown.

We checked, but thrift shops aren't accepting at this time, so we're debating setting them out beside the road tomorrow with a free sign for up to a week. If no one wants them we'll have Steven dismantle them and dispose of them at the scrap place for the parts that qualify for that. Either way it's time for them to go bye-bye.

For now they're hanging out in front of the house.

Next up I need to clean the lazy susans in the kitchen. Usually I try to clean them once a month, but I missed September, today is already the last day of October, so it's definitely time to tackle them again.