Currently

Reading ... in the Bible, Isaiah again. 

In other books I read The Lady's Mine by Francine Rivers. I'm not sure how to properly gather my thoughts about this book. After reading Redeeming Love several weeks ago I knew I want to read more books by this author, and happily settled in to read. It was okay, but did not live up to my probably too high expectations.

Kathryn was banished from Boston by her stepfather and sent out west to a little mining town to claim an inheritance from her uncle who passed away in some unsolved circumstance. She is opinionated, a bit headstrong, and has a whole lot of determination. She starts using her uncle's printing press to publish a small controversial newspaper that sparks change, and its fair share of danger. Overall it was a decent book and I had a good time.

Next up I read a cozy little murder mystery. Banana Cream Pie Murder by Joanne Fluke. I went in with zero expectations but ended up really enjoying it. When compared to The Lady's Mine it was certainly not as good, so I don't quite understand why I enjoyed it more. Maybe because of the level of expectations I had when approaching them. All the food certainly didn't hurt. Each chapter had them baking or cooking something delicious and the recipe was then tucked in before the the next chapter. I really want to try some of them.

I'm participating in the 1776 Challenge this year, and February's prompt had me searching quite unsuccessfully for a funny book. I finally put a plea out on Facebook for help. My friends came through and I have quite the stack of books to pick up from the library tomorrow. I was able to get one on audio already. Never Sniff a Gift Fish by Patrick McManus. Steven and I listened and laughed to it together. Such a fun little book!

Watching ... yesterday Sharon was off work and we decided to have a fun afternoon. We popped an old musical into the DVD player and sang along to the songs, and laughed at all the over the top scenes. 

Listening ... to all the usual around the house sounds, plus the waterfall roaring quite a bit louder than usual with the all the extra water from the melting snow.

Baking ... Sharon felt like baking yesterday and made both sweet and savory sour dough pop tarts. Chocolate chip cookies and raisin cookies.

Everything turned out delightfully tasty.

Cooking ... I made both chili and chicken and dumplings for supper tonight. The married children are here so I'm making the two favorite "soups" 

Playing ... in addition to lots of MtG we also played Uno No Mercy,  Pass the Pandas, and some word games.

Wishing ... that we got a little more sun down here in our hollow. Steven and I had errands to run earlier this week. It was a lovely day. Coming home as we were driving down our road I was commenting on how there is hardly any snow left. And then we rounded the last curve before our house and I could hardly believe how much snow we still had in our yard.

Picture one ... hardly any snow across the road from our house.

Picture two ... our yard.

There was about five seconds of time between both pictures. 

The steep hill behind our house keeps direct sunlight off our yard for the majority of the afternoon, And what a difference that makes! 

Cleaning ...  again not much extra, but I did get our roll top desk cleaned and organized.

Disliking ... how cold I am most days. I have a hard time turning up the heat since we switched from coal to heating oil. Unless I have my hands in hot dish water, or I'm wearing my favorite blanket as a shawl I'm cold.

Loving ... how the days are getting longer and warmer.

Currently

Reading ...  in the Bible, Psalms.

In other books. I finally finished War and Peace, which is cause for celebration! It only took me a month, but I managed to get it done. There were actually some good and thought provoking things in this book, but it was much too long. It would have greatly benefitted from being edited and having approximately 1,000 of its 1,392 pages removed. At the end I rated it three stars. Surprisingly it is not the worst book I have ever read.

I also read Dear Mrs. Bird by AJ Pearce. It's a World War II novel set in London. We follow a young lady as she works in a cramped little office as a helper/secretary for Mrs. Bird, a grumpy, zero nonsense advice columnist. 

I don't want to spoil anything in case you want to read it, but this book surpassed my expectations. It skillfully wove humor, love, heartache, and more in less than 300 pages. I enjoyed every minute of my time reading it. I have since discovered it is the first book in a four book series. Even though this could easily have been a stand alone book, I have requested the other three books as well, and am looking forward to diving into them once I have the chance.

And then I read My Friends by Fredrik Backman, and oh my! This is one that will stick with me for a long time. Such a beautiful story of found family, of love, loss, and enduring friendship.

Watching ... not exactly watching I suppose, but my digital photo frame is here beside me and I glance over at it every time the picture changes.

Listening ... to an audio book about rival Vietnamese restaurants. The synopsis had sounded interesting, but so far it has been seriously boring. Hopefully it will pick up soon, otherwise I may have to abandon it for something better.

Wearing ... a somewhat ill fitting teal top. It's too big, I don't know why I still have it. I'm thinking after running it through the laundry I'm going to put it in our box of things to donate.

Baking ... earlier this week I decided I want to make my Mom's favorite dessert. The recipe calls it a date pudding. It's more of a trifle of sorts. I baked the date cake, and intended to cube it and layer it with a sauce and whipped cream. Somehow before I got that far we all sampled the cake and came to the agreement we really like it as is, so I never finished the recipe.

Next up, Steven has been plagued these past few weeks by the knowledge that he is supposed to participate in a Valentines exchange. He finally asked if he could please bake some Valentines cookies so that there is zero chance of there being any possibility someone might keep a Valentine from him and have it resurface in the future.

I agreed.

This is what he ended up taking to the exchange.

Cooking ... last evening I made roasted broccoli, Steven made risotto. And we had some leftover meat. For dessert we had some of Steven's extra cookies. Tonight I'm making lamb burgers, sweet potatoes, and a salad.

Playing ...  I say this every week, but here I go again. MtG. As long as it remains Steven's favorite it will continue being a game we play every week. We also played Skyjo, Dragonwood, and Uno.

Wishing ... there were more hours in a day. They always slip by much too fast for me.

Crafting ... tying in with the Valentine's Day theme, Steven was supposed to decorate a box themed after one of his interests to take to the exchange.

I must say I wasn't surprised to see it decorated in an MtG theme.

Cleaning ... I once again didn't get a lot of extras done, but we did finally rid the basement of all the accumulated cardboard boxes. That felt like a win in the cleaning department to me.

Disliking ... bad drivers. Today coming home from our homeschool co-op we came up behind someone driving between 25 to 30 miles an hour. He was weaving from one side of the road to the other. I tried to stay far enough behind so that if he does hit someone head on around one of the curves that I won't get involved as well.

Loving ... that the weekend is upon us!

Currently

Reading ... in the Bible, Timothy and my favorite Psalms.

In other books I'm still slogging through War and Peace. It is rapidly becoming the bane of my existence. But I'm stubborn and am determined to get the entire thing read. I'm on page 920 so only  a little over 470 more to go.

I'm also halfway through These Tangled Threads by Sarah Loudin Thomas. It's a cozy little read that has this way of being somewhat confusing because of the different points of view on top of different timelines. Essentially I'm trying to keep track of six different story lines. The title seems very appropriate for the story and also for the story telling. It's about a master weaver, an apprentice weaver, and a wood carver.. Set in Asheville NC, most specifically at Biltmore. Overall I am enjoying it though I don't think it will be one I have the urge to put on my want to own list.

Watching ... Sometimes after reading a book I really enjoyed I hop on YouTube and search for live reaction/read with me videos of that book. I enjoy seeing others react to the impactful or emotional parts and hearing their thoughts about the book. This week I watched a handful of those kinds of videos for Redeeming Love.

Listening ... to some soft instrumental music.

Baking ... Oatmeal Butterscotch Chip Cookies. 

I like planning a weekly menu, and one night this week I had planned to make a lentil stew. Only, when I went to get the lentils the container was filled with miniature butterscotch chips instead. We are not a butterscotch loving family and I have zero recollection of buying the chips. But they were there, lentils were not. I pivoted and made a simple supper that did not involve lentils, and then decided to use the chips to make cookies.

Cooking ... tonight we're having a mish-mash of left overs. LV will be having leftover meatballs, succotash, and potatoes. Steven will be having a leftover bean burrito.

Feeling ... as if another round of sickness is niggling at me. Time to see if several doses of vinegar water will combat it effectively.

Disliking ...  the news we received that LV's nephew and family lost their home in a fire. Thankfully they were able to jump out the window to safety, but they basically lost everything. 

Another nephew set up a GoFundMe for them here. 

Loving ... good friends, good books, and good food.

Playing ... no surprise I'm sure when I say a daily game of MtG was played. We also played Dutch Blitz and Fruit Punch. 

Our week was a busy one so we didn't get as many games played as we had hoped to and we also didn't  get into any of our longer or more complex games.

Cleaning ... I washed some curtains and cleaned and organized a few drawers. I didn't make as much of a dent in my cleaning list as I had hoped, but I'm okay with what I got done.

Currently

Reading ... in the Bible I read Galatians today.

In other books. I've made some more progress in War and Peace, only 150 pages or so, but progress none the less. It is dreadfully dull and boring, so when the scene at a concert was described within an inch of its life and quite unexpectedly I actually almost snort chuckled when I happened upon this sentence about one of the dancers. "He leapt upon the stage and proceeded to weave the air with his legs."  I'm still not sure if it's amusing, or is the book simply so dull that a line like this only appears to be funny.

I also read Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers. I have heard about this book for years already, and finally read it.  For the first 75% or so I was thinking that giving it three stars was going to be generous. But then the last 25% happened and after sitting with my thoughts for a while afterwards I came to the conclusion that it was nothing less than five stars.

I already know that I want to read it again someday.

Watching ... a recipe debunking video from a lady who tests viral recipes that seem to be too good to be true. Spoiler alert - they usually are. I love how she not only tests the recipes, but then also explains the science behind why it did not work.

Listening ... to baby coos and happy sounds from a clip Rosie sent of their little girlie.

Wearing ... can one wear a blanket? If so, I'm wearing a cozy burgundy and cream colored one. It has been a cold, cold day. The house may be 70º but somehow I'm still cold. There's something about negative temperatures outdoors that makes indoor 70º feel chilly.

Baking ... there's an oatmeal bread dough rising on the kitchen counter waiting to be baked soon.

Cooking ...  nothing exciting. Last evening I made a stromboli and a salad. We're having leftovers tonight.

Disliking ... mushroom coffee. We received some for Christmas. The package hypes it up saying how tasty it is. Lies, it was all lies. There's not a single tasty thing about it.

Loving ... the sunsets pictures LV captures at work. We don't get to see sunsets here at home with the steep hill behind the house that blocks the view of the western sky, so I really like seeing the ones LV gets to enjoy. This was his most recent one.

Playing ...  no surprise that there was a daily round or two of MtG played. In addition we also played Sleeping Queens. It's an older favorite that we hadn't played in quite some time. Simple yet fun! I'm hoping to play it a little more often. We also played Love Letters. It's a fun little game of deduction. It says it's for 2-6 players, but we are of the opinion that it's better with at least three players minimum. And finally we also played quite a few rounds of Pass the Pandas.

Cleaning ... the daily dozen, but not much else this week other than cleaning the vacuum cleaner. I have created a list of a variety of odd cleaning projects I want to tackle next week.

Currently

Reading ...  in the Bible, Ephesians.

In other books, I have made it to the 600 page mark in War and Peace. I can only take so much of it at a time and have been reading other books between my reading sprints with it.

Thanks to one of your comments I searched for and tracked down a copy of Re-Creations by Grace Livingston Hill and read it. As a fan of everything Grace Livingston Hill I quite enjoyed my time with it.

Watching ... a few videos on YouTube. 

Listening ... to the sound of the wind whistling through the branches of the pine trees and how it changes it's tune as it whirls around the corners of the house. The windmills whining as they spin rapidly. A pair of squirrels chattering as they keep chasing each other between trying to quickly unearth some walnuts they had buried in the backyard. The house is unusually quiet right now with both furnace and refrigerator taking a break from running at the same time.

Baking ... there are sourdough pretzel bites waiting to be popped into the oven.

Cooking ... tonight I'll be making crab cakes, and a heavily loaded salad. I dried apples earlier this week, they turned out really delicious, so a handful of those will do for our dessert portion of the meal.

Feeling ... chilly, it always feels cold to me as soon as the furnace takes a break from running even if the thermometer claims the house is a cozy temperature. Happy, no particular reason, simply feeling happy. Hungry, it's nearing time to make supper, and after a light lunch of leftover cauliflower and a piece of chicken I'm a bit hungrier than usual for this time of day.

Disliking ... AI recipes. It seems lately I need to be armed with a wooden spoon when perusing Pinterest to ward off the multitude of AI recipes that seem to be taking over. AI may be good at some things, creating good recipes however is not one of them.

Loving ... my dehydrator. I really want to try to dehydrate watermelon. I plan to pick up a small one on my next grocery run to see if it's something I can dry successfully. I've had dried watermelon before and really liked it, but I've never tried making it myself.

Playing ... I lost count of how many rounds of MtG were played. It's Steven's favorite. Unfortunately I don't have the same sentiments. We have a lot of games, and I would rather play any of them instead of it. But ... I love him. So I swallow my distaste, smile, draw up a chair, and play another round with him.

Cleaning ... the daily dozen have been reimplemented after having largely been abandoned last week. In addition I washed all the bedding, random throws and blankets, couch and recliner covers.. I wiped down door knobs, handles, light switches, etc, Basically anything we touched while sick I tried to clean.