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!