Monday Musings on a Tuesday Morning

Right now...It's about seven and overcast outside.  Una is at her algebra, Bret is having coffee, getting ready to go and work on the house again today, Gabriel and Dominic are arguing over a deck of cards, and Sebastian and Adrian are looking at Lego magazines.  Gemma is still abed.

This weekend...was not too bad, other than sleeping too little and losing the battle with some kind of respiratory thing.  I sort of felt it coming on all week, but was battling it with vitamin C, zinc, colloidal silver and Goldenseal-Echinacea tincture.  Well, as of this morning I seem to have a dry, tickly cough.  Yuck--am hoping it passes quickly.

Bret didn't have work on Friday again, so that is when we went into town to do our grocery shopping; luckily, my list wasn't too long and we got home at about lunch time.  On Saturday, Bret took advantage of the lovely weather and went to work on the house and I spent a lot of time in the kitchen making up food for Sunday.  My sister's family and my mom were to come for a visit, but my sister had been unwell, and a few of my kids still had colds this week (ironically, I seem to be the only one with anything right now), so we had cancelled. With nice weather expected and lots of food on hand, we extended a last-minute invitation to friends, who were happy to come on Sunday.  The weather turned out to be less nice than what had been predicted, overcast and windy, but still the dozen kids were able to spend all their time outdoors, coming in mainly to eat or drink. It was a nice, relaxing afternoon in good company.

Some plans for this week...having had only 4 1/2 hours of sleep the night before last, I was not very ambitious and did little more than what had to be done.  This week I need to work figure out what gifts I am getting for a couple of upcoming birthdays, work on on a couple of gifts I am making, mop my sticky floors, and I would like to redesign our Etsy shop tags as well. And like it or not, I have to face the fact that I must begin the dreaded Changing of the Wardrobe for spring and summer.  Oh, how I hate doing that for a household of eight.  And we have the movie The Hobbit to watch, borrowed from friends; we enjoyed the first half last night and will watch the rest today and the special features some time this week.  Una is rather critical of it, saying that Peter Jackson should have stuck more closely to the book; granted, there are parts of the book that must necessarily be somewhat altered to keep the flow of the action and to change narrative to image, but Jackson did take more liberty with the material than he needed to.  But I am enjoying the movie for its own sake.

If I find some time for myself, I would like to...well, just working on the gifts I have to make is a great thing for me, as creative stuff always recharges my battery, so to speak.  But I have been feeling the urge to get back into my writing after having taken a break since autumn.

I am grateful for...a better night's sleep last night than I've had in a week, even though it was on the sofa; the kids not being sick at the moment; friendships, old and new--those near and those that have to span many states; the greening of the pasture, which is causing a little increase in Fiona's milk output.

Some prayer intentions for this week:  for my sister's health.  She suffers from ulcerative colitis, and has been doing poorly lately, so if you could say a quick "Ave" for her health, I would be so grateful.  For those who suffered in the Boston Marathon bombing and for the souls of the perpetrators  For steady employment for Bret and progress on the house; to find someone selling pullets at a price we can afford right now; for the colony of possums to leave our barn (Bret shot a third one last night--they are living much too close to our chicken coop!); for Kateri, whose birthday is this week, and for our Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, whose birthday is today.

Something that makes me smile:  the fact that this here city girl who once thought she would die without access to cafes, movie theaters and second-hand bookshops looks out at this bucolic scene every day and finds it very good.