stay-at-home Sunday

Today I spent almost the whole day resting in bed. I still don’t have my voice back and I was completely exhausted. I feel like when I review the blog at random, fifty percent of the time I click on a day when it reads, “I spent the whole day in bed because I was sick and tired.” Maybe that’s a sign I should lay off the sugar or be more consistent about vitamins or something.

At any rate I did rouse myself to tidy, fold laundry, and do some chores at various points in the day, and I finished reading The Anatomy of Peace and the novel, Less. At the end of the day I sat down Mary and Lydia and tried for the umpteenth time to teach them how to crochet. I haven’t crocheted myself in years so I was also re-teaching myself, and in the process might have let fly a few too many swear words in the heat of it all. (At any given moment Lydia was impatiently charging ahead with her–incorrect–technique and demanding to know what to do next, Mary was struggling with step one, and I was trying to re-watch the tutorial to see where we all went wrong.)

In the morning I came out of the bedroom to see Abe printing out the coloring pages Clarissa pointed out. I took a picture because it was so adorable to hear her say, “Dad, you are SO AMAZING!!” because whatever she pointed to magically printed out for her to color.
Gazing adoringly at Abe after he printed out her coloring pages.

Abe’s day included of a two-hour long zoom call with his AXB group of friends. They had their annual secret Santa gift exchange and monthly chat, which sounded very fun. There was a lot of laughter and Abe seemed to be in a better mood after that. He has felt very tired and worn down, and the fact that I have laryngitis just adds to all he has to do. But he has been very kind and giving in spite of his fatigue and it was nice to hear him having so much fun with his friends.

His call came at the same time as morning church, but he zoomed in to the local afternoon meeting. Some people in the CoC still attend their LDS wards because they have a spouse or kids still going there, and I guess one of our local CoC people had a pretty rough day at her ward that she wanted to process with the group. I have had a lot of positive experiences in LDS chapels lately (listening to my post-Mormon friend Courtney sing in her home ward, and then accompanying Courtney for the funeral service of her father-in-law were both very positive experiences), but listening to Abe relate what the lesson was in the LDS church today was frankly upsetting. I felt grateful to have my whole family safely out.

Here is Clarissa stuck in the footrest. Abe thought it was funny.
Abe also played Chutes and Ladders with Ammon and Clarissa

Mary made Dorie Greenspan’s World Peace Cookies today. I did not help a bit, and they tasted amazing. We ate all of the pretty ones but Abe got a picture with the last batch of the, er, less pretty–but oh-so-tasty!!–ones below.

Mary also made a fairy house for the hall table.

I think Abe and I are going to take an easy walk around the block with Basil after the kids go down and either watch TV or read books until 10:30pm hits.