Abe left for D.C. today, and having him gone brought back all the memories I have from his last job. I had completely forgotten what it was like staring down an evening alone in the house with the kids, but to my delight, what happened tonight is nothing like the monotony I recall from being alone during Abe’s Guardsmark trips.
The girls and I cuddled up on the couch and binge watched The Living Scriptures videos, I fed them dinner at 3:30 pm (much more in sync with their actual hunger cycle, but normally I have to time their meals so we can have a family dinner with Abe), played with them, read to them, showered, got everyone ready for bed, read scriptures with them, prayed–and voila! 8 pm bedtime happened for the first time in six months. Daylight savings helped, but still. It felt great to be back on track.
Then I updated my family tree with some information I got from the Philippine Jesuits and watched this video about a million times. I discovered it a couple days ago and can’t stop watching it. My heart feels so full and achy each time I watch. I guess Chicago will always feel like my authentic home, even though I am genuinely happy to have adopted Utah for the–indefinite–future.
Here are the pictures from today.
playing with/in the suitcases you gave them, Grandma. On a recent play date one of Mary’s friends played with this suitcase and Mary freaked out and started crying, pointed to the suitcase and shouted, “Gamma Cuwen! Gamma Cuwen!” (Translation: “Grandma Cullen gave ME that!”)
performing the trick she was trying to show you on the phone, Mom.
The only time in my life I’ve ever been good at fasting was on my mission. That was kind of the Golden Era of fasting in my life, and ever since then I have really struggled. Usually, I break down a couple hours before dinner because all I can think of is food. Last month I didn’t even make it past breakfast! At least today I made it until after my post-church nap, but then I started thinking about food and couldn’t stop. The theme at church seemed to be “God loves us no matter what. Even if we literally can not get out of bed, God loves us as much as if we were the most active, productive people in the world. His love is unchanging.” As I forked into my spaghetti, I was comforted by that message. Next month I will try again.
The pace of the day picked up after that, when I attempted to make a big batch of soup from dried black beans. Here’s something I am ashamed about: I have only tried cooking with dried beans (lentils don’t count) twice in my life, and both times were a huge flop! Until now, I have opted for the cans. But they are so darn expensive, so last night I tried again to soak a bunch of black beans to cook today. I soaked them overnight, cooked them for hours, and reread Mark Bittman’s little homily on the ease and economy of dried beans to bolster my courage. However, even after all of that, my beans still weren’t as creamy as the canned kind. Does anyone know if they need to soak for two days? Cook for six hours? What am I doing wrong?
After I turned my fibrous, less-than-creamy beans into soup, we rushed out the door to drop the kids off at Tom and Suzanne’s so we could attend a baby blessing. Our friends, Aria and Clay Rockwood, had a home blessing tonight. It was exactly the same as a blessing in church, only a lot more fun and with food. They had the best bruschetta I have ever eaten in my life, and Abe and I embarrassed ourselves by going back for…fifths. Aria’s going to send me the recipe for her spread (which involves feta, cream cheese, butter and lemon). Have you ever seen the scene in Julie and Julia where Julie and her husband are eating bruschetta for dinner? I LOVE that scene, and tonight, I lived it out in person. What a dream!
Then we hung out at Tom and Suzanne’s until the girls were so tired that we took them home and put them straight to bed, sans baths.
Here are today’s pictures (also, I figured out yesterday’s pictures, so I amended yesterday’s post, too):
As I was cleaning the kitchen tonight, I saw this duck on the floor and felt overwhelmed with gratitude that I am a mother of small children. Some day they won’t leave sweet evidences of innocent play all over the house, and that will be sad.Lydia wailed when we removed her from the side of her grandpa. She thoroughly enjoyed her evening with Tom and Suzanne.Lydia was born into a family the loves technology.
