A Gray-T Day

We got internet in our condo today!  Woo hoo!  Life doesn’t get much better.  There’s no more sitting outside the library trying to catch a signal, no more quick e-mails to friends because my laptop is balanced precariously on a ledge, or my knee or in the drizzling rain.  I’m now back to sitting at my desk, in the comfort of my home, sending e-mails as long as I want, surfing the web and getting answers to all my questions with the touch of the keyboard.  Hallelujah!

Other than that, it was still a pretty great day.  I was up early again this morning getting dinner started, since we invited Tobias and his family over tonight.  I was invited to a prayer meeting this morning, which I knew would take a chunk of time out of my day, so I had to get things going early so I wouldn’t be stressed at the last minute – or so I thought.

So once everything was prepped and ready to go, I drove on down to Kristin’s house for a great time of fellowship, communion and prayer with my dear friends from the Philadelphia Church.  They prayed a lot for me – for strength for this fat-free vegan journey we are on, and boy did I need that.

On my way home, I just “happened” to pass my favorite thrift store, which I knew re-opened today at noon after their month long holiday,  (I’ve had it written on my calendar and have been counting down the days).  It was 12:10pm when I passed by, so the timing was perfect.  Almost, anyway.  The place was packed out!  There wasn’t a parking spot within a block, and the aisles were just crawling with people.  Never have I seen it so crowded, but thankfully it was, because all the money they raise supports mission work overseas.  I made my hefty contribution today, as well.

I’m happy to report I didn’t buy any more Norsk pewter items, but I did find some great crystal bowls and vases, some hand carved wooden spoons, a beautiful hardanger table runner, a hand woven table runner and several other real treasures.  I even bought some practical items like a thermos bottle for the car, which I got for three dollars, and a few lids for pots, which I got for a buck.  I also got some large two-liter old canning jars that say NORGE on them, which I love.  I totally made out today and couldn’t have been more pleased with my purchases.  I could have stayed all day, but Kory was waiting for the car to get home so he could return the pressure washer to Odd. I know I’ll be back.  The old lady in there just smiles when she sees me coming. 

The rest of my afternoon was spent in the kitchen, making fat-free blueberry pie, which was delicious by the way, and even more so if a little vanilla sauce found it’s way on top, thus negating the fat-free part, but still, not all of us have heart disease.

Kory gathered Kaleb up from Andre’s house on his way home from returning the pressure washer.  Kaleb hadn’t eaten or slept a whole lot since he left us yesterday and was a pile of tears at the slightest mention of anything.  I’m sure he was so absorbed in the computer games he was playing that he couldn’t tear himself away to eat anything, nor did he obviously get much sleep.  I’m glad to have him home, well fed, cleaned up, and now sleeping soundly.  He swears he had a good time.

The weather report said it would be cloudy today, but the rain would be coming on Thursday.  Good thing whoever writes that report doesn’t get paid on accuracy.  It was a very GRAY day with drizzle, then rain the whole day, so Kory wasn’t able to do much on the deck.  He pulled the awning out so part of the deck would stay dry, and he tested some oil in one spot to see if it would suck into the wood on top of the stain he put on, but other than that, he acted like he was at home in America and just sat all day in the chair with his I-pad, surfing the web.   I did send him and Kaleb to the store a few times to get last minute things I needed for dinner, and he did go running this morning, but for the most part, he was quite the slug today.

Tonight we were blessed with the company of Tobias and family.  He ordered up dinner a few days ago as he wanted “American food” and then remembered his favorite chicken recipe so he asked for that in particular.  I was happy to oblige.  I threw in some extra vegetables for good measure and the meal turned out pretty well, except for the one new thing I tried to make for Kory.

I found a recipe for chickpea/sweet potato patties that sounded yummy and I’m sure they would have been if my Cuisinart would have worked.  The ingredients needed to be pulverized in order to form the patties, but alas, the electricity difference bit me in the butt again and now my $300 Cuisinart has bit the dust.  My blender was useless, my Magic Bullet didn’t hold enough volume and my hand held emersion blender had already died from an electrical overdose.  It was the only stress I had all day, trying to figure out what to do for Kory so he had something more than vegetables to eat for dinner.  I finally just mashed the whole mess up by hand as well as I could, threw a few of them in the oven and I’ll be darned if they didn’t taste great, just the same.  Lucky me.  But tomorrow, I’m going shopping as I need proper tools for this vegan life.

We had a nice visit with Bjørn, Inger and the twins.  Tobias didn’t talk much, but that’s pretty much Tobias.  He did help Kaleb format his laptop to get it going again after a nasty virus found it’s way onto his hard drive.  Tobias is going to start school to be a computer guy this year – which is a perfect fit for him since he loves those things.  The twins weren’t shouting Hallelujah as much as last year but they are still cute as ever. We made tentative plans for next month to all go for a weekend hike up in the mountains to a lodge where we can spend the night.  That would be a dream come true for me.  So woo hoo for that.  I don’t need sunshine to have a great day.

(P.S. The top photo was NOT taken today!)