One side effect of working in a gourmet foods store, is that when I go along on the regular grocery-shopping trip, the food all seems so much cheaper than I remember it being before. I think it’s because I regularly see such expensive items, that no longer does it seem unreasonable to spend a couple of dollars on a tub of cheese. Maybe that’s a good thing, since I was almost too frugal before, wincing and grumbling all the way through the grocery store. Now I smile and admire and notice the prices to be very attractive.

As I work at my job and see the amazing foods that are served in the little restaurant there, I can’t help but want to eat some of those same things myself. However, my bosses have not yet extended the invitation for me to stuff my face with their food, so alas, I only drool on the display case and wrinkle my nose at the prices.
Finally, I had enough of that exercise and decided to make my own goodies at home. I found a recipe for Chicken Tikki Masala, as well as a recipe for Falafel. The necessary ingredients were assembled, and on Monday I had fun making two ethnic dishes. Supper was enjoyed by almost all of the family, with only a few complaints about the unusual flavors.
I was happy with my first attempts, but then it started bothering me that I didn’t have any tahini to eat with my falafel. I kept putting myself off, saying it wasn’t a big deal, and I ate other things as a condiment with the falafel. Then the next time I wished for tahini, I told myself that I could make tahini later, and to add sesame seeds to the grocery list, and that would be fine.

But this morning I snapped. I had to have tahini right now, because I was hungry for falafel, and I was tired of making substitutions.  So I invited any children to join me in my quick errand to Common Ground, where I bought two cups of sesame seeds.  As soon as I arrived back home, I pulled out a cast-iron skillet and started toasting my seeds.  Once they were done, I poured them into the Vita-Mixer and ground them up with some olive oil.  Turns out, it looks a lot like natural peanut butter.  It has a nice toasted smell, and even tastes quite similar to peanut butter.  I warmed up some leftover falafel, topped with fresh tahini, and enjoyed my lunch.

Sometimes, it’s fun to be impulsive.

Today is our first day of school. The children were fairly cheerful, and some downright excited, to begin their new workbooks. I hurried from one child to the next, listening to reading and answering questions.
My biggest challenge is how on earth to manage my two youngest children while helping the older ones do school. Lilly gets into almost everything, and is so quick and can reach so much. What a busy little girl! Judah behaves fairly well, but he gets bored when everyone else is occupied and he’s not. Sometimes he relieves that boredom by “playing” with Lilly, which often makes her scream, which then grates on my nerves, which in the end is not helpful at all.
Ahh, the joys of school.

My hours at work have been cut again, but that’s really ok with me. Right now I’m on the schedule for about 23 hours. When I saw how much my hours had been cut, I tried to get irritated about it, but quite frankly, I just couldn’t muster up any frustration. I’m hoping to start school with the kids on Monday, and I think it will be nice to have a little more time at home to make school actually happen and be successful.
I’m learning a lot about myself and people in general at my job. For many years I’ve wished I could go back to working outside the home again, because I remember it being something I really enjoyed before I was married. But now that I’m getting a chance to try out that idea, I’m thinking that maybe it’s not such a bad thing to just stay at home and run the household, and let Michael go out and work in the outside world. Having said that, I do still enjoy the chance to go do something quite different from my home life. The time flies, and when I get my paychecks, I feel a great sense of accomplishment. I’m actually contributing real money to our debt snowball, and that’s amazing. So far I’ve earned about a thousand dollars to pay down our debt. We’re knocking that bad bill right out of the park. I can’t wait until it’s all gone.

As I’ve been charting out the next school year for my children, I decided one of the things I’ll have each of them do is read books appropriate to their reading levels. But as I was trying to think of what they should read, I realized I was stumped.
So I contacted my good friend and most-excellent scholar, Dr. Melody Green, and beg her to share some of her expertise in children’s literature with me. Alas, Dr. Green is such a wealth of information, that we were not able to adequately converse via the modern marvel of “chatting” online.
So I invited Dr. Green to lunch with the hope that we can dig deeper into the idea of literature and home schooling.
I can’t decide what part of this lunch date is most exciting to me… perhaps eating at one of my favorite little places in town (Kelly’s Bakery), or maybe discussing children’s literature (a subject near and dear to my heart), or maybe the fact that Dr. Green and I are such good friends, that I know we’ll have a great time no matter if we actually talk about books or not.
Lunch and literature and a lovely friend. A delightful combination.