Cooking and other evening thoughts

L. (our future roommate) and I are cooking dinner. We decided that since it was the weekend, and since we have no particular evening plans other than relaxing, we would cook a really nice meal.

So we're cooking "Fantastic Roasted Chicken" (recipe here) and serving it with roast potatoes, steamed snap peas, and steamed carrots in an orange-brown sugar sesame herb glaze.

We joked about the fact that we could use lots of garlic, cause we're not seeing boys tonight!

The plan is to throw a goofy, fun, possibly even sappy movie into the dvd player after dinner, curl up with some microwave popcorn, and flip through the stack of cookbooks we picked out at the library this afternoon, looking for future weekend cooking plans.

I'll bake banana bread at some point tonight. And hang our shower curtain liner.

We did errands for probably 5 hours this morning. The farmer's market, the grocery store, a wine shop, and a fantastic little European bakery (we bought pastries for dessert following our dinner tonight). I bought some gifts for some friends at 10,000 villages.

I took a long, lavender scented bath, and read a book this afternoon. At the moment, I'm contemplating dozing off on the couch in between checking on the chicken in the oven.

Tomorrow afternoon L. and I will pull out the scrapbooking supplies, and make some greeting cards, fulfilling a need we're both feeling to "do something artistic".

Our apartment is starting to smell pretty fantastic.

It's been a pretty good (though with a few car accident from last night related blips) day.

Beautiful Plans

This is the first Saturday in a while that I've greeted with anticipation.

I walked for a long time in the park, in the rain last night, talking with Jesus, and watching creation. The longer I walked and prayed, the harder it rained. I saw a couple of deer, and some geese and ducks, listened to the birds singing out. The rain ran down my face, pooled in the corners of my eyes, and slipped, like the tears that won't quite come, down my cheeks. It was a gift - rich and deep and healing.

And then I had a minor car accident. But that is something that is surprisingly okay as well.

I spoke for a long time with a dear friend when I arrived home. Sharing of hearts, and laughter, and praying together. The second gift.

I was up way too late, but slept deeply, without dreams or waking for about four straight hours, and then slept a couple hours more after that. That too was a gift.

And so, I'm greeting this morning with anticipation, with peace, with rest, with some degree of joy. I have a long list of things to be accomplished today, but they are mostly things that will feed my soul and bring a smile to my face.

These are the things I need to do today or tomorrow:

• shop for groceries
• purchase a bottle of wine
• visit the Farmer's Market (to buy the best homemade turkey-mango sausage, fruit, bath salts, honey, and maybe some beeswax candles)
• hang a new liner for our shower curtain
• visit 10,000 Villages and purchase a few items I should have bought a few weeks back, and a few gifts
• bake banana bread
• mop our kitchen floor
• visit the library
• help our future roommate pack and move her things from her current place to our house, and to her temporary lodging for the next month until we move to a new place
• buy flowers
• email a friend
• write a card for my aunt and enclose a gift I purchased in Rome (a tiny silver crucifix, bought at the Vatican - a gift for my aunt who is not only one of my favorite people, but a nun.) My parents are visiting her in about two weeks, and will deliver my card and gift for me.
  
• rest
• read
• laugh
• cook something fantastic
• and possibly even take a nap!