Seven Quick Takes: Volume One

Seven Quick Takes

Hosted by Conversion Diary:

I thought this would be fun to start, so here it goes!

1.

Amazing soup, invented by a friend, who wanted to have something appropriate for the Fast to feed me yesterday, and so good I made it myself today for our dinner!

2 quarts (more or less) vegetable broth

2 cups cooked or about a handful soaked-but-not cooked chickpeas

About a cup French couscous - the little ones, not the big couscous

1 whole celery chopped

6 carrots chopped

1 onion chopped

5 bay leaves

4 cloves garlic

Lots of parsley, oregano, and whatever you have laying around

Salt

I put in on the woodstove all day, she boiled it up on her stove for just a little while, it’s up to you, either way - delicious!

2.

We’re getting more sap than I expected (these cold nights are a blessing for that anyway! I’m doubting we’ll get more than a gallon - and probably closer to a half - we only tapped four trees after all, but a little maple syrup is better than none at all! I’m determined to make maple ‘cream’ this year. I bought some for Seth last Christmas and wanted to eat it all myself!

3.

Speaking of Christmas, cleaning really, really well for Christmas Eve is the best way to keep the house clean all year! I’ve had such an easier time this winter driving away dirt, do it next year, you’ll be grateful in March, when everything is a muddy mess and somehow, you manage to stay on top of it all! Not that everything is perfect at the yurt, but I think it’s looking pretty good. Next year, I need to make sure the yard is clean too, because right now, ours is hideous.

4.

My parents bought themselves a chainsaw to play with on our land..I’m kind of thrilled. I think I’ll turn them loose on all the skinny dead trees and save Seth some labor! That’s their plan, and it’s looking good to me. They also plan on baby-sitting when they come up at Easter - but not while cutting trees! - I think we’ll go to one of the funkier, louder restaurants..or maybe we’ll go get tattoos together! I have so many designs-in-waiting..so little money to use on them.

5.

Yarrow hates to say ‘please’. I don’t know why. She love’s ‘Thank-you’ and ‘Excuse me’ but will not say please if she can possible help it. She’ll even decide she doesn’t want chocolate, or to be held, or anything, rather than say it..I wonder if she’d go for “proszę”?

6.

We’ll be celebrating St. Patrick’s with read through of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar! A friend of ours plans these fantastic parties, I’m thrilled. They’re the English’s major’s ideal, and I haven’t read Shakespeare in years, it’s nice to rediscover him! Christie over at Everything to Someone highly recommends Joseph Pearce’s book ___ that argues for Shakespeare’s Catholicism. I think it’d be an interesting read.

7.

Everyone knows already that we have a new Pope - Francis I! He’s adorable, and I’m thrilled to have a Pope who knows and loves the Eastern Rite. I miss Benedict, who alway delighted me, and whose mind and writing I loved to study. But Francis’ election was wonderful, Yarrow and I danced around the house, laughing and singing and loving him from afar. We gave him a rosary and a walk through the woods. When Seth came home, we split a beer for him and rejoiced to have a new father.