Of Concerts and Cooking

Ha! I remembered to blog! We’ve had a tightly packed schedule lately, and blogging goes out the window when that happens. But here I am, reporting to the blog, if only to say how busy I am!

On Friday we welcomed our first official tenant to the guest room/studio – our friend Rebecca. I had so much fun making the guest bed – there’s just a lovely, anticipatory and gracious feeling to spreading clean sheets on a bed in preparation for an overnight guest. Rebecca will be with us until Wednesday.

That night we got slammed with our biggest snow/ice storm yet here in the Fingerlakes. That did not keep us from driving an hour south to attend the Matt West, Jeremy Camp, and Toby Mac concert in Elmira, Saturday night, though! Wow, that was an awesome concert. Let me just say, if the “Boomin’ Beyond Measure” Tour comes anywhere near you, get yourself there, no matter what the weather! Jeremy bought a block of 10 tickets, and Anja, Olivia, Rebecca, Micah, Jeremy, and I met Sarah and Luke and their aunt and uncle at the concert. It was totally awesome. 🙂

It was great to see everybody at Church on Sunday, especially having been gone several Sundays in the past month because of the ski program. I am glad that our next trip is midweek so we won’t have to miss the worship and fellowship at Church on Sunday.

We leave on Wednesday for Stowe, Vermont for 3 days of skiing – whoo-hoo! We are heading out with some friends and have booked a suite with a kitchenette, so I have been busy preparing food for the trip. Some people would go on a ski trip planning to…
1. drink coffee and have a donut for breakfast
2. pick up something in the ski lodge cafetaria for lunch and
3. eat out for dinner
…each day while their on a ski trip. For us, that doesn’t fit in the budget, nor within our diet convictions, so I am preparing all our food to bring with us. Rebecca has been a great help as we work together to make meals that will be tasty and quick to heat up after a long day on the mountain. Also, we are tired of lunch meat, so I was trying to think of lunch stuff other than sandwiches. Jeremy brainstormed with me and here’s what we came up with for our three day ski trip…

Corn Chowder, Sloppy Joes, and Chili – all of which can be heated in the room in the morning, and poured into the thermos for a hot lunch later at the lodge. We will also have Taco Salad one day, which Jeremy and I don’t mind having cold occasionally.

For dinners I’m making Enchilada’s, Beef Straganoff, and our friends are bringing Spaghetti and Meatballs.

For breakfasts I’m bringing eggs, bacon, and a loaf of bread and a tsp. of cinnamon in a bag so I can make French toast one morning.

So, having a menu plan, I had my plan of attack. 🙂 This morning Rebecca and I made the corn chowder, cookie dough (to freeze and take to make fresh cookies in the room), peanut butter bars, and spaghetti sauce (from scratch – a first for me!) for dinner tonight. When Jesse took his nap, we headed into the studio to do some crafting together. Then, this afternoon we went shopping for the ingredients for the rest of my menu plan. Tomorrow we will make tortillas to use in the enchiladas, we’ll assemble the enchiladas, cook up the straganoff, add the chocolate-butterscotch topping to the peanut butter bars, and pack our bags for an early departure Wednesday morning.

So, that’s what I’ve been up to! I haven’t welcomed new readers to the blog in a while – to be honest, I’ve been too busy to keep track of all our commentators! Thanks to everyone who has stopped by to say hello – if you want an official welcome, leave a comment sometime during the week, and I’ll try to post our new readers next week. We usually link to your blog when we welcome you, too, so do say hello!

I’ll post some pictures of our accomplishments tomorrow!