Monday afternoon

Just checking in! I do love receiving your comments and e-mails but I realized today that I have both (comments with corresponding e-mail addresses when available and actual e-mails to the Coffee Tea Books & Me address) that I haven't answered in a long time. I have been so busy.

I continue to be "under the weather" even though we have lovely temperatures outside for a couple of days. I would much rather be on the porch reading than under the covers reading, as I have been all afternoon. I recently agreed to review a charming kid's book and I hope to take pen to paper (mouse to keyboard) later this evening. I get requests all the time to review books and this one was the first I've agreed to in many months. I could tell by the description it would be one I'd want to tell others about.

Pictures have been taken to share my "pantry" in the garage and a couple storage areas in the kitchen. I hope to start writing more about stocking up and recession planning tomorrow. We won't be able to do any stocking up this month, we'll be using our pantry! Our mechanic called today and told us the car will be $500 since we had him do one other bit of work we knew had to be fixed while he had the car taken apart, anyway. That is our complete grocery budget for the month! How grateful I am that we have food in the freezer and pantry.

So... hopefully I can write the review this evening but if not, tomorrow. I could use some prayers! I don't know if these symptoms are just a "bug" or related to the diabetes. I'm hoping it is the former and will be over with soon. In the meantime, I've been re-reading Inklings and Expectations. They are such wonderful novels about Oxford and Cambridge in the mid-1960s (beginning with the day of C.S. Lewis' funeral). I don't read romance novels as such but these are different. One feels they are walking through the English mist and taking tea with the Tolkiens (which is where I left off in Expectations).

I was thinking of yesterday's Sunday Afternoon Tea with the realization that I'd have a lot more readers if this blog was not quite so, ummm... Christian. I know there are readers who are not religious (I do not like that word but it is the only one I can think of right now) and who definitely would not see God's handiwork in all of creation. However, that is who I am so that is what I write. We "get it" when we look at the world around us and realize there is an Artist.

I will return to reading now, having crawled out of bed to make a meatloaf (I am so thankful that was on the menu for tonight's dinner, I can make them in my sleep... well, almost) and type a quick post. I have instant potatoes in the pantry and frozen peas in the freezer. Both will take only minutes to fix and the guys will have a "real" dinner. Christopher has been gone since yesterday so I know he is looking forward to a home cooked meal when he gets off of work.

See ya' later!

Photo: Daniel Garber; allposters.com