Thursday Thoughts!

 This week has been full here.  I bet your week has also been full.  We are only two weeks into the new year and I have already fallen off the write-down-what-you-eat-before-you-eat-it wagon.  Well, some days I am doing it, but not religiously.  I have also tubbed up a lot.  Well, some.  Today I am turning this wagon around.  

This morning one of my counselors and I made a three-hour cruise.  Actually, it was a 3-hour drive and we did not end up on an uninhabited island. We did find a grand-mom and her new granddaughter at home. We spent a moment on the doorstep as we delivered a sweet little quilt another sister in the ward had made.  At the other house (which was a LONG way away...no wonder she found it hard to get to Church...) we found a nice man and a lovely cage where he had a white peacock!  I had never seen a white one.  He had gotten it thinking it would be a mate for the peacock he already had, but it turned out to be male also!  Sad.  I wonder what their pea-babies would have looked like.  Anyway, we learned that the sister who lived in that gorgeous house had moved to Kentucky. Three years ago!  Now we will hunt her down there to say goodbye and best wishes.

On the way back we stopped in Olanta at the Thigpen Farm where Dear One and I bought Asian sweet potatoes last fall. (I have two of those little beauties in the Instant Pot with a sweet onion and a wedge of cabbage for supper.  No, Dear One will not be sharing it with me.  He had a Subway sandwich which was lunch and supper...!). We learned a lot about sweet potatoes. It looks like I can plant a few starts, but earlier than I did last year, but plan to visit the farm again in August...!

After the visiting I managed to drive myself to theYMCA where I swam for only the second time this week. It was glorious though the water was only 89 degrees!  Often it is 90 degrees.  You would not think so but you really CAN feel the difference.  The YMCA app worked today so I signed up for a slot in the pool tomorrow.  I got in more than an hour of moving through the water. I really should not glorify what I do as swimming...but I did keep moving for a long time, though not as long as when Ms Ruby is there to chat with.  THOSE are really good days!

On the way home I stopped for Dear One's sandwich but before doing that, I stopped at a new Tienda Latina on Broad Street.  It is a small shop but has quite a bit of good stuff in it!  I got some Mexican vanilla as well as a gingerbread bar and some other semi-sweet  bread-y thing. I ate some on the way home and Dear One scarfed down the rest. I really MUST learn Spanish.  DuoLingo here I come!

This darling little ball with the fluffy green hair and the green-haired, headed pen with the tip to use on your phone keyboard was a gift from the nice proprietor of Mercado Acosta.  So nice of him.

Now that I am home and stopped, I feel like a nap coming on but should not do that.  I started to write this post about things that have been on my mind this week. Instead I am just blatting on about what I have done today...Sorry.  Not at all the thing!

Thought 1:  Sometimes you can prepare a meal that you think will be fabulous and it just plain isn't.  We had a meal like that this week. I made "Healthy Vegetable Soup".  I have come to believe that when the word "healthy" is in a recipe's title, the food is probably just this side of garbage.  In this case, it was my own fault.  It cooked way too long in the Instant Pot.  I did not have time to hang around the stove babysitting the soup so I cooked it in the Instant Pot.  For a LONG time.  Mistake #1.  Mistake #2 was that when the recipe called for a 28-ounce can of diced tomatoes, I put in a 15-ounce can of "Fire-Roasted Diced Tomatoes".  Along with extra vegetable broth.  WELL...this really was just this side of garbage. I realized after talking with Dear Daughter that the problem was the fire-roasted/burned tomatoes.  I had used fire-roasted tomatoes once before and found the flavor they imparted to be nasty but did not remember.  Now I will remember.  There are two half-gallon jars of this glop in the refrigerator.  I would rather eat the leftover miso soup with udon noodles and tofu than the Healthy Vegetable Soup...!  Hopefully I will get to it before it goes bad.  Or should I say, worse.

Thought #2:  When you have a "great thought" come into your mind, after examining it closely and finding that it really is a great thought, it would be wise to act on it immediately.  No story to share, but a truth I have come to believe.

Thought #3: Our lives will be so much happier and more productive if we spend time every single day counting our blessings.  Gratitude is the very best medicine.