READING: Four of Tessa Kiros' books, although they are recipe books primarily they have great travel photographs and stories: Apples for Jam, Food From Many Greek Kitchens, Twelve, and Falling Cloudberries.
LISTENING TO: Indianapolis Symphony featured Mahler's Symphony No. 1 this week, so carrying that forward.
SWIMMING NEWS: Matt had an exciting week around the pool, the team got all their new team clothing, etc. and he also got an IU parka, so he was pretty excited about all that. He was moved up to the fastest practice group, a very nice thing for a freshman. A parka and a move up probably translates to traveling varsity team. (A more inspiring thing heading into swimming season in two weeks, I cannot think there is for a young swimmer.)
COOKING BYTES: With the beginning of the Tessa Kiros recipes at IHCC, after looking through four of her books, I have marked a dozen recipes that I may try just for the pure fun of trying to make something I haven't made or am not sure we will even like...ingredients we don't always have readily available (like maybe trying to cook an octopus) and some that we have readily available but I just have not really utilized (beets, fennel, etc.), and one or two that I don't like and maybe I will give a try because I just need to update the taste buds perhaps (pumpkin, anchovies, dried salt cod).
FAV NEW FIND: Alex has a job starting this week, so we are hoping this is a nice start to good things coming.
FAV THIS PAST WEEK: The anniversary party for Mark's parents brought all the siblings, etc. to town and we all sat down to dinner together and enjoyed catching up with everyone's lives. We have been extremely lucky to have Mark's parents close and in fairly good health all these years. At ages 85 and 89, celebrating these anniversary occasions is always a big deal! While the original party at the restaurant had to be changed due to Emil's health right now, we all had a fine time at their home after moving the party location there...and, as the younger generation put it, "Great! We don't have to dress up now, do we? No suits and ties, we can just wear regular clothes?" It was decided a fine casual relaxing day was in order and everyone went the casual route and had a wonderful day/evening.
Photo: Dorothy, Brian, Phil, Luke, Emil, Al, Nancy, and Mark...the parents and all six of their kids.
WEEK IN REVIEW: The anniversary gathering was the biggest thing this week, having Matt home for that part of Saturday and Sunday was wonderful, having Alex come to the party for Grandma and Grandpa was a big deal and very nice, Reyn came home from IU to come to the party as well, the IU football game was another "near win," always encouraging (although in Indiana football is just something to pass the time until basketball season begins, right?). Matt and Reyn wanted to stop at the pumpkin patch to get pumpkins for their dorm rooms/to carve for Halloween, so we did that on the way back to IU, and "one of the greatest things ever," according to Matt, is that I did all the laundry he brought home from college. Apparently there is great appreciation for this sort of thing as doing one's own laundry at college isn't part of the lineup of things he enjoys all that much. The pumpkins were very small and when I inquired why that was, they both said at the same time, "These are DORM SIZE, we don't have a lot of extra room." Ah, yes, silly me. Mark and Alex went here for the afternoon while I was driving to Bloomington and back, and they had a nice day of walking and exploring a good bit of the 100 acres as it was a gorgeous day for an activity like that, and they enjoyed spending some time together outdoors.
PRAYING FOR: Prayers of thanksgiving for Margaret and Bill...enough said, they have had a horrendous year battling Bill's cancer, prayers answered, Bill got the "cancer free" report last week, please join me in praying for thanks for all the answered prayers in your lives.
A last shot of the guys at the anniversary party...Alex, Mark, and Matt.
