Tuesday the 15th: Steak Salad

 We made a grilled steak and onion salad. It was so good! I rarely buy steak because of the price, but this was a cheaper one and the grilling and marinade were quite tasty.

 

 

Monday the 14th: Saints of the Week

 SO MANY SAINTS THIS WEEK

*Today is St. Callistus, pope who died in 223. Very little is known for certain, but one of the cemeteries in Rome still bears his name.

*St. Teresa of Jesus, 16th century Spanish Carmelite, founded the Discalced branch along with St. John of the Cross. She was known for her forthrightness, her zest for life, and her zeal for founding new houses. She wrote Interior Castle, a famous mystical work.

*St. Margaret Mary Alacoque or St. Hedwig is for Wednesday; this year I'm celebrating St. Hedwig since I teach with St. Hedwig at our high school. This 13th century Bavarian was wife, mother, and later nun at a convent where her daughter was the abbess. She was canonized only 30 years after her death.

*St. Ignatius of Antioch was a first century priest and martyr, Apostolic Father, and provides evidence of the activity of the early Church. He is mentioned in the first Eucharistic Prayer.

*St. Luke the Evangelist is the feast for this week (Gloria at Mass). He wrote both the Gospel of his name and the Acts of the Apostles; he might have been a physician; he might have died of natural causes. He pays particular attention to the poor and women in his gospels and others at the fringes.

* North American Martyrs rounds out our week on Saturday. These Jesuits were missionaries, killed by indigenous people reluctant to be converted. They died around 1648 in what is now Quebec.

(St. Callistus I: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/358599189058448971/)

Friday the 11th: hair cut

 My new hairdresser doesn't like my short hair so she's working on making it longer. This haircut (after 4 months) is slowly blending out my bangs, and should start getting longer in the back. I never go back as often as they like, but they do remember me when I come.

 

 

Thursday the 10th: Music of the Week

 *Church: Three Masses at three parishes this week means that I have a lot to work through to be ready. We are also having visitors this weekend so I need to get ready for them.

*School: Concert is next Tuesday so we are doing final prep, final run throughs, for that.

*Musical: Hopefully we start running through Act I next week.

Wednesday the 9th: Food of the Week

 *Sunday we made curried peanut chicken; it's grilled chicken breast and red bell peppers, sprinkled with coconut and dried cranberries, served over rice. There were plenty of leftovers.

*Monday I made gnocchi from scratch with Big C's help, along with browned butter and sage. They were delicious.

*Tomorrow I think I will make butter chicken in the crockpot and enjoy it for a yummy supper.

Sorry this is short! Life is full right now, and this is the most I can manage today.

Tuesday the 8th: Kidney goods

 I showed you the supplies I bought for the kidney party, and the only other picture I took was of these kidney socks and kidney cookie cutter that a work friend brought as a present. We had a lovely time with adults and kids and others; it was also lovely to finish off the leftovers.

 

 

Monday the 7th: Saints of the Week

 *Today is the memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary, set today because of a major naval victory at Lepanto over the Turkish fleet in 1571. The French (any maybe others?) honor this as Our Lady of Victory. The pope had asked everyone to pray the rosary for victory.

*Wednesday is either St. Denis or St. John Lombardi, both optional memorials. This year I'll do St. John Lombardi, an Italian priest of the 16th-17th centuries who founded a diocesan order but then went into exile where he took care of St. Philip Neri's cat.

*Friday is St. John XXIII. He proposed the idea of Vatican II, convened the council, and then died in 1963 after the first session.

(Picture found on Pinterest: https://ffactory.tumblr.com/post/63058279957/notre-dame-des-victoires)

Friday the 4th: Other kinds of teaching

 One Saturday a month, I teach adults how to teach truths of our faith to three to six year olds; this is the altar setup we use to make that happen. It shows many but not all of the articles used at Mass that would help the young child with nomenclature.

 

 

Thursday the 3rd: Music of the Week

*We have all of the transpositions done (moving a music piece up or down a key) for the musical and I know them a little, so I'm upping to four pieces a day and will be at five pieces a day by next week. We are over a month away so there's plenty of time to keep improving.

*The concert is less than two weeks away, and again most pieces are getting close to being ready and that's fine, I don't want them to be great until the concert itself or I get complacent and don't do my best at the concert.

*I'm trying to slightly reduce my Sunday Mass playing just to give myself a breath, and so I shouldn't have more than two Masses a weekend through this month. Hopefully.

*Fun music right now is just Hanon exercises, two more days on the A minor harmonic scale and then switching to a new key.

Wednesday the 2nd: Food of the Week

 *We started the week with Wahoo Weiners grilled, grilled onion, and some leftovers.

*Then I made the sweet and sour popcorn chicken that I never made last week; I felt the chicken wasn't quite crispy enough but otherwise it was a good meal. I made rice a roni to go with it, and white rice would have been better.

*Tonight I made a southwestern meatloaf (tortilla chips and salsa for the wet and dry with the beef, along with other seasonings) and toasted some tortillas with it.

*Tomorrow is going to be a salad kit, and Friday I'm eating out because Big C will be on a work trip.

 

 

Tuesday the 1st: Party shopping

 At the end of August we celebrated Big C's 15th anniversary since his kidney transplant. We had a party to celebrate with about 20 people over during an open house, and we made cheesecake pies and a taco salad bar. We still have sour cream left over but everything else has been shared/used up.