Friday March 15, 2024
Dear Diary,
I woke up at 4:30 and started looking at parking options at the Austin airport for when I fly to Utah on Wednesday for a week. The Austin airport had no availability so I looked at other parking options. I didn’t like the price of any of them. I searched and searched, then I signed up for park and zoom to see what they cost. Much to my surprise, the first time using them is free. I really liked that price. That whole process had taken a while and at 6:30 AM I went back to sleep for an hour until 7:30 AM. It was raining out when I woke up and I enjoyed listening to the sound of the rain for a few minutes. I noticed that Angel had already gotten up and made her bed. I’m glad she is getting in the habit of making her bed. I got up and made my bed, then I let out the chickens, geese and ducks. Last night the geese had gone in the chicken coop with the chickens. That’s what they did at their previous owners and that works out great for us. They are much easier to herd in than the ducks. They haven’t discovered the pond yet and things might change when that happens.
I went in the house, fed the dogs and made my tea and a smoothie. Angel had already eaten and was getting ready for her last day at horse camp. We were all going as a family and the kids were going to perform for their parents what they learned. We headed out at 8 AM and arrived right on time at 8:30 AM. The parents and kids hung out in the barn chatting and petting the horses for a while. Then all the kids received an engraved wooden plaque as an award. Angel received the “laser focus” award, for having good focus while riding. Then the kids performed in the arena showing what they had learned that week. The rain had stopped and the weather was perfect. Angel went first and did a great job. While we watched the other children and one adult perform, I noticed Angel sitting under a tree playing in the dirt with another girl. I walked over and took a couple of pictures of them while they played. It was a picture perfect moment. They looked so content and peaceful.
When everyone had finished their performance, we headed home and stopped at the grocery store on the way. I was glad there were ripe bananas at the grocery store because I wanted to freeze a bunch in order to make banana “nice” cream for Angels birthday party tomorrow. The way I make “nice” cream is I blend frozen bananas in the vitamix blender using the tamper to push them down. What happens is they turn into the texture of soft serve ice cream. It’s a fun way to have “nice” cream made with only bananas. You can add different fruits to change the flavor or add cacao or vanilla powder. It’s a great treat that has no processed sugar and is full of vitamins and minerals. It’s much faster, easier and healthier to make than homemade ice cream but you do have a have a food processor or high speed blender in order to make it.
While I was peeling bananas and bagging them up to put them in the freezer, Christopher ground up wheat berries in the vitamix and made homemade bread.
When I finished the bananas I started a batch of homemade dog food in the crock pot and hung clothes on the line. While we were doing all of that Angel was busy cleaning her room to get it ready for her birthday party tomorrow.
When all of our chores were done, Angel and I blew up balloons and I tied 6 of them together to make a huge paper maché piñata. I made up a batch of white flour and water while Angel grabbed a bunch of newspapers. We took everything outside and got started. Shortly into our paper machè project I realized that I had made it way too big. It was too late to go back now and we continued on. We made a mess of ourselves and went through all the flour but we managed to get it all done (Christopher even joined in at the end). We set it in the house to dry with a fan and a heater blowing on it. I doubted it would be try in time for the birthday party tomorrow but we would see.
We cleaned ourselves up and I put a cover on the pop-camper that had been delivered. It fit nicely and will keep the camper dry until I get the roof resealed. I put fresh water in the ducks pools and sat on the porch bench in front of the banana hut and wrote my blog. Then I talked to my son Shawn on the phone for a while and jumped on the trampoline with Angel.
It was getting to be evening by then and Angel and I took a bath. While in the bath I noticed the privacy bamboo fence I kept putting up had fallen down again. I got out of the bath and secured it much better with heavy duty string. That should keep it from falling down. I got back in the bath and Angel told me the names of all her toy unicorns she had in her bathtub toy box. There are a lot of them and I hope there won’t be a test on it later because I would probably mix up sparkle star with rainbow star or rainbow sparkle with sparkle sky or flower star with sparkle flower or moon star with sparkle sun.
After our bath we ate dinner. I ate a big salad. Then we went on a family walk in the woods with the dogs and Fluffy the cat. I took pictures of lichen, a dogwood flower and I got nice close up pictures of a tiny wolf spider and fire ants. We walked to where Angel and I had made fairy lands a few months ago. We straightened them up and got them looking nice again. The dogs and Fluffy were running around playing and excited to be out in the woods. Healer the puppy hadn’t been that far out in the woods before and soon we will take him out on the trail loop around the property so he will know what territory is his.
When we got back home my sister Trisha called. I talked to her for a while and when I got off the phone, we all chased the ducks that were headed to the pond back to the yard. We got them cornered, caught them and put them in their coop. Then Christopher showered and we all gathered in the banana hut. I read 2 chapters of A Wrinkle in Time. Then we said our good nights. Angel slept in the house with Christopher and I went to sleep around 9:30 PM.
Thank you for reading my blog, and being a part of my life. I dearly appreciate you.
Love,
Victoria
P. S. This blog post was inspired by the Holy Spirit.