Friday January 24, 2025
Dear Diary,
Good morning God,
- Thank you for this day.
- Thank you for homeschooling.
- Thank you for a day of rest.
- Thank you for audiobooks.
- Thank you for pet sitting opportunities.
I love you!
I awoke at 3:30 AM. I played wordle and connections and wrote my blog. I put on the audiobook I had been listening to called The Handmaids Secret. It wasn’t very good material to fall asleep too and I wasn’t sure why I was choosing to listen to a psychological thriller in the first place. They are really intense and the opposite of the peaceful energy I prefer to engage in. I listened to one a few weeks ago and felt yucky afterwards. This current one showed up in my YouTube feed and I got hooked listening to the beginning of it.
At 7 AM, I finally slept some more only to have Angel wake me up at 8 AM saying that she was hungry.
I got up and made Angel breakfast and made tea for myself. Angel did her schoolwork while I sat in the bedroom and continued listening to the audiobook. I stayed in there listening to the audiobook until noon when the book was finally finished. As usual, after listening to a psychological thriller, I felt yucky. That was a waste of five hours of my life but that’s OK, now I can get back to filling my mind with peaceful energy.
I fed Angel lunch and then we met Brett at Zim’s Hot Springs. We swam for a couple of hours. We got out and hung out in the lounge area and played board games. We played Candy Land with Angel. Then Angel played on her phone while Brett and I played one game of Scrabble. We swam for another couple of hours and then went back to our Pet Sitting house. Brett followed us there and I gave him the rest of some tamales I had bought the other day. He went home and I fed Angel dinner.
I called my oldest son Shawn on the phone and while we were talking, I told him about giving my motorhome to Brett. Shawn said that he wanted it if Brett changed his mind about taking it. I told him that I would call Brett and ask him. I hung up with Shawn and called Brett. Brett was fine with me giving the motorhome to Shawn instead. I called Shawn back and told him. Then I hung up and called my other son Scott. As we were talking, I told Scott about giving the motorhome to Shawn. Scott said that he wanted the motorhome. I had no idea that my kids would be so interested in having the motorhome. I told Scott that I would call Shawn and see what he thought about me giving the motorhome to his brother instead. I called Shawn and talk to him about giving the motorhome to Scott. He didn’t like the idea, but I reminded him that I had given him a lot more stuff than Scott including his great grandparents house. He finally consented to me giving the motorhome to Scott. I called Scott back and told him the motorhome was his and he was really excited about it. I was glad the motorhome was staying in the family and I knew that Scott would fix it up really nice. He’s good at that sort of thing and likes doing it.
When I got off the phone, Angel and I brushed her teeth and went to bed. She played with her toys while I wrote my blog notes. Then I put on a sleep, meditation and read some of a Louis L’Amour book. I turned off the light and drifted to sleep at around 10:30 PM.
Saturday January 25, 2025
Dear Diary,
Good morning God,
- Thank you for this day.
- Thank you for good sleep.
- Thank you for laughter.
- Thank you for friends.
- Thank you for bananas.
- Thank you for sunshine.
I love you!
I awoke at 7 AM. I had slept all the way through the night. That’s unusual, but I was grateful for the rest. I received a text from one of my cleaning clients in McCall asking if I was going to be in the area today. As a matter fact, I was planning on spending most of the day in McCall at my friend Brett’s making a quiche recipe to submit to the local newspaper. My client asked if I would stop by their vacation home and reset the furnace because they were not able to do it digitally, I said that I could do that and would be there in an hour and a half. I got up and let the dogs out. Angel woke up and I made her breakfast. I made myself tea and packed up a leftover smoothie from yesterday.
On the drive to McCall, we listened to a Nancy Drew audiobook. I stopped by my clients and reset the furnace. She asked if I would stop by again before leaving town to make sure it was still going and I told her I would. Before going to Brett’s we stopped at Natural Grocers and bought ingredients to make quiche. I was going to make a Mediterranean version of quiche from a recipe I made up in my head. I was pretty sure it would turn out.
Brett was waiting for us when we arrived. Angel played on her phone while Brett and I made the pie crust for the quiche. Then I wrapped it in plastic and put it in the fridge to roll out later. I realized that I had forgotten to bring my farm fresh eggs with me and I remembered seeing a place near Donnelly that sells farm eggs.
Brett suggested that we go into McCall and walk on the ice over Payette lake. He said that the ice is clear this year and you can see the bottom of the lake. He told us that usually the ice isn’t clear, because it snows while it is freezing, and therefore is white and not see-through. It was a beautiful sunny day and even though it was only 10°F out, the sun made it feel much warmer. I’m surprised at how acclimated I have become too cold weather. I find it doesn’t bother me at all and I actually really like it. when I moved to Texas 10 years ago, part of the reason I moved is because I did not like the cold weather in anyway whatsoever. I guess after 10 years of sweating in Texas, I’m grateful for cold crispy air.
We all rode in my truck to Payette lake. On the way I stopped at the farm house that sells eggs. They had them in a fridge with a bucket to put the money in. Yay, I was grateful to find farm fresh eggs because I refuse to buy eggs from the grocery store no matter how “free range” the carton says they are. I don’t trust what cartons say because there’s a lot of ways companies are allowed to disguise the truth about the food they sell.
When we arrived at Payette Lake, we walked down to the frozen water. Angel stepped out into the ice, I told her to be careful and at the same time she slipped and fell. It was a little fall and she didn’t get hurt. It didn’t stop her from getting up and continuing to walk out there. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go out on that ice and risk falling, but I shuffled out and felt stable as long as I shuffled my feet. It was neat having the ice clear and being able to see the bottom of the lake. There were quite a few people out on the ice, they were walking, pulling sleds, ice-skating, ice fishing and more. It was fun being out there and I was having a great time. Suddenly I heard the ice crack underneath me. I froze with fear and I was ready to bail and get back on shore. Brett assured me that the ice couldn’t crack apart because the entire lake was frozen solid. Still it didn’t look thick enough for the possibility of me breaking straight through to be disregarded. Brett also assured me that it was 4 inches thick which was plenty thick to walk on. Only 4 inches! That didn’t seem nearly thick enough but all the other people out on the ice weren’t falling through so I figured there was something to what Brett was saying.
I had asked Brett to take pictures of me on the ice so that I could put up a new profile picture on Facebook. We shuffled over to an area where there weren’t any other people around. The water was really deep there and you couldn’t see the bottom, it was black underneath us. I had gotten used to the sound of the ice cracking but it still brought chills up my spine every time it happened directly underneath me. Brett took pictures of me and Angel joined me for some of the pictures. We started walking back when we heard a loud cracking sound in the ice behind us. We stopped and we could heard the sound traveling across the entire lake. Wow, that was a big one. I wish I would have gotten it on video. I did take a couple of videos earlier.
Before going back to Brett’s, we drove around town and stopped at a garage sale. I couldn’t believe there was a garage sell going on in the middle of winter but I found an electric teapot there that I can use for when I travel. Next, I stopped and got a chai tea from the drive-through coffee shop. There was a carving of a bear climbing up the side of the building. Brett pointed out to Angel that there was a bear. She said it was fake and we continued talking about it as if it was real. Angel scoffed at our silliness. I got my tea and left a tip. The nice thing about small mountain towns is that almost all the coffee shops and restaurants are locally owned and not chain stores. I like supporting local businesses.
When we arrived at Brett’s, I got the pie crust out of the fridge and asked Brett if he had a pie pan. He pulled out an old aluminum one. I refuse to cook on aluminum and asked if he had any parchment paper to cover it with. He didn’t have that either. I told him I was going to the store and asked if Angel could stay there with him. She was sitting on the couch playing on her phone and he said she was fine staying there.
I drove to a thrift store, thinking I could find a glass pie pan for a couple of dollars. I also remembered that Brett didn’t have a rolling pin and I figured I could find one of those too. The first thrift store didn’t have either one. I went to another thrift store and found a nice glass pie pan. I went to buy it until I saw the price tag. It was marked $8. There were other glass pie pans there so I went to get a different one but they were all marked $8. Resort town thrift store prices! I put the pie pan back and went to the third and last thrift store in town. They didn’t have pie pans or rolling pins. So I decided to try Ridley’s grocery store. I found a brand new pie pan there for $7. A dollar less than the used thrift store pie pans. I also bought a rolling pin.
Brett was asleep in the recliner when I walked in the door and Angel was in the exact same spot as when I left. I started rolling out the pie crust. Brett woke up and watched me. When the crust was finished, I started to make the filling. I realized that I didn’t have sun dried tomatoes or zucchini. Brett volunteered to go to the store to get them. While he was gone I got the rest of the filling ready and added the last of the ingredients when he got back. After warming up the oven, we put the quiche in to cook and started a game of scrabble.
We played 3 games of scrabble and the quiche turned out great. It was after 6 pm by the time we finished our last game and I wanted to get back to take care of Lucky. On our way home, I stopped by my cleaning clients vacation house to make sure the furnace was still working and it was. When we got to our pet sitting house, Lucky was happy to see us. I let her out and she played with Bits. Lucky doesn’t like to be petted otherwise I would have given her lots of pettings. I straightened up around the house and looked on Facebook to see if I had any comments to respond to. The first thing that came up on Facebook was a video posted by McCall Fire & EMS. The video showed 2 side-x-sides driving on Payette Lake right behind where Brett had been taking pictures of me earlier. One of the vehicles had broken through the ice and the driver climbed out and got back on top of the ice. That person was lucky to be alive. I sent the video to Brett and called him to see if he had watched it. He had glanced at it but was going to watch it again. He had been sorting through the pictures he took and sent some to me to see if I liked them. I picked out one and posted it as my profile picture.
Angel and I brushed our teeth and went to bed early. I read Angel a chapter of The Princess and the Unicorn. Then I put on a sleep meditation. I realized that I hadn’t played wordle or connections like I usually do. I played those and then tried to sleep. I couldn’t fall asleep so I scrolled through Facebook a while. That made me feel yucky, so I read a Louis L’Amour book until I felt tired enough to sleep. I turned out the light and drifted to sleep at around 10:30 PM.
Thank you for reading my blog and being a part of my life. I appreciate you.
Love, Victoria
P. S. This blog post was inspired by the Holy Spirit.