Five good things.

Sorry this post is up way past the end of the week. I couldn't connect to the gemini server on my laptop, but Christopher fixed it for me. I hope to have another post this week too.

Remembering five things I was thankful for from this past week. The hardest part was picking just five. We had a beautiful day today. We even saw a few butterflies, in spite of snow still in the yard. Silas remarked to me that "butterflies look so cute when they're twinkling around." They do twinkle around! I loved that.

While we were outside Julian came over to show me his shadow. "I maked a picture of me!" he said. I realized he had never noticed his shadow before, so he was discovering it for the first time. Making a picture of himself was a very good description, I thought.

1. First week of Couch to 10K

Silas and Micah and I signed up for Couch to 10K where you complete weekly training sessions to get ready for the Midnight Sun Run in June. It only costs $20 to sign up and if you complete 10 workouts you get free registration to the Midnight Sun Run.

Micah is a little too young to jog or run very far, so we are walking but it's still a lot of fun. After being cooped up inside most of the winter, it's great to be outside walking on a mild, sunny spring evening. There are a lot of people participating and we saw friends from church and my older brother too. Fun!

Even though I completed Couch to 10K last year while I was pregnant with Eric, I couldn't do the Midnight Sun Run because I hurt my knees at the last training session. It took them a couple of weeks to get well enough to walk without hobbling. Maybe this year.

2. Favorite coffee creamer.

I am obsessed with International Delight Almond Joy creamer right now. Almond Joy is my favorite candy bar too. When we stopped at Walmart on Saturday I was disappointed to see that they had every flavor in stock except Almond Joy. I started to walk away. Christopher, though, found a worker and asked if they had any in the back. The man went to check and after a few minutes reappeared with a whole box of them. So thanks to Christopher, this week I have been able to have my favorite coffee creamer and I am very thankful.

3. First leaves

The chokecherry tree by our living room window had its first leaves come out on a branch that touches the building. This tree gets a lot of heat from the building so it's always the first tree to turn green. The others likely won't follow for another two weeks. It's good to see some green.

New leaves

4. Eric slept through the night.

On Wednesday night Eric fell asleep at around 9:30 and slept until 7:30, for the first time ever. Thursday night he woke up only once briefly at 5, nursed for about 10 minutes and fell sound asleep again. He's only 7 months old, so I'm not going to assume this is the new normal. I was thankful for those couple of nights, though.

5. It seems like in grilling season we eat a lot more meat, so to help the budget I tried to plan in some meatless meals this week. One good meal we had was garlic spaghetti with homemade French bread and plain spinach salad. This recipe for garlic spaghetti just called for simmering garlic and herbs in some olive oil and butter, then mixing with the pasta along with a half a cup of grated parmesan. It's amazing how simple ingredients can make a satisfying dinner. French bread is just yeast, water, flour, and salt and it's so good. (I have been adding a squeeze of honey to all my bread dough lately too, so I guess I shouldn't say "just".)

For me I've found it's worth the money to keep a wedge of nice Parmesan-Reggiano as a kitchen staple. I use it at least 3 or 4 times a week. A large wedge costs about $14 at Costco and it lasts us a long time. Good parmesan was the secret here, I think.