White Bean & Ham Soup and Whole Wheat Rolls

Yesterday was gorgeous and springy, with lots of sunshine and birdsong. I spent the afternoon and part of the early evening putting in most of our garden.  I planted tomatoes, a couple of butternut squash plants, peppers, basil, and some late lettuce plants, and also sowed the seeds for three types of pumpkins, green beans, cucumbers, acorn squash, and more butternut squash. When I began, I thought, our garden space is so large, I certainly will have lots of room left but by dinner last night I was thinking we really need to till up another garden plot.

Here's the sketch of this year's planting!  I will be rotating in zucchini, yellow squash, more tomatoes, and more beans in a week or two.

I wanted to get everything in yesterday because I knew today was supposed to be rainy, and it is! In fact, it's both rainy and cold.  I had to wake both of my children around 8:30. We have spent the morning reading in separate corners of the living room while the washer and dryer do my chores.  It's not even lunchtime and I've already had a cup of coffee and a cup of Yorkshire Gold tea!  

Well: some days are meant to be quiet and cozy, so I'm just going to let this one unfold that way. If the rain ceases later today, I'll take my walk; if not, I'll just make peace with having a sedentary Tuesday!

One extra cozy thing to have on a rainy, cold day is soup.  I make lots of different soups, but this one is a newer favorite.  Although I tend not to eat much meat, this soup does contain ham, because it adds such a good flavor.  It's the simplest soup in the world to throw into the crockpot in the morning, and it cooks all day and infuses the house with coziness.  Later today I'll start a batch of rolls with freshly-milled wheat--another cozy touch, and another recipe I'll include below!

White Bean and Ham Soup

1 lb. dried white beans (great northern or navy) 

32 ounces chicken stock 

2 cups diced ham*

1 onion

3 cups water

Place these ingredients into a crockpot and turn it on high.  Let it cook all day; after a few hours I usually turn it to low or warm and let it simmer.  

Half an hour or so before serving, stir in 1c. of milk (or, if you're really needing some energy, heavy cream or half-and-half!). 

The recipe is deceptively simple!  I'm serious: this may be my favorite soup of all-time. The flavor combination is just so satisfying on a cold day. 

Easy Whole Wheat Rolls 

1 c. warm water

1/4 c. sugar

1 egg

1 tsp. salt

2 T. butter

1 packet (or 2.5 tsp) yeast

3 1/4 c. flour** 

Combine 1 c. warm water and yeast in a bowl, and stir.  Let it sit for a few minutes.

Add 3 c. flour and 1/4 c. sugar plus 1 egg and 1 tsp salt, then chop the 2 T. butter into bits and add that. Mix with a dough hook. (I have also just mixed by hand.)

If the dough is still too wet, add 1/4 c. flour and mix. It should form a ball that is not sticky. 

Cover with a towel and let rise 1.5 hours. 

Flour hands and punch down dough, then form it into a ball again. On a lightly-floured cutting board, cut the ball in half, then cut eat half in half again, and so forth, until you have 16 mostly-equal pieces of dough.  Form these into roll shapes and place in a lightly-greased pan.

Cover with a towel and let rise 45 minutes.

Bake at 350 for 15 minutes. Optional: brush tops with butter when they are hot out of the oven. 

*      *      * 

I like to serve the soup and rolls with a side of fresh fruit (or a salad for grown-ups who like raw vegetables!).  And that's dinner here tonight!

*For the ham: I buy a ham and dice it (a laborious task made better by listening to something uplifting) and freeze in 2 cup quantities in quart freezer bags for the sole purpose of making this soup! Because frankly, we don't eat ham otherwise--but it's so nice to have on hand for soup.

**You may use all-purpose flour, or half all-purpose and half whole wheat; I grind wheat berries and make these rolls 100% whole wheat, but I don't think you can do that with store-bought wheat!

The Great Garden Expansion

One of my favorite things in the world is working in my garden.  I find it meditative, restorative, therapeutic, peaceful.....

When Annie was little I could barely keep my gardening head above water; the weeds got me every single year.  I was generally overwhelmed.

Now that my children are older, I've found that it's much easier to take care of my garden.  I have committed to mulching every year, and trying to keep ahead of the weeds--much easier now than it was even 5 years ago! We have flower beds all around the perimeter of our home and they include hostas, coral bells, peonies, ranunculus, azaleas, lilac, hydrangea, irises, Solomon's seal, artemesia, Jacob's ladder, ferns, Japanese silver grass, roses, tulips, daffodils, hyacinth, lilies, coneflowers, Shasta daisies, sedum, bleeding hearts, morning glories, lily of the valley, and more....and our newest flower bed, which runs alongside the patio we had built in 2017, contains rosemary, blue false indigo, Veronica speedwell, a dwarf butterfly bush, and my dear little lavender plants.

And it's good that I'm in this manageable place, because new things are coming here on the farm.

When my mother built this house in the early 1990s, she decided to fence in only a portion of the 1.25-acre lot that she owned.  She thought that mowing such a large piece of land would be too much for her (she used a push mower!).  So for over 25 years, we've had about half--maybe less--of our property fenced in as "yard," and the rest is just cow field! 

My husband decided that it was time for us to change the fence line. And that means my yard will grow from being maybe half an acre to being over an acre.  We had a surveyor come out last week and confirm the property corners, my cousin is going to put in the corner posts soon, and he'll get the fence changed as soon as he finishes haying.....

Our new yard (!) will include a portion of sloped, grassy land to the southwest with no trees, and then a steeper-sloped, rockier portion to the northeast with a couple of beautiful (blooming right now!) black locust trees. When I was young and my mother built the house, my room was the only room that faced these trees, and I romantically--I have some Anne Shirley in me--called it the "locust grove" and used to gaze at it out my window, imagining it as a romantic fairyland.

My cousin knocked down a couple of these mostly-dead fairyland black locusts last week with the tractor in preparation for the fence work, but we should be able to salvage two of the remaining trees; one is quite large and still very healthy; I need to check on the other one.



{the view from our front yard out to the locust grove. those peonies are so close to blooming in this photo--they just began yesterday!  the fence that is pictured will be gone soon....and I love the way the locust trees look when they are blooming!}

So I'm starting to look at these areas every day on my walks, trying to catch a vision for what to do with our newfound land. The ideas swirl! I know it will take me a while to create a vision and begin to implement plans; Finn and I signed up to take an online landscape design course to further our abilities in this department.

 It will be a long process; this year my sole goals are to have the new fence installed and to clean the brush and junk out of the fairyland, and get a feel for what I want to plant where, and when.  Next year, Lord willing, I hope to start planting in the fairyland.  The children and I walked out there yesterday and discussed it: our goal is to have a secret garden where we can sit and relax, and where no other house, structure, or human thing can be seen--just the long view across the fields, valley, and distant mountains.  That will involve planting a few hedges.  And of course, we want it to be pretty.  And peaceful.  And fragrant!

Will the new plan for the land involve cherry trees? A grape arbor? A greenhouse?  Will it involve a wildflower meadow?  An archery range? More lavender plants?  Shall I plant spirea, more hydrangea, quince? Should we expand our potager (this is what you call the vegetable garden when your son is a French scholar :))? Install a wisteria arbor?

Suddenly, an acre and a quarter seems way too small!

Comments are Working!

Friends, just a quick post to say:

I figured it out!  Please don't ever hire me to be a technical guru of anything at any time; apparently my comment problem was that I had moderation for comments turned on, but I didn't have an email address listed so I had no idea there were comments to be approved.  This seems like a very basic issue, which just goes to show how incapable and clueless I am on the computer.

I thought I fixed it a few days ago, and this morning I logged on to find dozens of older comments from sweet people! I am so sorry your comments have not been posted, and so glad that will be remedied now.  I must say, you're all so nice, and I'm having the most wonderful time reading each comment (accompanied by my coffee) and hitting "publish" after each one.  They are making me smile this Monday morning--truly, what a gold mine of kind words and happiness I found today! This really has made my week, and the week just began.

Special thanks to sweet Sarah for sending an email asking about comments, because that is what first clued me in to the fact that there might be a problem. If you need a technical guru, please see Sarah....

Ah! Back to reading and hitting "publish." This is so fun! Thank you for all the wonderful, sweet words!

Edited to Add: you all make me cry.  I had no idea there were so many kind, sweet comments that had been overlooked for so long. I am so very sorry! I am still going through them, and I am feeling so encouraged by you today.  This has been like Christmas morning!  You are all so very lovely.  Thank you!!!!

Edited again to add: now I'm getting to comments from 2018, when my husband had cancer.  I am crying over my coffee.  Oh, I had no idea so many people had so many sweet things to say.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you. 

Crying......

Little Joys (& Fixed Comments?)

When all of this started, I created a fairly long list of my own projects I'd like to accomplish while we have so much more margin at home.

But over the past couple of weeks, I decided to shift my focus from MY goals, and instead work on creating a joyful experience for my children.  Fortunately, our children are not prone to anxiety about this illness (my father says that's because my husband and I are so laid-back--although make no mistake, we are realistic about risks and careful, particularly because he is in remission from cancer, and he's an essential worker! No working from home here....).  So they are not worried or living in fear at all. 

Our state is advised to stay-at-home into the middle of the June.  

Two months!

As long as we all stay healthy, I can dream up many engaging things to do in the next couple of months.   

I'm not saying this to belittle the reality of the pandemic.  I have friends and family who have been impacted already, and I know almost no one who hasn't suffered some financial consequences--including us.  But I know what I have control over, and it's basically: keeping my home clean and sanitary, supporting my husband's health, and making life beautiful over here.  That's it!  I have no control over anything else--just my own home and my own attitude. 

So to that end, I'm trying to dream up fun things for us to do:

*sidewalk chalk art

*bringing plenty of flowers inside (my flower beds in April have never looked so good, because I've had so much time to do all the chores and make things lovely!)

*baking together--a lot!

*playing kickball, badminton, basketball, and tag with my children

*indulging Finn's love of medieval history with a documentary on medieval weaponry

*drawing or coloring together and maybe learning more watercoloring techniques

*Spencerian handwriting books, for Annie and me (maybe?)

*a landscape design class for Finn and for me!

*sewing--Annie in particular has been working on her sewing skills. She's 9, and can use my sewing machine herself now!  Yesterday she worked on a 'quilt' she's making while I worked on a dress I'm sewing for her.  Very satisfying!

*picnics

*Finn is taking an Imagineering course via Khan Academy and he says it is fantastic so far

*writing lots of letters to friends and relatives

*sleeping in as much as we'd like

*dinner al fresco on the patio once the weather is warmer

*reading through a stack of books

....and that's just the tip of the iceberg of my ideas.

Life can and should be fun, even in the midst of a hard time.  My children are still having a childhood, even now.  I felt the same way when my husband was going through all of the awful cancer surgeries and treatments in 2018.  Yes, it was a hard time, but yes, our children were still children and we tried to still create happy memories for them.  (And interestingly, our son says that time period was one of the best of his life so far; not because of my husband's illness, but because of the things that our children were able to do during that time.)

I am praying that my husband stays healthy and does not carry home any unwanted germs.

And we'll do our best to make life sweet.


*          *         *

I also want to say that I've had a lot of issues with comments--that is, people aren't able to leave them!--and after hunting around I think I've identified and fixed the issue.  We'll see!  Sorry about that. :) 

Let's Talk about Homemade Pizza

Now that we have more time at home, I'm enjoying a lot more baking.  I already bake--but now I really bake!

Also, pizza is a great food if you need to cook from your pantry.  Crust is easy to make.  Pizza sauce can be made in bulk (here's the recipe I've used in the past) or purchased in a jar, and live in the pantry or freezer for weeks or months.  Same thing with cured meat, like pepperoni.  I like my pizza with more vegetables than anything else--and last week I made one with the first shoots of asparagus from our garden.  Cheese will usually keep for a long time in the fridge (fresh mozzarella is an exception, and of course, it's delicious!). 

Pizza crust used to annoy me. I've tried many recipes over the years and none of them have really made me particularly happy.  But they were sufficient.  For weeks my children have pestered me to get "Miss Naomi's" recipe--she's our neighbor--because they ate pizza at her house once that was apparently wonderful.  I finally got it!

She told me the secret to the crust is pounding the dough.  For real: actually pounding it for ten solid minutes. This apparently activates the gluten, which is apparently what you want. (Who knew?)  I will say that the first time I made this, I was impressed at how well the dough behaved once I began to roll it out. I am able to toss it without ever having it tear or rip, which is more than I can say for any other pizza crust recipe I've tried. 

She uses bread flour, but I recently purchased a means of grinding my own wheat, so I am making this with freshly-milled wheat flour.  I am able to eat that without a spike in my blood sugar (I have a touch of hypoglycemia and generally avoid all bread except sprouted grain because of it).  Hooray!

Naomi's recipe also makes "one 16-inch crust."  However, we decided this makes a crust that it too thick for our tastes.  I love a very thin, crispy crust.  So I divide this and make two 16-inch crusts out of it, and that works better for me.  

{This is the thicker version.}

My children like their pizza with pepperoni and spinach!

I like my pizza with lots of vegetables--whatever I have on hand.  This one had spinach, asparagus, peppers, and sundried tomatoes. 

So here's the recipe for 1 thicker 16" crust or 2 thinner 16" crusts:

1 T. yeast

1 1/2 T. sugar

1 1/3 c. hot water

1 1/2 T oil 

Mix together and let sit for 5 minutes (while it's sitting, I grind my wheat).

Then add: 

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. garlic powder

1/2 tsp. oregano

1/2 tsp. italian seasoning 

1/4 tsp. basil

3 1/4- 3 1/2 cups bread flour (or freshly-milled wheat flour!)

Dough should be a tiny bit sticky.  Grease hands with a little soft butter, then pound with both fists for 10 minutes.  Place dough in a butter-greased bowl, cover, and let rise for an hour.

When preparing pizza pan, spray with baking spray, then spread with 2 T. oil.  Sprinkle a little corn meal if you wish.  Place dough on pan and spread to edges. [Polly's note: I roll it out with my rolling pin, then toss to get it evenly thin.]  Put on toppings [note: I like to use about 1/2 cup of sauce per pizza] and bake at 425 until crust is browned. [She says 12-15 minutes; in my oven, it's a scant 8.]

A few more notes:

I would like to get a pizza stone. I'm hoping that will crisp the crust up even more (we really like a crispy crust!)

Naomi also told me you can brush melted butter along the edge of the crust before baking to give it a nice extra flavor. 

 {Tip: cut with scissors!}

Making good food for my family is a comforting exercise these days!

Hope everyone is staying healthy and well. Happy pizza baking!

When Schools are Closed: Things to Do at Home

Our public and private schools are now officially closed through the end of the academic year.

As a result of this, several friends and family members have contacted me with questions.  These parents are now in totally unchartered territory.  And the territory that they are in is truly much harder than actual homeschooling, for three reasons: first, they need to try to implement the school curriculum at home, which means they haven't chosen it (homeschooling parents spend time picking the curriculum that is the best fit for their lifestyle/child's teaching style/parental teaching style/etc); second, there's a sudden, enormous change in the daily family dynamic and rhythm; and third, and quite notably, all of this is being done in isolation! 

As a result, I have encouraged my friends to give themselves and their children a lot of grace.  It's a very new, challenging situation.  Everyone will take a while to adjust! And that is okay.

The other advice I have is to create a loose, flexible routine for the day so that there's some predictability and consistency to what you're doing, but not rigidity.  More on that here.

I tend not to think of what we do as "homeschooling" because it really looks so unlike a classroom.  I have always thought of it more as "home-based learning."  Each day is unique.  We have a great deal of freedom to move at our own pace and decide how to structure our days.  I do think sometimes people picture me standing at a chalkboard with my children in desks in front of me, with their pens and paper.  In reality, homeschooling for us almost never looks like that. And it's okay if it doesn't look like that for you, too, if you are newly tasked with teaching your children at home.

If they have online assignments and work to do that the school gives them, then it's great to let them move through that at their own pace.  But I've heard from several people that now that their children are home, they're racing through assignments.  My cousin told me that her daughter finished an entire week's worth of schoolwork in 2 hours on Monday morning!  This doesn't surprise me, since learning at home is so efficient.

So if a child finishes all her schoolwork by 10am on Monday, what in the world can you do for the rest of the week? Especially when you can't really go anywhere?

Here are a few resources I've shared with friends who have asked.  I will update this from time to time as I think of more. Most of these are geared to elementary and middle schoolers, but some may be useful for high schoolers, too. 

MATH:

*Khan Academy is free and has math for all levels.  You can easily see what concept/skill each lesson presents, so you can jump around and practice various skills at the child's pace. 

*Right Start Arithmetic Kit: this is a very reasonably-priced kit that introduces number sense and the abacus.  This would be a great math supplement for elementary schoolers. 

*Right Start Fractions Kit: for an upper elementary or middle school child who needs extra help understanding fractions, this kit is well-priced, and extremely helpful!

*Hands-On Equations: this is a strong introduction to algebraic concepts.  It is a little higher in price than the Right Start kits.  I own this and Finn and I plan to use it sometime in the next few months!  I imagine that Annie will join in, too. 

*Life of Fred books: these are a fun math supplement; they're math books in narrative form (with practice problems at the end of each chapter).  Quirky storytelling about a math genius named Fred who is 5 years old and teaches college math, it's fun and engaging, particularly for the child who prefers words to numbers.  

*GAMES!  Skip-Bo, Snap-it-Up, Shut the Box, etc.  There are many math games out there, and some you can play just using a regular deck of cards, if that's all you have.  Games are a fun way to learn math.  Right Start has a math card games kit, too. 

HISTORY:

*Story of the World (especially on audiobook, told by Jim Weiss!) or any of the Jim Weiss titles listed here: https://welltrainedmind.com/c/history-geography/jim-weiss-history/?v=7516fd43adaa

*Liberty's Kids videos: I laughingly called these a "homeschool kid's rite of passage" not long ago.  (These may be available for free somewhere else, but this is the link I have.)  They're videos on American history, and my children seem to like them.

*For the older student who enjoys diving deep into history, I love Genevieve Foster's books. (Again, you may be able to find them for much less somewhere else, but this is the easiest link to all of them!)  You could pick one historical period that most fascinates your child, and order one of the books used online. If you're like us, your libraries are closed!

SCIENCE: 

*The best and cheapest science is simply observing the natural world.  Take a magnifying class and binoculars, if you have them (not necessary) and go out into the yard.  Look at flowers. Identify trees.  Watch birds.  You can make simple birdfeeders to attract the birds, and then learn the difference between a finch and a sparrow.  You can also take a sketch book or blank paper out with colored pencils, and draw or sketch what you see.  Observation is the foundation of science!

*We like Planet Earth and Blue Planet videos (we own the DVDs of both).  They are so fascinating! I am sure there are many interesting science videos out there; we rarely watch TV or movies, so I'm not really in the loop. 

*Tinker Crate kits can be fun, although they are a financial commitment.  Finn has enjoyed building a few of these. 

*Some people love Magic School Bus videos! My children have never gotten onboard with them (ha), but some children really do love them. 

*There are all sorts of kits and things at Carolina Biological Supply. We will be doing a dissection kit sometime soon--much to my children's disgust.  (I used to love dissections as a child. We'll see how they do....)

ARTS:

*Drawing videos.  There are loads of step-by-step drawing and painting videos on YouTube, all for free!

*Drawing books: we like these books for the younger set, and I LOVE Lee Ames books for slightly older students. 

*Picture study: this is a Charlotte Mason standby.  You can print out a picture (or purchase a set; I like the portfolios from Simply Charlotte Mason, because they are high-quality prints). Have everyone look at it carefully and quietly for a few minutes, and then turn the picture over.  Then everyone describes what they saw!  This develops skills of observation.  After you finish, display the picture on the refrigerator or somewhere else, for everyone to enjoy. 

LITERATURE:

*Audible is now offering some free children's audio books.

*Shakespeare: read this Midsummer Night's Dream picture book, then watch this free (and clean!) version on YouTube; older students may then want to dive into reading the actual play (I like the Folger editions, available on Amazon, but you can find the original script online, since it's in the public domain--I just avoid "modern translations", as they can be unsavory)

*for older students (and adults), check out the American Shakespeare Center.  They've had to close down for now, but taped several performances that can now be "purchased" (at a very, very reasonable price) and watched online--they're calling it "BlackfriarsTV"! My husband and I saw Henry IV, Part 1 there last year, and so we're going to get "tickets" to Much Ado and Henry IV, Part 2! Here are more details.

*read-aloud time: now is the perfect opportunity to read through an entire series of great books, like Narnia or the Little House on the Prairie books.  We are reading through Little Women right now, and after we finish, my son is on a mission to have us read Jo's Boys and Little Men, and we'll probably read Eight Cousins as well!  I made a list of all the good books on our shelves that we haven't read, and am hoping we can read through many of those this spring!

FOREIGN LANGUAGE:

*We love French with Alexa on YouTube.  She is so funny! My children enjoy her videos.

LIFE SKILLS:

Don't overlook these!  Isolation days are perfect days to learn:

*laundry (sorting, washing, drying, folding--and in our case, bringing things in off the line!)

*baking (we've enjoyed rolls, cinnamon buns, and loaf bread, and I plan to have my children bake brownies later this week)

*cleaning (learn to wash dishes or clean a bathroom!)

*gardening/yard work (I'll admit that this is my favorite domestic task, and spring is the best time for it, so my children have learned some gardening skills--and even more botany as a result of my obsession)

*cleaning windows, organizing, dusting, etc.....this is the perfect time for a big "spring clean"

*sewing, knitting, cross-stitching, etc: if you or your children have ever wanted to try to learn one of these skills, this is a great time. YouTube is full of tutorials.

CHARLOTTE MASON:

The Charlotte Mason Institute has created a free "emergency" curriculum for people who need some supplemental things to do with their children.

FRESH AIR/ACTIVITY:

*Absolutely essential for my own well-being, I know my children do much better with a lot of fresh air as well.  We take walks up and down our country lane, do plenty of gardening (well, I do; my children play), and sometimes shoot basketball outside.  My children spend hours running around the yard, swinging, riding bikes, etc.  As the weather warms, bubbles, sidewalk chalk, sprinkler-playing, etc all become appropriate, too. Sometimes just reading a book on the front porch does us all a world of good, and we can do that even if it's raining.

This season of life won't last forever, and I'm committed to embracing it and enjoying the enormous amount of margin we gained by having all our activities cancelled.

I hope this helps anyone out there who is trying to figure out how to navigate life now that schools are closed! 

Cast Your Cares (and Make the Bed)

Spring is here!

I have not gotten to take any photos of it yet, but spring has truly arrived: the daffodils, forsythia, quince, and hyacinth are all in bloom. My cute little snowdrops are also blooming.  Yesterday I spent several hours clearing our garden space to prepare it for tilling (it's time to plant potatoes!) and hunting for asparagus (they're not up yet).  I'm almost done with my March flower gardening, too: all I have left to do is get the winter stuff out of one flower bed area, and prune my roses this week.

Domestic work--especially work that is quite physical--is one of the best foils to anxiety, in my experience.  There's something therapeutic about pulling weeds, burning brush, baking bread, cooking supper, folding laundry.  Restoring or maintaining order is powerful. When the entire world is way beyond our control, it's good to remember that we can make our home nice!  Set a table, light a candle, eat a simple bowl of soup, clean up.  It really does help. 

There's a lot of bad news Out There these days and I don't know anyone who hasn't been already affected in some way by the COVID19 virus.  Our own lives have downshifted significantly as all our activities outside the house have been cancelled, but I'm enjoying the change immensely because suddenly our days feel free and wide (although we are spending them all at home!).  My husband still has to go to work, at least for now. We are grateful that our income has not been impacted yet, because we have friends whose incomes and businesses have already destabilized significantly. Strangely, this time reminds me a little bit of my husband's cancer treatment recovery period--a 3- month period when we mostly stayed home and quiet.  It was one of the sweetest times of our lives, although he was extremely sick for a couple of those months.  But there wasn't the underlying, global anxiety that we face now as coronavirus cases rise and the economy tanks. 

And on a very personal level, we are (finally! the testing shortage situation is no joke) awaiting COVID19 test results for a very close loved one.  I dropped groceries off at this person's house today and we FaceTimed this evening, because since their return from another country (with many cases) two weeks ago, we've not been able to see them. We miss them, and they miss us!

I am known around these parts as someone who does not worry.  It's true; in general, I don't.  At a time like this, I think the best things we can do (other than conscientious hand-washing and good hygiene, and of course staying home as much as possible for a little while) are--

praying to God for peace, healing, and joy

and

making things nice for ourselves and our families.

It doesn't take much to make things nice: a lit candle, a quiet time of prayer before bed, fresh laundry, good (even if it's very simple) food, a nicely-set table, a neatly-made bed.  In our culture I believe people tend to scoff at these as unimportant, but they're life-giving!  

Back during my husband's recovery period, every morning after he got up from his fitful night of Not Sleeping, I aired the bedroom.  I changed the pillowcase, aired and then made the bed, and sprayed the room with my favorite air freshener scent. I cleaned the bathroom, cleaning out and sanitizing the suction machine he had to use for his mucositis. I got everything spic-and-span, and tried to keep a little bouquet of something in the bathroom and bedroom--I recall a lot of sage, since I had a lot on hand at that time in the flower beds!  Just the tiny ritual of taking a few minutes to get the room nice and airy and clean made such a difference.  And, even better: it costs very little, or nothing, to do these simple things like making a bed, opening a window, cleaning a bathroom.  But it does a lot for morale!

So I encourage you to just do whatever tiny, inexpensive thing you can think of this week to make life a little nicer for yourself and anyone within your immediate sphere of influence.  Pray about your worries and anxieties. 

"Cast your cares on the Lord

and He will sustain you;

He will never let 

the righteous be shaken."

-Psalm 55:22