#bloginstead Day 3, final episode

The weather outside is frightful.

It’s too hot to be delightful.

So since there’s no tornado,

Horatio! Horatio! Horatio!

For real, though, we’re under a tornado watch. The weather has made my arthritis pretty intense, so I spent the evening soaking in Epsom salts and screening cheesemaking documentaries so I can show the good ones to the kids. I’m following through on an old threat, but with humor rather than punishment in mind: “If you kids don’t stop fighting over the show, you’ll all be watching cheese documentaries and Jane Austen movies only for a week!” (I know some of y’all are saying, “No, Brer Fox! Please don’t throw me in the briar patch!” [Wait. Does everyone know that Brer Rabbit story, or is he regional?] But the kids used to straighten right up and act right under the weight of that threat. Sort of. Now they all like Jane Austen movies.)

We’re hosting a party for my sweet little niece tomorrow, so we also spent part of the evening cutting out dozens of paper moths. There’s a villain in PJ Masks that hangs out with a cloud of moths, and we’re going to hang the paper ones from the ceiling as a fun party decoration. Liggle Bitty was so happy today as she wrapped her cousin’s present and picked out which of our tablecloths to use. I’m making the cake in the morning because I wasn’t sure if the weather was going to cause a power outage. You don’t want a power outage when you’re baking. We have a gas stove, but it’s electric convection with digital controls. Cakes are too picky for that kind of uncertainty. But tomorrow I’m making up for the tight timeline by freezing the layers right away and doing a white chocolate ganache filling and dusting the top with powdered sugar to make it look like the moon, another PJ Masks reference. It’s going to be a small party, but it will be fun.

Thinking of moths, I checked up on the little prayer area where my compassionate daughter buries bugs that have died. Though our sneaky pirate puppy steals lots of the little mosses and clovers she tucks around the icon of St. Modestos, it’s a beautiful retreat. I hope she always feeds the love that brings her to do beautiful things.

I went to that part of the yard after telling the kids about the family of saints we’ve been celebrating, with St. Gregory Of Nyssa and his deaconess sister today and so many others this month. I told the kids about how almost everyone in their family was a saint. Maybe they all were? Seems like sanctity is contagious.

Thank you for joining me this week for the #bloginstead challenge. I’ll be back in a few days to post about the Elijah cave away space we’re setting up. Till then, I look forward to reading everyone whose blogs I followed this week.

(Post finished in our tornado shelter while we waited for a tornado to go by.)