Happy Sunday! Sharing a video today from our week, one of the highlights. This was Wednesday evening church, normally they have a more casual prayer meeting where someone plays the guitar, but they were doing some construction in the fellowship hall so they had their prayer meeting in the sanctuary. No one was there to play the piano so my my Grandma did it, she's been playing the piano in church for probably 80 years.
For context, she's 88, she had a really bad fall 5 years ago now and hit her head and ended up with a lot setbacks, similar to having a stroke. She has a lot of dementia like symptoms also (I am sure related to her Type 2 diabetes), she really can't read music anymore, and she has trouble seeing well, and she needs to wear hearing aids to hear but hates wearing them, so on this night she didn't want to wear them. My 93 (almost 94) year old grandpa takes care of both of them on their farm. Anyway, on this night she sat down on the piano and led worship as people called out songs they wanted to sing from the hymnal, she played them all perfectly from memory. It was pretty special to see her back in her element, and I know it means a lot to her when she gets to do that type of thing still.
She was the most lively and engaging we've seen her in many years, and she spent all week telling stories over and over again from her life. 🤎
I hope you are having a wonderful weekend! We are spending today with my mom still, and my brother and his family. Have a wonderful Sunday!
As we continue our reflection, what has been your biggest challenge in August and what have you learned from it?
I don't typically love cooking with cast iron, despite the excellent results they can bring. It's messy and smells up the house. Add to that, the one we have is super old and not very good. We were recently gifted a really good one from Lancaster Cast Iron so today I decided to give it a try. We have a side burner on our Weber so I could do it outside. I sous vide a steak, then seared it in tallow on the new pan. Man it was incredible. What a difference it made from our old one. Super easy clean up too. Below is the pan, of course I forgot to take a picture of the steak haha.
Do you love using cast iron? What are some favorites you make in them?
Yesterday we surprised the kids and brought home a puppy!! They have been begging for one for years and we felt like the time was right to bring one home.
Meet Angus 🐕 He's a Golden Retriever/King Charles Cavalier Spaniel mix. He's 11 weeks old and currently weighs about 8 pounds, he should be around 35 pounds fully grown. I know it will be an adjustment for a while as he gets potty trained etc but we are so excited. 😂 Wish us luck! 🤪
Cheese is good! I ate a block of chipotle oven baked cheese with lunch yesterday and it was divine. I love it, but know that it halts any progress I'm making, and will even trigger eating in excess to where I'll gain weight. It's sad but I have accepted it. If I eat it in small quantities with a meal, it's ok, but I really have to work to keep it in check.
What's your favorite cheese? How do you incorporate it? Do you see negative results when eating it?
Happy Sunday!! We have some company over today so we are going to have some wagyu picanha steaks for lunch. They are my favorite but we haven't had them for a while, they got too popular so Costco raised the prices. These are from my freezer stash when the price was a lot lower (before Costco realized how popular they would be). I've been rationing the ones we have left. 😂😂.
Do you have a freezer stockpile? What is the most random thing in your freezer currently?
*Livestream tomorrow (Monday) at 7pm EST
Welp, it's always something at our house. 🤦🏼♀️ Penelope broke another finger yesterday at jiu jitsu. We thought it might just be jammed but got an X-ray just in case, and in fact it was broken. She only needs a splint for now, but they are going to check it in a week to make sure it's healing properly. But no piano, jiu jitsu, or sports for 6+ weeks again, and it's her right hand this time.
If you know of any good book series that are appropriate for an almost 13 year old we would love the suggestions. She's read all the Harry Potter, Narnia, Anne of Green Gables, Hunger Games, Wingfeather Saga, and a lot of the other classics.
Shall I (re) introduce myself? 🫣 Sorry I've been AWOL. Harvest and another round of cvid. Not as bad as in the spring but bad enough. But I'm finally mostly well and we had rain, so not in the field today.
I'm fine, doing the best I can considering the way my life has been.
Not so good: my eating has not been as clean as I would like this year and my jeans are tight. 🙄 But I've started doing 42-48 hr fast each week.
Good: I found I'm still strong enough to hand fill a tractor scoop of beans after we had a spill earlier in the week.., without hurting the next day.
I'm keeping work stress as low as possible and not accepting it internally.
So while I'm not where I want to be currently, I'm resetting and am keeping it meat-based
I miss you all and have no idea what's been going on, but I think of you.
I'll try to catch up this weekend, with at least Laura's videos.
Hugs to everyone and I will be back in a couple of weeks with my nightly long updates.
If you need me sooner, @VeebsKale can ...
