Stewardship Sunday

Whew. I think I have a lot to report today, but I'm a bit overwhelmed by it all. Yet I'm procrastinating from doing a large batch of dishes and folding a week's worth of laundry, so blogging seems much easier right now.

I kept asking myself, "Why do I still suck at this?" My house was out of control. The laundry pile is threatening to eat me alive. The sticky floors are threatening to hold my feet hostage. How can I not manage to control my own household?!?! And then I remembered all of the things we were adding to our week. Kind of big things. 

This week was largely spent building up to yesterday. We had a fun Ruth House event that we helped with, and I spent some of the week soliciting and organizing donations of home-baked baked goods and gift baskets to be raffled off. We Lutherans are big on baking. We've got some serious cooks and bakers in our congregation. So we had a serious assortment of baked goods spread out on our bake sale table. Unfortunately, they were eclipsed by the free cotton candy and free cake. So as of early this morning, we still had a serious assortment of baked goods. Until we went to church. Lutherans are also big on eating baked goods at Coffee Hour at church. So the baked goods were disappearing rapidly when I left before the second service.

Mandy and her mom, smiling volunteers from our church. And a caramel apple. Yum!

Homemade goodies. Yum!

Gift baskets for raffle. Including gift wrap.

Homegrown tomatoes, tomatillos, and jalapeños. They were smoked, roasted, and make into delicious sauces by BestestHusband.

I just spent 45 minutes explaining how these lovely pictures described our fun day at Ruth House, the work that went into it, and the intensive cooking that went into a lovely meal that we had with friends tonight. Then I lost all of the typing. And I'm too tired and discouraged to start all over again. I'm tired. And I still have all of the dishes and laundry to do. And it's almost 11pm. And did I mention that I'm discouraged? And tired? Sigh. So let's just report in on the week and get other stuff done. Sigh. My earlier drafts were interesting, and occasionally witty. Sigh...

Food waste:  We're working hard to manage the garden bounty. BestestHusband's been putting in some serious hours smoking and fire roasting ingredients for sauces, then searing and reducing them on the stove. The house smells heavenly. And I have other ingredients that require immediate use to prevent food waste. Like 8 egg yolks. Custard anyone? BestestHusband made a fruit compote of late-season rhubarb today, so I'll have to find a good use for that. We did throw out some strawberries. I made the mistake of buying them on sale and not eating them immediately that day. 

Money:  I was shopping for HeyMama's upcoming birthday party. I went online to my favorite party store, and declined the $17 piñata that would match the party theme perfectly. I might find this to be one of my most pennywise/poundfoolish ideas yet. While piñatas are not difficult to make, they do require time. I'm not sure I have much of that this week. But I did promise HeyMama a piñata for her birthday. So this should be interesting.

Patience: The Patience Angel apparently just doesn't like coffee. I'm still coffee-free, and the Patience Angel still hovers on my shoulder. I'm very thankful for her. She does take occasional breaks, but we're still doing pretty well. And for that I give great thanks daily.

Time:  We were busy, but did a lot of fun things this week. I'm happy with our time utilization. There just wasn't enough of it for our ambitious week plans. I'm fine to prioritize by letting the house suffer. Until I have to play catchup...

M&Ms: Not a problem. The ice cream sandwiches in the freezer were a problem. As were the baked goods this weekend. But not M&Ms. 

My mind is boggling at what the next week will bring. But I'm more concerned about the current state of my dishes and laundry. So time to say "good night" and get to it. Have a great week!