Five good things, July 29

Let's go the quiet way home. Not by the way the others go... but the way where the small things show. - Bonny Becker

1. Thankful for God's protection when the kids and I were in a car accident on Wednesday. Someone (absentmindedly, it appears) turned in front of me as I was going through a green light and I couldn't avoid hitting them.

I prayed for protection before we left home that day, which I always do. Mainly because I've made enough absentminded (or just plain foolish -- gulp) mistakes myself while driving that I know it can be dangerous out there and the danger could come from either me or others.

Thankfully, we were all uninjured. The day of the accident my hand hurt from where the airbag hit it while I was honking the horn at the errant driver. I thought I might have to go get it x-rayed or something. But amazingly enough, by the next morning it no longer hurt at all and I could use it normally. My neck was sore the day after the accident, but again, by the day following it felt completely better, as if nothing had ever happened. I asked the kids four or five times over the next two days if they were hurt and they kept telling me no. Certainly God was watching over us.

2. In another stroke of providence, several months ago Christopher had happened to add car rental insurance onto our auto insurance coverage. At the time I was very annoyed at his decision, begrudging anything that took money away from saving for our future house. Needless to say, I was glad to have the rental insurance after the accident! The very day after our poor old Suburban got towed away, our insurance company arranged for us to rent a minivan for a few weeks, with the cost completely covered aside from a $50 deposit.

This may be the one of the only times in my life that I ever get to drive a car that is less than 10 years old, so I guess I should try to enjoy it. I understand that on the way to church yesterday Micah declared this minivan "the coolest car ever".

3. I've enjoyed seeing fledgling robins in our yard. There appears to be two of them, and they are klutzy, and speckled, with fuzzy, messy plumage. On four different occasions one of them has landed on the outside rim of the window and peered in for a moment, usually right before falling off backwards into the fern garden. I have also spotted one of the parents keeping watch. Not sure if it was the father or the mother, but I suspect the father. His plumage looked smooth and impeccably groomed in contrast to his untidy offspring, which I found very funny and cute.

4. I've been enjoying challenging myself not to let things go to waste in the refrigerator or pantry. Someone recently said "Throwing away groceries is throwing away money. Would you throw a five dollar bill in the garbage can?" Some of the things I've done are:

• Used freckled bananas to make banana muffins for breakfast.

• Cooked some pitted cherries with lemon juice, corn starch, and a little bit of sugar to make a cherry compote. It was a beautiful garnet color -- I never want to buy canned cherry pie filling again! I used this to make mini cherry tarts and also spread it on waffles instead of syrup.

• I've had a lot of cream cheese blocks get moldy in the fridge once the foil is opened, so to avoid that I used an open block to make lemon chia seed muffins one day. They were so delicious I made them again a couple of days later. I want to make them one more time to make sure I've got the recipe down, then I plan to post it here.

• Used some potatoes we had in the pantry to make oven roasted diced potatoes to go with hamburgers one day, then another day made salmon chower.

• We used up the romaine lettuce we bought from Costco on BLTs, hamburgers, and tacos for dinners over the last couple of weeks. I hate throwing that romaine lettuce away! Happens a lot.

• We had some leftover bakery artisan rolls from about a week ago and today I used them to make miniature pizzas for the kids at lunch. I expected complaints. Last week Silas said he didn't like that chewy bread and just looking at it gave him a headache. But surprisingly, all four of the kids ate the mini pizzas with alacrity. Not sure if they recognized the bread or not. It seemed to be less chewy after it had heated up in the oven.

• I took a jar of pesto that was open in the fridge and froze most of it in an ice cube tray to use later. Honestly, I think the pesto tastes better after it's been frozen, like the flavor has developed more.

Haven't achieved 100% efficiency in food use, of course. Small steps. I read this lovely quote on Like Mother Like Daughter:

Thrift is the true adventure, and what is more cheering than an adventure?

She attributes this to Chesterton, here's the link:

=> Like Mother Like Daughter

5. These are some of the sights of late summer I've enjoyed this week at our house:

A white mushroom that popped up over the weekend.

=> Mushroom

The rosehips on the wild rose bushes outside the kitchen window.

=> Rosehips

Dark and shiny chokecherries on the trees in the front yard.

=> berries