Happy St. Patrick’s day

We started the week off celebrating St. Patrick’s Day at the Durrant’s house. Beverly convinced me to paint her face for the occasion, so of course I got to pain all of the kiddo’s faces at the party. Harvey opted for a Leo mask (that was fun to get off afterwards…). Lindsay went all out. She made sausages, corned beef, soda bread, shepherd’s pie, mashed potatoes, cabbage, and I’m sure I’m missing something. I brought an “Irish salad.” I googled, “Irish Salads” and picked one that looked good, but as I was getting the ingredients I thought, this doesn’t seem very Irish. It had clementines and cucumbers, two ingredients I don’t think are common traditional Irish foods. But it was delicious none-the-less. Turns out it was orange and green in honor of the Irish flag. That made more sense. I also made some shortbread cookies with caramel and chocolate toppings. Now THOSE were tempting. I wish I could say they all got eaten at the party, but a few other people brought desserts too so I took home about half the tray and probably ate half of that throughout the week. Luckily the kids and Andy shared. Both Andy and I have started intermittent fasting. I’m not a fan so far. lol but I really hate counting calories and working out five days a week isn’t doing it for me, so I’m looking for another means to lose some fat so I can be at a healthy weight. Andy has been doing it for a week now and has lost about 7 pounds. I’ve done it for two days and have lost two so far… but I don’t really consider that weight loss until it stays off for a week.

I read the Isaiah chapters in 2 Nephi this week and was very touched by how much hope there is in the last days despite all of the destruction. It also was cool, because up until this time I kind of just read the chapters to get to the next bit of scripture, but this time more chunks made sense and I could see them being fulfilled in the world around us. A scripture that gave me great hope was when Nephi was summarizing what he shared and he said, “those that dwindled in unbelief will not be forgotten.” Recently, a friend told me that one of our mutual friends started coming back to church. I couldn’t tell you how happy I was to hear it. She said they’ve been struggling because some people don’t trust that they’re “worthy” to perform priesthood responsibilities and what not, but they’re still coming. I thought how sad it is that someone else would keep someone from coming back because they can’t trust in the atonement of Jesus Christ. The very thing that we proclaim to focus on. It makes me want to be more forgiving towards others so that I can exemplify what I believe, that after someone has repented, they can be washed clean. Heaven knows I want the same blessing.

Aside from normal life, I’ve been busy working on my novel. Andy has been busy working and trying to treat our Turtle to fix his eye infection, and the kids are busy making messes and cleaning them up. Maverick is back in the swing of baseball and Beverly is still dancing every Saturday. Harvey keeps me busy during the weekdays and I really enjoy our time snuggling, reading, playing kinetic sand and slime, and occasionally he’ll convince me to play TMNT with him. I am truly savoring this stage because I know how quickly it’ll pass.