Treats, hope, and lentil-sausage soup (7 Quick Takes)

~1~

Was Halloween just last weekend? I have lost all sense of time. We could make a list of what we didn’t do—trick-or-treating, dressing in costumes, handing out treats. Or we could tell you what we did do—carve pumpkins and watch E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial together for the first time while enjoying vaguely-Halloween-themed appetizers (witches’ brew-sketta with monster-ella cheese, anyone?).

Grandma, Aunt Treasa, and our neighbor dropped off candy for the boys—and Treasa made pumpkin cookies for me. It was a day full of treats, even if it was all a little different.

I hope your Halloween was just as wonderful.

~2~

The All Souls Day Mass I attended virtually on Monday opened with “Lord of All Hopefulness,” which is such a beautiful hymn. I’ve clung to that sense of hope all week, thinking of how God is with us at every moment of the day, always full of hope even in the darkest moments.

Nothing we encounter on earth is too large for God to handle—not a global pandemic, not tension, not fear of illness, and not the loss of people we love. He isn’t just a God of hope. He’s the Lord of all hopefulness. I find such comfort in that.

~3~

My van wouldn’t start last weekend. John finally got it going, but we realized we should have been driving it more to keep it in shape. So, John drove it to work a few times this week.

When I got in the van last night, I looked at the odometer and realized it had fallen on a good number. It occurred to me that John wouldn’t have thought to tell me this was coming up because he probably doesn’t pay attention to fun mileage milestones.

~4~

We haven’t been eating out during the pandemic, and John has been missing the sausage and lentil soup that they serve at Carrabba’s.

He found a recipe online, and I made it this week with some mild turkey Italian sausage and red lentils. It was so easy, cooked up quickly enough for a weeknight dinner, and it was delicious and really filling. If I made it again, I would freeze half or leave half on a friend or neighbor’s porch.

Here’s the sausage and lentil soup recipe, if you would like to give it a try.

~5~

One of the benefits to remote schooling is getting to capture a little glimpse into our children’s classes. The other day I was marveling at our seventh grader’s responses to questions in Chinese class. I don’t know what he was saying, but it was exciting just to know that learning is still happening even in this strange time.

Not every day goes smoothly, but we’re doing OK. But I have to admit that the best part of Election Day was having a school-free day where I didn’t have to log anyone onto any class or answer questions like “How do you spell electricity?” or worry about whether we were missing a special.

And I didn’t have to serve lunch at eleven o’clock in the morning.

~6~

I was realizing the other day that for years I told myself that even though I was balancing so much as a mother working full-time outside the home, at least I could try to make sure the time I spent with my children was high in quality rather than high in quantity. Now, I’m in a completely different position, where I feel that we have a huge quantity of time together but I’m frazzled and distracted through so much of it that there’s been a significant reduction in the quality of that time.

As I look back on this week, though, I realize how much following the election results brought us together in some interesting and important conversations. So, maybe it’s not a matter of quantity of time or quality of time. It’s just time together, and we will try to make the most of what we have.

~7~

Our older son turns 13 this week. We are kicking off the celebrations this weekend because why wouldn’t we? He has remote school on his birthday, so we figured he might as well enjoy his gifts on his days off.

I can’t believe I am the mother of a teenager—and such an awesome teenager, too.

Carry-in hibachi and ice cream cake, here we come.

Read more quick takes on Kelly’s blog, This Ain’t the Lyceum, and have a great weekend!

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