Another Baby Step Forward!

You can read all about this in my Faith Journey With Jesus blog...I just want to tell you about it quickly and briefly now! I am excited about it. If you want details, check the other blog.
Today when I was cooking, which I always do sitting in a chair at the sink and stove, for the first time I had this sudden feeling of being tired of sitting there. So as I was cutting onions, I stood up, without really thinking about it, and finished cutting the onions standing there, leaning on the sink....but standing up! It wasn't until I was standing there that I really thought about what I was doing and how long it had been since I had stood at the sink to do any cooking. I even sit in the chair to run water until it is cold enough to fill my water bottle for drinking. So standing there to finish cutting the onions was fantastic!

By the way, I made my dahl today....but I tried making it a different way, basically from what I have been finding in the cooking videos, is my version of makhani dahl. It's good but really could use more spices. I think mine are not as strong as they were and I need new ones which I hope to get soon. Sorry, I didn't take a picture yet. Tomorrow morning after Daughter and I go shopping, we are planning on celebrating Mother's Day a bit late by making those gulab jamuns finally, and then I want to teach her how to make roti and puris. I hope Grandson will allow us that time without getting grumpy. At least we won't have to cook the dahl since it is already done. After sitting in the fridge all night, it will taste better tomorrow.

Daughter Day Today

Some days you make plans to do something and the day just turns out differently than planned. Today I really had no plans and decided at the last minute almost to go spend the day with Daughter and Grandson. Daughter has been wanting me to make an Indian sweet that I have not made in years and years. So the other day I had bought part of the ingredients not even thinking about what all I would need. Today she wanted me to come to her house and make it, so we compared what I had and what she had to see if we had enough to make it and decided to try it.
After playing with Grandson awhile before lunch and his nap, we got to the kitchen and started going through the recipe and gathering the ingredients. Ooops. She misread on the old smudged recipe card cinnamon instead of cardamom. She didn't have cardamom. I did but it was 30 minutes away. Along with not having rose water, we decided to make this another day at my house. The sweet? Oh, it is called Gulab Jamuns. And we really didn't need all that sugar anyway, right?
Daughter's big dog, a gentle rotweiler named Turbo, who is almost seven years old, suffering from doggie arthritis and other older large dog maladies, seems to be pregnant for the first time. Turbo has been restricted to the outdoors during Grandson's awake time and apparently a neighbor's black lab decided to make Turbo his girlfriend. Well, now the question is, what to do about the location for mommy to deliver her puppies. Since Daughter would like that place to be in one side of her kitchen where she can keep a close eye on Turbo through it all, we set on figuring out just where in her kitchen she could fit. What started out being a cooking time turned into a move-the-refrigerator-over-a-few-inches time. Of course all you housewives know what you find when you move a refrigerator over, don't you? It turned into a sweep and mop up that stuff time, and then Turbo got her big comfy cushion set up where she could have a quiet, semi-secluded area to have her puppies. And she looks like it could be any day now.
Grandson's baby gate has a new temporary use now. Instead of, and in addition to, keeping baby restricted to specific areas, it now is being used overnights and when no one is home, to restrict Turbo to her kitchen labor and delivery room. Then it will keep baby out of the new puppy nursery.

Daughter says the daddy black lab is a very gentle dog too, so the puppies should have their parents' temperments. It will be nice to have a puppy to grow up with Grandson and be his friend and protector. I hope Turbo makes it through this time of physical stress. They tried a few years ago to have her bred but eventually they just figured she would not be able to have puppies. So this has come as a shock. Son-in-law is excited about the prospect of puppies but wants them born outside under the back porch where Turbo likes to spend her time outside. Daughter is more concerned about her health and that she makes it through the delivery okay and the puppies are okay, so prefers the little kitchen OB unit. So the kitchen it is as of today.

Puppy updates to follow.