New calling :)

I was set apart after church yesterday. I am the new fourth-Sunday teacher in Relief Society. I will take the assigned General Conference address and build a lesson from it. In my previous stake, we had to meld two or three addresses into a coherent whole. In this stake it will be easier, as there is only one chosen by the stake presidency per month. I teach in two weeks.

Church was good. I have slightly mixed feelings about the new ChiaoGoo needle. The cable has a finely-plied steel wire core inside the plastic sheath. I wish they had had a 40” needle in the shop, as the steel makes the cord less flexible, and the needle portions are a little longer than what I need for this job. It made the gusset decreases on the baby sock more fiddly than I would have liked, dealing with two loops until I had decreased down to 20 stitches on the instep. Now that I am doing a pure and simple Magic Loop, I am very much pleased with the performance.

I waited at church while Beloved did his duty as ward financial clerk. Knitted a little and read the second half of last week’s RS lesson and the first half of the lesson we studied yesterday. I finished that lesson a few minutes before bedtime. So I am now in position to read the lesson for next week, if belatedly obedient and studious.

I made spanakopita from memory, after a short nap. It was pretty good, and next time it will be better. I have been married to Beloved just long enough that I am starting to acclimate to his tastes. I will put in more onion next time, and some freshly-grated pepper, but I was pleased with the onion/spinach/egg/cheese balance overall. And you can’t go wrong with a recipe that uses an entire stick of butter!

I also made a simple salad: sliced baby carrots, grape tomatoes, small red grapes, almond slices, a couple of radishes, a couple of green onions, mine topped with balsamic salad spritzer. I have two days’ worth of salad ready to go, and two portions of spanakopita to take with them, plus a larger container with about three servings of spanakopita that will probably get eaten by Beloved for his lunches.

He fed the dishwasher and did a load of whites and washed the flannel sheets we got as a wedding present; I put them in the dryer. We are having a cold spell, and some areas are getting snow and/or sleet. So we plan to break in the sheets tonight, after an empty-nesters’ dinner.

We are starting to get a rhythm on chores. He’ll wash a load and dump it on the bed. I’ll fold it while sitting on the bed and talking to him as he gets ready for bed. I put my stuff away; he puts his away; we have family prayer, and one of us stays up and putters on the computer for a few minutes.

He wanted to get all the wedding presents out of the living room and into what will become our office. I got that taken care of while we watched [most of] the Grammy Awards. I discovered some singers whose voices I like (Adele, the lead singer of the group Jack Black introduced, the lead of the group that covered the first Beach Boys song), and I thought Jennifer Hudson’s rendition of Whitney’s song was just lovely. Brian Wilson looked a little lost. Glen Campbell and Tony Bennett were heartbreaking. Sir Paul was inspiring. And Elton John in the Pepsi commercials was a hoot!

I’ve paid bills this morning. And mopped the guest bathroom. Beloved is about to fix breakfast. He checked the driveway and road. The sleet woke us up in the middle of the night. It’s wet out there, but no snow on the ground.

This is the part where I mosey out to the kitchen and flirt with the cook. Happy Monday, everybody!