I did a lot today! The biggest accomplishment was that I FINISHED THE LINEN ROOM! Yay! Janet and I were both so happy with how tidy it looks compared to before.
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| Juanita putting the finishing touch--the glaze--on her lovely roles de canela |
Played a couple of worship songs to go with morning devos. I let Janet work with Juanita on lunch prep today because she finally didn’t have something else to get done, and I know she wants to practice her Spanish too. So I did a double walking loop (ugh, it was so oppressively humid at that hour, but I got it done) and did a load of laundry. Hung it up all over the inside of my room instead of on the clothesline in case of more unexpected rain. After that I went and worked on the linen room with the intent of getting it done by the end of the day. I finished organizing the blankets and made sure everything was labeled with sticky notes so we could make permanent labels later. Finished that section just in time for lunch.
Juanita made “Chinese” vegetables, which was cooked carrots, cabbage, cauliflower, and chicken (she had a “C” theme going today, apparently . . . first cinnamon rolls and then that lunch!) in a soy-sauce-ish marinade. It didn’t taste like Chinese food, but it was still good. I’ve been all over the cooked carrots in these soups we keep having . . . most of the time cooked carrots don’t happen at home because certain members of our family have aversions to cooked carrots and to soup (I won’t name names, haha).
After lunch I went back to tackle the remainder of the linen room. Janet came with me. We brought her label maker, some cleaner, and some paper towels, and spent the next half hour or so scraping and scrubbing off old labels on the shelves and putting new ones on. Janet had more office work to do and it was hot in the linen room (no fan in there), so she left after a while and I kept working until I’d finished getting all the old sticky stuff off.
After that, I went to the kitchen for cooking class. Eddie’s daughter Christina has been teaching the girls some homemaking skills, and one of the things they’ve been learning is how to bake different types of bread. But the girls haven’t done cooking class in a couple weeks because Christina was on vacation. So since she was back today, they were doing a tortilla-making session! I learned from Juanita last week how to roll and cook a tortilla, but today I learned the recipe too, and got to watch a lot of tortillas go on the griddle. Now I have a good idea of exactly what the dough consistency should be, how thin to roll them, how long to cook them, etc. It was a lot of fun. The girls made chili-bean burritos with the fresh tortillas, which Frances and I served with soup for dinner. (For the record, Juanita made a cucumber salad earlier that was intended to go with the dinner too, so the “C” theme continued!)
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| Noemi, Ana Lidia, Diana, Kayla, and Cristelle (Christina's daughter) in dough-making action |
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| The girls did a great job--their tortillas were looking pretty professional by the end! |
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| Look at this organ-i-zation! |
Also made another school snack: layered cookie bars with cranberry sauce in the middle. The trouble was, I put them in right before tortilla class, and then I was so busy monitoring the tortillas on the griddle that I completely forgot to take them out! So alas, they got sort of burnt on the bottom. I feel bad . . . the school snack is going to be marginal one day this week . . .
Went back to the linen room to put a stake in it after dinner. I was so close and just wanted to be done. Janet came in and she was so pleased at how clean it looked. I had just vacuumed and bagged up the last of the donation items, so the floor was finally clear and (mostly) spotless. Josefina came in too, and she got a huge smile and said thank you, it looked great.
Next I went back to the kitchen and cut, bagged, and labeled the rather-burnt cranberry bars for school snacks. Put them in fridge/freezer. Replaced empty toilet paper and Ziploc supply in chow hall. Ate one more tortilla—a “defective” one that was nice and thick—and it more than compensated for any kind of dessert. Didn’t need any late night snacks tonight after that! Came back to my room and put laundry away. Did another load. Studied my sign language. Took out other load and hung it to dry. Very tired now. (Need a shower because I’m covered in dust, dirt, and cobwebs from head to toe.) Good thing I worked a lot today, because I ate a big fat cinnamon roll and probably the equivalent of four flour tortillas. Yes, there are fruits and veggies here, but eating healthy is still so tough . . .
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