It’s hard to rest when there’s so much to be done.  The house is cluttered beyond what I can stand, there’s dishes to do, there’s all kinds of things that I’d like to bake and put in our new chest freezer, and I have fabric all set for bedroom and dining room curtains and cushions for our living room too.  And that doesn’t even start with what I need to do in the yard or paperwork to file or e-mails to answer.  But last night, Nik thanked me for working so hard and then very perceptively told me that I needed to rest.  And he’s right – I’m exhausted.  I haven’t been sleeping well for some reason and I didn’t feel well at school today, at all.  So tonight, while Nik is at his grad class, I’m trying to rest.  It’s hard.  I keep feeling like I should be doing something – accomplishing something – crossing something off the many lists that at this point only reside in my head.  In fact, what I really want to do right now is make lists of what I need to do.  But I don’t think that would count as resting either so I’ll put that off until another day.  My instinct is to get up off this couch and get something done but I keep hearing Nik’s voice in my head to rest so I’m staying put!  I’m also listening to my bluegrass station on Pandora and remembering how much I love bluegrass music.  I need to listen to more of it!

Kristen and I always used to say that we were rich when we had a supply of black bean and sweet potato burritos in the freezer.  Well, yesterday, I made them and not only did we eat them for dinner two nights in a row, but we have ten in the freezer.  They are SO GOOD.  And all the ingredients are in season right now (except the lime – we can’t be perfect.)  And I even had enough yellow pear and Juliet tomatoes from our garden to use our own tomatoes in them!  I think I posted the recipe somewhere on this blog but I don’t remember when.  E-mail me if you want me to send you the recipe.  And then I also made Mom’s granola recipe last night.  So Nik says that we’re not only rich, we’re millionaires!!    We’re really trying hard to eliminate as much pre-made, multi-ingredient store-bought items from our life as possible so cereal was next on the list to go (i.e. we’d like to try to eat just homemade cereal from now on, at least as much as we can).  It came out really well!  I had to bake it about twice as long as the recipe called for but I think that’s because my cookie sheets are too small so the granola was too crowded.  New cookie sheets are basically the last thing that I need to buy in order to basically have completed my baking supplies.

Now I’m going to read.  Just read. Nothing else.  And I’m not even going to read anything that’s going to teach me anything.  Nik is reading Ominvore’s Dilemma right now.  I’ll read it eventually but for now I think I’ll just stick to a magazine.  And as much as it pains me to say this, I promise to keep resting until I feel better.