List Season

We’ve made it to what Simon calls one of my favorite times of the year, list-making time! Who doesn’t love a good list?! I’ve spent the past 2 weekends getting our to-do lists, to-order list and to-pack list all written out for the end of the year. I’m not going to lie those lists are pretty lengthy. We’ve got lists of things that need to be done here at our house before we leave, things that must be done at school before the end of the year, things that need to be purchased for our summer time back “home”, things we’ll need to order for next school year and finally things that we need to pack and take with us for the summer. Whew! Just thinking about the list can be exhausting and yet it’s exhilarating all at the same time.

I assured Simon that he would thank me later for my list that included "a thousand dollars worth of items".

We packed our first suitcase last weekend and checked several items off the ‘to pack’ list. I did a little happy dance, and then promptly re-wrote the remaining items on a new list. It’s a great feeling to cross something off those lists!

 This weekend we did an inventory of the freezer and pantry to determine what we should eat for our last 18, yes 18, days here in Goodnews. I don’t know anyone who likes to waste food, but given the cost and difficulty of getting food here we especially hate to waste food. So, part of the inventory today included checking expiration and best buy dates on nearly everything in our pantry. We ended up with just a few things that were too far gone to use and one huge can of pumpkin pie mix that needs to be used before we leave.

How should we use this huge can of pumpkin pie mix when we don’t have all of the ingredients on hand to make a pie—well chocolate chip pumpkin cookies, of course! So, we set out making a double batch of cookies tonight. Don’t worry we’re not planning to eat these all for ourselves; we’ll share with the students! Some cookies will likely end up at Prom and others at an auction for the Jr/Sr High students.

About an hour into baking!

Some of the finished product. I missed getting pictures of the rest--they are already packaged and in the freezer for student activities this month.