An afternoon well spent....

Since February 1, life has been so different from anything I ever planned.  That slip on ice outside the office resulted in  being out of the office since February 2.  First diagnosed as a back sprain, then a pinched nerve showed up with physical therapy. Continued numbness in my leg led to a MRI, and the results moved me to the orthopedist and then an epidural just before Easter.  Now physical therapy continues as does the numbness in my leg, though it is getting  better ever so slowly.  Seems the epidural is helping but more to come after my next ortho appointment.

Being frustrated with this situation pushed me this weekend to trying to do a more normal weekend's worth of activity.  Tomorrow will show if this was a good idea or not.

MM had a birthday party this afternoon, which DH willingly took her to (he uses the time for computer work), so LB and I focused on cleaning up the last parts of his room.  LB isn't a dirty child, just a cluttered and messy one.  Putting things back in tubs or drawers is not his strong suit.  While he put away the piles of stuff at the end of his bed, I helped sort the every present Lego blocks.  He started this a couple of weeks ago but then building interrupted.

In the end, he decided to sort the bricks by color with a couple of drawers for the more unique pieces.  Once all the blocks were sorted, we worked together to labels the drawers.  After showing him how to use my label maker, he went to town typing out labels and I put them on the correct drawers.



While the sorting and labeling progressed, I had a batch of granola in the oven.  With bags of assorted nuts and dried fruits left from making Passover charoset and being out of granola, I saw this afternoon as the perfect time to make a batch of my own.  King Arthur Flour must have read my mind because a email earlier this week came with a recipe for crunchy granola.

I tweaked it a bit for the nuts and fruit in my pantry; apricots, dates, raisins, walnuts, cashews, almonds, and pumpkin seeds.  The end result is just wonderful and tasty.  It also fills my new storage container perfectly.

Growing up my Nana made granola which was wonderful, and always in a jar on the kitchen counter.  She didn't add the dried fruit as Grandpa wasn't big on this in his cereal.  I loved helping mix the ingredients in her biggest bowl and helping spread them on the baking sheets.  Next time I'll have to get MM and LB to help out, then they might enjoy eating it.