On Saturday morning I ran 10.7 miles, which was four loops around a local nature trail. I’m training for a half marathon, and theoretically if I can run that much without falling apart, I should be OK. It was sunny but not too hot — almost perfect running weather.

On Saturday afternoon, my husband, and 9-year-old and I went to a party for his class. One of his classmates’ parents hosted this “getting to know you” party at their house and the kids had a great time in the rented bouncy house.

I went shopping with my daughter at Marshalls and Target (complete with a Starbucks stop). I took my/my 17-year-old’s 13-year-old car to get serviced and it had no additional issues beyond normal maintenance.

On Sunday, I went to church and sang Olivier Messiaen’s O Sacrum Convivium — quite the lovely chromatic piece. Four out of five kids made it to church. The other child was at soccer with my husband and scored 3 goals!

Then four out of five kids (different set) went apple picking at Linvilla — we got lots of honeycrips and then went to the arts and crafts fair there.

There was a pool trip after, plus apple pie making.

So this weekend all sounds good, and the photo roll looks glowy but…everyone was just. so. whiny. And fighting a lot. Linvilla was a zoo and a lot of the apple trees were picked over. We had gone there vs. somewhere more pastoral because one child was excited about the arts and crafts fair, but then it turned out this child thought we would be making crafts (as opposed to local vendors selling their wares…). The long run did not feel good until it was over. I was constantly haranguing people to get places and I am just so over it.

Needless to say, I am grumpy about this.

But! It is before 8 a.m. on Monday and I am at my desk. I also had a very pleasant solo float in the pool Saturday late afternoon, looking up at the early fall leaves, so I’ll try to keep that as my image of this weekend (of course those leaves all land in the pool and have to be cleaned out but…).

Anyway, in finding space for the second bushel we brought home this past weekend, I noticed that we still had about a dozen apples from the last time going bad in the fruit drawer. No one was likely to eat them. So I used the simple recipe that  (if I recall correctly) Calee posted last time (just simmer and mash it, peels and all!) and made a big batch of applesauce that I have been eating this week. It turns out that even going-bad apples can make good applesauce!

One of my little sources of satisfaction in life is using things up. Working from home allows for a lot of that with lunches. My husband and I heated up some Costco pulled pork on Sunday night, which made enough to take us through at least two lunches apiece this week. On one day I decided to use up some kale by frying up the pulled pork and kale in some olive oil in a pan. It was quite tasty, and a very palatable way to eat a ton of greens.

On Tuesday night we had pasta. I cut up some peppers that were lingering in the fridge, plus some spinach that was on its last legs, and put those in the sauce. I have found that almost any wilting veggie can be accommodated quite nicely with some rice and pre-cooked sausage, all pan-fried together. It’s a double bonus if we happen to have some sort of sauce left over from one of our Sunbasket meal kits.

Anyway, there’s a balancing act here. Theoretically, using it up means we could go longer between shops, or buy less. But when the larder looks bare, the kids just don’t eat as many fruits and veggies. I need to have their favorites on hand.

But I can still enjoy my thrift. Now if you need me, I’ll be over here putting water in my shampoo bottle to extend its life for a few more days…