It’s important for moms to recognize that all the small successes in our days can add up to one big triumph. So on Thursday of each week, we do exactly that.

1) On Haus Meister’s iPad there’s a game called Dizzypad HD, wherein by expertly tapping the screen at the right time you can get a cute little frog to hop from spinning lily pad to spinning lily pad.  I now have the family high score in that game.  That is an amazingly inconsequential success that did nothing but inflate my pride a bit, but there it is. I am inordinately proud of it.

2) Haus Meister found a bread machine for me at a neighbor’s yard sale.  It looks as if it had been used maybe once or twice, and they sold it to him for $5.  So now I have two bread machines!  This enabled me to indulge in domestic bakery projects, like bake an extra large loaf of bread in the new machine while simultaneously making dough for homemade burger buns in the other.  These burger buns…..oh SO good.

3) Other baking successes–the burgers to go with the buns.  After getting the latest issue of Faith & Family magazine, which featured recipes by Fr. Leo Patalinghug (the “Grace Before Meals” cooking priest), we tried his  Old Bay Beer-Braised Shrimp, a dish that is now a definite keeper.   The tin of Old Bay seasoning I found is quite large, though, at least for us.  Often we find a tin of seasoning that isn’t so good, and then we have it for ages.  Well, that won’t be the case with Old Bay.  We used it on shrimp, in an omelette, and in burgers.  These burgers I kind of made up on my own from different recipes– 3lbs ground beef mixed with1/4 c olive oil, a liberal helping of both Worcestershire sauce and Old Bay, then rolled into balls and flattened for grilling.  Next time I’ll add an egg or some bread crumbs for binding, as they tended to fall apart a bit on the grill.  That didn’t stop them from being spicy & delicious, however.

4) I began to cut out the material for the dress.