The Weekly Ramble – April 18, 2025

Happy Friday! Here’s what I’ve been doing, eating, listening, reading, and writing this past week. Let’s chat earthquakes, books, grilling weather, and Easter.

I lived my life this week, but have very little photographic evidence to show for it. Trust me, we’re still here, earthquakes and all.

This is the screenshot I took on Monday morning right after the Julian earthquake hit. They later downgraded it to a 5.2.

I was on the 4th floor of the library when it happened. Since we live near a Marine base, there’s always a split second you spend to determine if it’s artillery or an earthquake. I looked at the students around me and it was like we were all wondering the same thing.

Thankfully, there was no serious damage and the college where I have entrusted one of my children seemed to have followed all the protocols to keep everyone safe. It’s always a little wild.

Here’s what else I’ve been doing, eating, listening, reading, and writing this past week.

What I’ve been Doing

We never did the Easter bunny with our kids so Easter baskets aren’t really a thing. However, after reading God Rest Ye Merry and listening to the Easter episodes of Come Over For Dinner I’m trying to make much of Easter.

It is the most important of our holidays, I think.

I bought each of the home kids a book and sent gifts to our away kids and grand cat as well. Here’s what I chose for the home kids who are all book-book people. I’ve read and loved the top three books and heard goods things about the bottom two.

I’ve also got big plans for Easter eats this weekend. FisherMan24 has been gone in New Zealand for the past week so it will be nice to catch up with him.

What I’ve been Eating

Since AI is upsetting the food blog world, I’ve not been as driven to develop new recipes. I’m not giving up — perish the thought! — but I am waiting for things to shake down so to speak.

Instead, I’m building better resources for the Good Cheap Eats Club and working on feeding my family on a budget.

If you’ve kept up with my grocery haul posts, you know that we’re rich in meat. I’m so thankful to have found a lot of good deals recently. Bryan and I discussed it, we’re going to buy as much as we can store as long as these good prices last.

This week we enjoyed:

• baked turkey sausages, manicotti, and salad
• grilled pork sausages, grilled veg, and roast potatoes
• soft tacos that everyone raved about because I used real beef instead of turkey or chicken. They kept commenting about how amazing the taco seasoning was, but I had to tell them it was really the beef!
• Stone soup – there were leftovers from the weekend that needed using and even though they were a little weird (beef gravy and meat sauce), I made a lovely stone soup with them!
• stuffed chicken breasts from this cookbook, Mexican rice, and salad
• grilled pizza

What I’ve been Listening to

FishChick16 and I finished listening to the audio book of Perelandra. It was good. But I’m guessing I maybe don’t understand it all to think it’s mind-blowing as everyone says.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some really great concepts that provide hearty food for thought. But as a whole, I don’t go, “Wow. That was an amazing book.”

I’ve checked out Deeper Heaven: A Reader’s Guide to C.S. Lewis’ Ransom Trilogy. Maybe that will tell me what I’ve missed?

I’ve also been catching up on podcasts, including What Have You, Come Over for Dinner, and Stories are Soul Food.

What I’ve been Reading

I spent some time earlier this week updating my To Be Read in 2025 post. If you’d like brief snippets from each of the 58 books I’ve read so far this year, head here.

(Did you happen to hear me shout 58! just now? I surprise even myself.)

This month’s reading is a little slower, partly because I’m reading paper and reading more academic things. At least Story Genius was academic for me. Of course now that I’ve finished it, the kindle price is reduced.

I have started another ten books at least and need to make myself finish some before starting anything new. I’ve also started several and then abandoned them.

What I’ve been Writing

Other than writing blog posts for later this spring, I’m not doing a lot of writing. Each week I tell myself I’m going to get into a writing habit, but I procrastinate — because there’s academic reading I should do first or cleaning to do, or something else to do.

The truth is probably closer to my being afraid. Afraid of writing something cheesy. Afraid that I’ll fail. Afraid that it won’t be the big success I hope it will be.

I need to knock that stuff off and just write.