Yada, Yada

Boy, this retired life is hard to keep up with.  And Dan and I have come to conclusion that days are shorter than they used to be.  Don't really know how this can be, but I've heard it from lots of other, um, older people. Anyway, it seems that there isn't as much time to get things done as in the past.  I taught two machine embroidery classes at the shop last Thursday, worked there as usual on Friday, and then after our traditional Friday night date at a local Mexican restaurant, Dan and I found ourselves so tuckered that we were in bed around eight!  Yikes!  

Then on Saturday, Dan got up early to split wood for Dad and Mom, loaded it and we took off for their house where Bruder Bear and nephew JR were already hard at work on a few chores.  Dan had taken a load down on Friday, too, so he was able to avail himself of some good help with the unloading both days. 

John and Dan worked on putting a new light/heat lamp/fan in the ceiling of one of mom and dad's bathrooms, and in between, all the guys went out for a little practice shooting with their muzzle loaders in anticipation of hunting later this fall.  By all accounts, some more practice will be needed.  

It was a fun and productive day and we all had a great time.  Bruder Bear drove his new truck up and we had fun giving it the once over.  It's a beaut!  

Sunday was church and a nap.  Monday, we decided to head for Costco because certain necessary supplies were running out.  I know I've said it before, but I love Costco!!  It's better than a trip to Disneyland for sure. As usual, in addition to those necessary supplies, we found other items that seemed to find their way into the cart.  (I got a gorgeous new 5-quart stainless pan that I've drooled over for months.  Can't wait to use it.)

Tuesday and Wednesday have come and gone, housework, keeping up with some Bible study lessons, a little cooking...and here we are on Thursday night.  Back to work at the shop tomorrow.  Saturday I'll be cooking up a storm to provide some food for a family of four whose wife and mother is just recovering from breast cancer surgery.  They're special friends and so I want to make some good stuff.  And so, the days and weeks pass.   ♥

The Shingles and Me

I got the shingles for Christmas last year, and even though it rhymes with jingles, let me assure you there's nothing festive about them.  Oh, they are rather red, but again, nothing festive.  So when I went to the doctor for the second time (the first one was young and inexperienced and didn't recognize what I had), in addition to saying, "Shingles!  You've got shingles," she mentioned my blood pressure was high.  I said it was probably due to the fact that, until that moment, I didn't know what was wrong with my arm and suspected some horrible, dread disease, possibly resulting in my arm falling off.  Anyway, a follow-up appointment was scheduled for me to check out the situation.

I dutifully took myself to the doctor (a new one recommended by the lovely lady doc who had recognized my shingles) and he said, yup, it looks high.  I said I didn't want to take a bunch of meds and amazingly enough, he agreed to let me try without, concentrating on diet and exercise.  He also mentioned the DASH diet which gave me a starting point.

I went home, researched DASH and ordered several books from Amazon.  By this time it was early January and the exercise issue was a real dilemma.  There was snow outside, and ice, and it wasn't looking good for walks which was his recommendation.  As I was talking about all this to Ann, she mentioned that my old NordicTrack was languishing in her basement because, as she put it, she had a two-year-old.  The whole family brought it over that night and left it for me.  My exercise issue was solved.  (Of course, I had to use it myself, but thanks be to God, I have used it five days a week since then.  We're talkin' real miracle here, folks.)

I got my DASH books and set about reading them.  Of course, one main course of action is to limit salt intake, but another is to eat a lot of grains, fruits, and veggies. And not in chip form!!!  When you start limiting foods based on sodium content, it's amazing what gets tossed from your diet.  I began to try many new foods and cooking methods.  A new row of spices showed up on my shelf.  Good thing I enjoy cooking!  It has actually been, for the most part, fun, and I look at it as a challenge. Some good stuff has resulted and even Dan says he enjoys it.  

Oh, a couple of points I've almost forgotten to mention: it worked!  After two follow-up visits to the doc, he turned me loose, saying it was a pleasure to work with someone who actually did the right thing.  And second, a totally unexpected benefit has been my new shape.  I had long tried to lose some pounds, with no luck.  The combination of my new diet and the NordicTrack knocked off twenty pounds and tightened quite a few of this old girl's muscles (formerly known as dimpled flab).  Who knew?!?  

I have tossed almost all my old clothes and purchased new ones and it's actually been fun!  And it's helped me to keep motivated.    I have to confess, I'm still not a lover of exercise, but I force myself to the family room each morning and get on and go.  I tell Dan I feel like an alcoholic, but instead of a drink, I'm just one missed morning away from going back to my old ways.  I also confess to slipping a few chips into my mouth on occasion, but I guilt up pretty fast and swear off for at least a week or so.  

On the food front, one of my favorite new lunches is a huge salad.  In my old days, a salad was just a way to add croutons, olives, cheese, and yummy salad dressing. After reading labels, it turned out that wasn't such a good idea.  Right now my current fav is:  a huge bowl of spring mix greens, strawberries, blueberries, a little reduced fat feta cheese, sliced chicken breast (home cooked on my George Foreman), and sliced almonds.  I make my dressing using olive oil, balsamic vinegar and sugar.  It's yummy!

I have to say, getting the shingles was a blessing.  And outside of not knowing for a few days what I had, it wasn't awful like you hear on the ads on TV.  I have some residual scarring, more like polka dots, but I can't complain.  Dan says the scars are on muscle, not flab.  ♥

Oops! I Lied!

A day or so after I wrote my last post, I realized I had made a grievous error.  I said that no work was done on Labor Day at Bruder Bear's, but that's not true.  I didn't work, but the other three did!  

Karen's decorating guru is Candace Olson of TV and book fame, and she said Candace says every home needs a little bling.  Karen decided a chandelier in the entryway would be just the thing.  So she bought one and brought it home some time ago.  Of course, as with most things these days, the instructions were a little, well, incomprehensible.  John looked at them and was baffled, so the light was put away for the time being.  

Enter us and someone (Dan) to help figure the instructions out.  They read, they pondered, they spread things out.  They compared parts to the pictures.  It was slow going.  Finally, John decided to just start in.  

(Turns out those trusty Swiss Army knives are just the thing even when hanging chandeliers.  That's what Dan is handing John in the photo above.)

Meanwhile, Karen started sorting the crystals to be hung. There are many of them!

The project progresses!

And we have bling!

Oh wait!  I did document this momentous occasion, so maybe I did work?  Hmmm....♥

Home Again

It seems that for the past few years, August is our month to travel.  We're not very adventurous, often preferring to remain home after years of both of us working long hours away from home.  In fact, I distinctly remember sitting in my living room one morning four years (!!) ago when I first retired and thinking, "So this is what my house is like on a Tuesday morning in September!"  And I loved it!

But, I digress.  We had our wonderful trip to the coast a month ago, and we returned home for a week or so and then it was time to leave again.  Dan had a talk to give in McCall and we used it as a springboard to further adventures.  We had a leisurely drive to McCall and it was my first road adventure in our new truck. Let me just say that it goes!!  What fun to drive!  And the six-speed automatic transmission was amazing as we blasted up and down the grades between here and there.   So fun to kick it up and down the gears--Dan may be wondering if he's lost his truck to me!  

After a night at the hotel and Dan's talk in the morning, we headed for Boise where I requested a stop at Target for new sheets for our bed (I think it's a sign you need a new set when the thin spots are so thin that hole might be a better word...)  Following that, a little visit to the Quilt Crossing was in order, and yes, several purchases were made, but none were fabric.

We met special friends Michael and Suzanne for dinner and had such a great time!  Michael is the pastor who married both our kids and Suzanne is a dearly loved friend.  We chatted and shared as the time flew by. After three hours, we had to leave because our next spot was Bruder Bear's house, two and a half hours further down the road.  

Suffice it to say, we had another great time with John and Karen.  We did a little shopping in a neighboring town, drove to Sun Valley and on to Stanley on Sunday, and did no labor on Labor Day!  It was a lovely, restful visit and we loved every moment.  John was looking for a new pickup so some time was spent perusing the local dealers with no decisions made.  He did find just the perfect truck the next weekend, though, and is happily getting acquainted with his new Dodge diesel.  

Monday afternoon John, Dan and I spent a little time down at their dock.  You'll remember that Dan and John put in the framework for the adjoining deck two years ago.  It's a wonderful spot, right on the water, and the weather was perfect.  John snapped this picture of Dan and me.

We drove home Tuesday after Labor Day and had two days at home before we drove to Spokane to take part in Dan's high school's 50th reunion.  By the time we got home from that, we were ready to stay home. However, work beckoned both of us and I've worked two days this week and Dan is in Coeur d'Alene doing another tour. It's good to be busy, but it's also good to be home. Maybe next week.  ♥

UPDATE:  Just visited the tour FB site and snagged this photo of Dan doing his "thing" (the caption they had on the picture was "Dr. Dan's bus classroom").

Of Gardens and Zucchini

When we were young marrieds with two tiny children, we moved to the valley where summers are HOT. Dan put in a garden and we had a wonderful crop of corn, beans, squash (summer and winter), beets; you know, all the standards. And it was a good thing because we didn't have much money! The first year we froze everything but in those pre-microwave days, it was not always easy to thaw what was needed unless one thought ahead. I usually didn't. The next summer, we invested in a pressure canner and from then on, veggies were processed that way.

Zucchini was always a good producer and both Dan and I have always been fond of it as a vegetable. Steamed, breaded and fried, no matter--we love the stuff. The summer of 1975 my friend Roxy offered me a loaf of zucchini bread, which I had never eaten before. Yum! She copied the recipe for me and I've made many loaves over the years. Every summer when I get it out, I see her handwriting and I miss her--she and her family moved to Oklahoma twenty-five years ago and there they've stayed. I'm reminded that handwritten recipes are a double gift--the recipe and memories of the friend who wrote it.

Zucchini has a reputation. It has long been believed that just a plant or two will produce more zucchini than one family could eat in a year. Sadly, our plant production the last few years has forced me to repudiate that claim. Last year we got nary a one. This year we have grown a few, but not nearly enough to satisfy me. What gives?!? And I really needed them--our supply of zucchini relish gave out last winter, an unheard of disaster in our home since 1979 when our pastor's wife gave me the recipe. So, the few zucchini that managed to set were left to grow to giant size for their noble purpose: to be shredded, mixed with onions, peppers and spices, cooked, and canned. I am happy to report that twelve jars are now in my pantry; they should last us until next summer. I made two batches, six jars each, and used the extra shredded zucchini to make double batches of the bread. Yay! Here's a picture of the first batch.

The first years I made both the bread and the relish, I grated every cup by hand. Then along came my first food processor and I was thrilled! This year I used my new Cuisinart and I must say it made even shorter work of the shredding process. And so quiet!

Only the mess in the sink remained. It's such a blessing to have the right tools! ♥

Chicken for A Cold

Thursday morning I hurried through all my morning chores so I could get to Ann's house to watch Daniel while she took Cameron to get braces put on his lower teeth.  (He's had the uppers on all summer and it's amazing how those teeth have straightened.)

When I got back home around noon, Dan was sitting in his recliner moaning that he had "the crud."  (And here I must tell you I hate that word, but I also subscribe to truth in blogging, so...)  And it did, indeed, appear that he was suffering from the start of a cold, so who was I to quibble?  

A little while later, I was perusing the internet and happened upon The Pioneer Woman's recipe for chicken pot pie.  Aha!  An answer to my unspoken question of what's for dinner.  And, sort of like chicken soup, it would be good for my sweetie.  I checked the list of ingredients, read the reviews (all excellent), and saw I only needed two items to make it happen:  turmeric and a potato. And I realize that a potato was a strange thing to need, but somehow in the summer we use very few potatoes and I realized buying a bag would only result in waste, so one potato it was.  After printing the recipe, I headed to my nearby Safeway and had fun wandering the aisles just seeing what was to be had there as opposed to my usual grocery shopping haunt.  

I had fun making the recipe and my only oops was in not thawing a pie crust soon enough and then overdoing it in the microwave.  The resulting topping isn't pretty, but it was truly all cooked and crispy.  

The only changes I made were to cook my chicken breasts in water and use that water for my broth, add the potato (suggested in one of the reviews), and use a dash of poultry seasoning instead of added salt.  It was delicious!  Dan loved it, too, and it will definitely be made again and again, and soon.  Oh, and I did add more flour because I like my filling thick.  

Here's a link to the recipe: Chicken Pot Pie

And as Ree would say, I was not paid for this endorsement, she doesn't even know who I am, over and out, amen. ♥

Vacation Part Deux

My last post was getting so long that I decided to spare my readers and do a part two (but doesn't deux sound so, so much cooler?) later in the week.  Guess what?  It's Thursday and I work tomorrow, so I guess later in the week is now!  

Really, I just have a few pictures taken last Tuesday when we made a trip down 101 to Tillamook, Oregon. What a nice little town!  And home to the Tillamook Cheese Factory!  If you live in the west, Tillamook cheese is the premier cheese.  They have a lovely facility with large viewing windows and we watched the big blocks of cheese move down conveyor belts as they were cut and wrapped.  

We didn't get any samples because the place was packed with people and the lines were long, and well, we had a two-year-old in a stroller with us, but we did all enjoy ice cream cones filled with delicious Tillamook ice cream!  In a word, yum!

While at the cheese factory, we took a few minutes to check out their gift shop and I scored!  I've been wanting to find some decorative pieces for summer to go with my patriotic decorating theme and I found this perfect Williraye figurine (click to enlarge so you can see how cute he is):

Our other stop that day was the Tillamook Air Museum, housed in a huge old blimp hanger from World War II. There weren't very many visitors so we enjoyed roaming around inside the gigantic space seeing the planes on display.  Dan had read that they had a Skyraider and he was thrilled when he found it.  (Whenever we're watching a movie on a DVD or DVR that features one, he always rewinds so he can hear the engines over and over.  He says he loves that sound!)

They also had a Lockheed P2V-7 Neptune.  When Dan was stationed at Cam Rahn Bay, Vietnam, his day job (as averse to his night job in a guard tower) was to work on engines for P2's.  Who knows?  He may have actually worked on the engine attached to the propeller he's touching in the picture below!

They also had "trainers" for various aircraft.  Here's Cam and Keat in one for a helicopter.  (I think they were into it!)

They also had displays featuring items from WWII when the hangar was part of one of eleven or twelve Navy blimp bases in the US.  Here's Daniel giving one display a close look:

Amazingly, the only money I spent on the whole trip was for that figurine.  There was a quilt shop in Cannon Beach, but I've been in it before and it wasn't my style. There were several in Tillamook, but with the whole family in the van, I wasn't about to make them wait while I checked one out.  Truthfully, shopping on this vacation wasn't even in the picture.  It was good to just relax, walk the beach, and spend time with the gang. It was a perfect, relaxing week.  And I even survived Portland traffic, for which I am truly thankful.  ♥