So...whats for dinner?

Hoping you receive good news today, Special!

Minus (a backyard pool!), I'm impressed with all of your community effort to sustain swim recreation for the neighborhood. Your neighbors are very fortunate! I hope they appreciate all of your work. As far as trash, would it not be easier to ask all families to remove their own trash? At our lake beach, everyone brings their trash home with them when they leave....no trash cans needed! It works well, and we rarely see any errant pieces of trash left anywhere. Tho for your group I guess it would represent a bit of a cultural and mind set change since they have been used to having the "service". But.....change happens!

And change is here..... As I write this, the property across the street is noisily being denuded....of an entire corner "hedge" of huge 50 year old hemlocks, and two beautiful 100 year old oak trees. Yikes!! Hard for me to appreciate this "destruction" as "progress". And I seriously need to get earplugs if I ever want to "sleep in" during the next year while the new house is being constructed.

We attended a beautiful wedding on Saturday...the younger daughter of the friends with whom we usually have Christmas dinner married the younger brother of one of DS2's best friends, whose parents we also know. It was quite unusual here to attend a wedding with so many attendees having been "kids" and parents from my sons' elementary school. Such fun!! I re-connected with some folks we have not seen for over twenty years. So lots of great catching up in addition to a beautiful and very personalized ceremony over Boston Harbor, a lavish cocktail event and reception with delectable food and a great full band. I particularly enjoyed having a few young adult guests (who now live out of state) come over to "catch up" with us about our family. So sweet to see them in their "thirtysomething" selves. I was reminded of how fortunate we have all been to raise our children in this community of caring, hard-working families.

Yesterday, we dragged ourselves out of bed to chart out a furniture store hunt to buy a new easy chair for DH. We desperately need to dispose of his old one!! We trudged through one huge, then one smaller store with no luck finding a "stressless" style in a color to fit with our existing family room decor. By the end of the afternoon, we found ourselves roaming around Ikea looking for a planter I need to replace. The food aromas there convinced us to eat dinner on site, which we have never done. We skipped the Swedish meatballs, and I had a spinach salad with chicken, pecans, blue cheese and strawberries (sadly with a thick ranch dressing, all that was available....light balsamic would have been nice). DH had chicken florentine with mashed potatoes and steamed vegetables. We both enjoyed their corn bread, and shared a piece of apple pie which was good. While in the cafeteria line, I was horrified by the woman and man ahead of us who took at least seven desserts and kept exchanging them for ones they thought they would prefer. I hope they had clean hands since they left their fingerprints on all those dessert plates! Yuk!

Sorry for yet another very long post. Will post wedding food and pix later....

Great news, SpecialK!

carole - thanks! DH made dinner tonight - this is a rarity, but he did great! Sautéed some chicken andouille sausage, and then added some leftover heavy cream that needed to be used up, and some Cajun spice, then added some parm and cooked penne. It was delish! Not slimming, but yummy

That's great MOmmy! I planted zucchini and dill and watered the rest of the garden.

That's good news Special.

I will have mussels and fresh bread and butter for dinner. Mussels $1.99 per pound. It's almost like catfish in Georgia, "Buying that is silly, they are so easy to get, why buy?"

I know, but I'm lazy

Yay for good biopsy news, always welcome.

hsant, thank you for the potato info; I can see why a double boiler makes sense. Ina Garten says she "holds" her mashed potatoes by the homemade double boiler, i.e., a bowl over a pan of hot water.

Paxton, that Ina is one lovely cook! And manages to show the rest of us how to make good food in the most painless way!

Special, mostly yay! Do I recall this allergy issue being an issue after another surgery you underwent? Hope it resolves without too much of a problem, and you can be on your way to comfort!

My day was partially pre-occupied with the noise and view of the lot that was being denuded across the street. Oh my! It went from this...

To this...

I realized as the huge trees were felled that we will be investing in room darkening shades quickly, since those trees filtered the morning sun to our bedroom.

By the way, Susan, yes, you will love how quiet the new high end dishwashers are. Even our GE model in NH is wonderful in our open spaces there. Enjoy it!

Oh, I promised wedding food porn:

Some of the stationery apps during cocktail hour...a corned beef favorite of some sort for groom's Irish family, lobster sliders, and the obvious shrimp cocktail. Some passed foods were stuffed mushrooms, other seafood items, goat cheese stuffed dates, and etc., etc.

Main courses were filet mignon and Chilean sea bass, with wonderful vegetables and a corn flan, preceeded by the most wonderful hotel signature salad...super fresh lettuces over sliced red and yellow tomatoes, with avocado and crabmeat and a horseradish dressing that I only knew after I read it last night! I did not detect horseradish. The dessert tables were obscene. Here are just a few pix:

Delicious chocolate or vanilla cake with cream filled insides

So much variety of mini pastries

My "first" dessert plate...creme brulee, mini key lime tart, several chocolate items. Afterwards I had some cake...delicious!

Okay, there was also a sundae making station and warm oatmeal and peanut butter cookies...probably a throwback to the "kids" childhood favorites. I could not partake of either.

So after all that, DH and I, after dancing for a while, noticed the waiters bringing out more passed food items....hamburger sliders, and cones of french fries. We are shameless! We shared one of each...purely because they were offered by such nice servers. Such wedding meals are dangerous for me. I doubt that we will be attending many more affairs like this one. But as a foodie who also really enjoyed the community reconnect, I really loved his one!

To try to make up for these oral indiscretions, we spent a lot of time at the gym. I still cannot feel a love for Zumba, but do get the biggest kick out of our instructor who so enjoys doing it. At the end of class, she thanked us all for "coming to her party". Attitude counts for a lot with instructors!

Tomorrow off to the derm doc for my annual check up. So many changes to my face, I always expect the worst...fingers crossed. I escaped the mammo last week with purely the note about density but otherwise no findings, so hopefully tomorrow will turn outmokay too

That is good news Special. Clear biopsies.... (happy dance).

Minus, I have no desire for a pool at home. I'll pay the $1 for using the city pool. Pool work was one of the things I did to pay for school and I had my fill of pools! :-) As for the 1/2 french dip and bundlet being equal to two pounds...it's another example of life not being fair! :-)

Lacey it sounds like you almost had to sit in the middle for that wedding! Interacting with 20/30 somethings that one knew when they were kids is always a special thing. When I meet my "test daughters" and their families, it makes me smile....especially when I think that I'll be doing that someday with DD. The deserts...wow...I don't know how "good" I'd be under those circumstances! :-)

Hi Mommyof2. I don't mind hedge trimming..it's the cleanup afterwards that I hate...but I still do it.

I think I did the beef version of Wench's pork dinner. I've been doing so much pork lately that when I found a top round roast in the freezer, I pulled it out and thawed it. That, some potatoes, a salad and some store bought rolls, made up the rest of the dinner.

Special--yay for the results, boo for the allergies! Lori, there is no connection between dietary and serum cholesterol, as the latter is made in the liver but the former is digested and either assimilated or excreted. Duck eggs are so delicious and hard to find, so go for it.

Good news--Bob's lung CT scan came back "stable--no followup required.”

Last night’s dinner was at American Honor Ale House in Hickory, NC, after the benefit concert I gave for Vital Touch (quite successful--a full house and lots of money raised). It was so wonderful meeting and hanging out with Mary (HappyHammer), Cathy (mustlovepoodles) and her DH, and Mary’s sister Meg, who runs the place. It was my Southern Last Hurrah before going home to resume my dead-animals-and-leaves diet. At SERFA I had tried some biscuits & gravy and a sliver of coconut cake--as Southern as pecan pie. So for dinner I had a nice local NC Riesling, and spicy fried chicken (even the breast was juicy) with a side of tasso mac & cheeese. (Ate the leftovers for breakfast). Long day traveling, with a baggage snafu at Midway, so I was too tired to walk to B’way Cellars and feeling too cheap to order out for dinner. So I defrosted a Snake River Farms American Wagyu Ribeye filet and nuked some frozen grilled eggplant from Trader Joe’s. Seasoned the steak with espresso-infused sea salt & fresh pepper, grilled it and ate it with the eggplant sprinkled with truffle salt. Had some 2010 Signorello Estate Howell Mountain Vineyard (Napa) Cabernet Sauvignon, which I’d first tapped with the Coravin way back in Jan,--still tastes new

I forgot to add we are having leftover pork ribs with a vegetable medley casserole tonight.

Lacey - ah my slow brain. Funny.

Wench - I liked taking care of the pool for the first 15 years too!! Then it because a chore to fit in around working full time & all my volunteer activities.

Sandy - glad to hear Bob's scan was stable.

Hsant - unfortunately I've been the beneficiary of 6 MOHS surgeries so far. I go in every 6 months and she freezes at least 20 places each time. Interesting aside - when I went in after chemo treatments, there were absolutely NO problems. My skin was completely clear of pre-cancerous lesions or cancers for the first time in my life and she was most complimentary. Of course the result wasn't worth the treatment method.

If I don't cook yellow squash & zucchini & corn TODAY, I'll likely be throwing them away. Eeek.

The PET results are in. Pleura lining is resolved. Bone mets have reduced in uptake by about 40%. Tumor markers [which are generally accurate for me] have gone down over 50% since starting Xeloda. This stuff is working! So the discussion turned to "how can we make sure you can manage the toxicity levels so you stay on this for a good long time." After considering all the options, we have chosen 7 on/7 off schedule keeping me at 6 pills per day. Dr. C is confident that this protocol, developed at Sloan, will be effective for me now that my tumors have been knocked back.

I start cycle 7A tomorrow morning. Gonna celebrate with white carbs! English muffin!

Dinner tonight, after a very long day at Dana Farber was fish & chips at an Irish pub. No drinks since I had to do some troubleshooting on a client files. Olivia came to visit today! Her first visit to her Grandmama's house. My daughter had just finished attending a breast feeding support group. We are now even. We BOTH have breast support groups! Tomorrow, I am babysitting Olivia while my daughter makes a presentation at her school. And the new dishwasher arrives. Busy and full day already.

Sorry not to respond to all your posts. Brain has been a bit distracted lately.

*susan*

MO!!!!!! How are you doing? Miss knowing how you are doing, and hearing about your adventures. PM me if you are willing.

*susan*

Wow, Susan. That really is great news! So happy for you, and good reminder that solid, valuable research continues! Enjoy Olivia tomorrow!

Mommy, we have a very long hedge (a large corner block's worth) that DH and I have always managed along with many, many shrubs and small trees throughout our property. There have always been accompanying body aches to this management effort. Last summer, DH decided to contract it out to a landscape company after his broken hip. I doubt that we will be in charge of it again, given our ages, rotator cuff tears, etc. There is something very satisfying about trimming one's hedge the way you want it to look...but those body aches, not so much.

Tonight we enjoyed some marinated salmon from WF, along with a red leaf lettuce garden salad and a side of spaghetti squash/onion/kale/cheese saute.We enjoyed more of the sour dough bread that I bought yesterday. It was a tasty healthy feeling meal.

My trip to the derm doc was relieving. I learned that the facial marks that I thought might be pre-cancers or beyond, are not. Just more ugly marks from all my days at the shore as a young'en. Since I am not terribly vain, I will be leaving them alone. I hope that your visit was equally unremarkable, Minus

Great news, Susan!

Went to my garage to drive down to Oak Lawn to spend an evening reception and financial seminar with Bob in the Christ Hospital doctors' lounge. I'd been away all week and nobody was inclined (nor knew how) to start my car. Hit the keyless-entry clicker and....nothing. Maybe the remote battery was dead? Tried the other clicker....same result. Called Subaru road service, who sent a bulletin to the dealership and dispatched a tow truck. Meanwhile, inadvertently discovered the clickers hide an emergency conventional key. So I got the door open, but the engine was deader than Jacob (or Bob) Marley. Noticed the dome light button was depressed--which I didn't do--and the fuse box cover was missing. Anyway, it took 5 calls and 4 hrs, but the tow guy finally arrived. Gave the battery a jump, but it wouldn't hold a charge. By then the dealership was closed and I couldn't get a loaner, so I had to wave bye-bye to my car as it was driven up onto the flatbed to be dropped off at the dealership.

So I set out on foot to CVS to pick up my Benicar Rx, and went into Whole Foods for some pasta and champagne...but the wine bar was closed. So I picket up some fresh Copper River salmon and a spinach-edamame salad. Fired up the grill, sprinkled the fish with Salish smoked sea salt and black pepper and a little olive oil and wrapped it in some salted oiled foil and placed the packet on the screaming hot grill and closed the lid. Dressed the salad with orange olive oil, ponzu, and Sicilian orange sea salt By the time I'd dressed and plated the salad and opened the wine (Maryhill Rosė of Sangiovese), the fish was done. Had dinner on the deck, from where I'm typing this on my iPad as I sip the wine. Tomorrow I will figure out how to get to the dealership and what needs doing besides replacing the battery and fuse box cover

I'm 3 pages behind. Oops

Susan, whatever Olivia eats that helps her griw us the right stuff.

Soecialk, fingers crossed and prayers said for safe sx and fast healing.

Red, hope the test went well and results are good.

Lacey, glad your results are good too.

Chi, sorry your hard work was ignored. Sigh.

To all, much live. I will comment more as I catch up.

Cheesy papusas with beef and pico de gallo today. Leftovers tomorrow.