So...whats for dinner?

Lacey - not to mention safety!!! My niece & DH are both police officers. my nephew is w/the FBI and his wife is an attorney w/the criminal courts. They are all adamant that NO pictures of their children are ever to be posted on facebook. In fact they actually stopped sending pictures to one DH's mother entirely because she kept posting. Boy was that a fight.

Sandy - thanks for sharing your adventure, though it sounds arduous. I loved the tea pictures.

Susan - fingers crossed for an easy move today. I love that you're going to 'cat sit' on Tuesday.

Nance - So sorry your Dad's taken another turn. I hope the solution is an easy one.

Eric - Hard to believe your DD is graduating. Arizona State!!!. This is such an exciting time in life. I'm glad she's going to live on campus, at least the first year. I think that is so important.

Moon - what a cutie.

Bedo - sending good wishes now for Thursday in case I forget later this week. I LOVE "me" time, and am getting more & more selfish about it every year.

Carole - thinking of you always. Hope your Mother is getting settled and coming to terms with the work of rehab that's ahead.

Cottage cheese & canned peaches for dinner yesterday. Popcorn for 2am snack. Both are quite an improvement over the crackers or soup I've been eating the last 10 days. Maybe I'll graduate to french toast tonight with some of my leftover sourdough bread.

With my mother in the nursing/rehab facility, we didn't have the usual family Easter dinner. Last night dh and I each had a steamed artichoke and the main "course" was eggplant casserole out of the freezer.

This morning I sprinkled seasoning on a pork roast (The Pig) and plopped it into the smaller slow cooker. It was cooked when I got home after 4 pm. I wrapped four sweet potatoes in foil and they are roasting in the toaster oven. The au jus from the roast in in the de-fatter. I will thicken it a bit and warm up slices of the roast in the resulting gravy. I may make a green salad.

Today I'm trying to get back on track with the WW plan.

Tonight I poached salmon in white wine. I wanted to make halibut, since it's in season, but my grocery store hadn't received any today..

I reduced 1/4 cup of wine and 1/4 cup of white winevinegar with chopped onion, added heavy cream and chilled butter, salt and pepper for a beurre blanc. I was short 2 tbsp of butter, so it was a little on the thin side, but tasty. I gave my dad leftover mashed potatoes as a side and I had steamed broccoli.

Moon, she is adorable! Her outfit is so cute!

Bedo, my mom used to make that fruit salad back in the day. She would put mini marshmallows in it.

Nance, prayers out for your dad.

Sandy, those pastries look delectable! I hope the rest of your trip is easy breezy.

Eric, My DH has used a mechanic once in the last 15 years to replace a clutch on his 1997 BMW 318. Otherwise, he does all the work on the cars himself. We rarely use a plumber, electrician, etc. He does the majority of fix-it work, which comes in handy (pun intended). Congratulations to your daughter.

Carole, the end of Sunday dinners for you has hit me hard. I just love that you kept this tradition alive for so very long. We gave up Easter dinner when the "older" generation [i.e. my grandmother and great uncle] died. As you know, I have kept the Thanksgiving and Christmas traditions alive. My daughter wants to take on that mantle which is wonderful.

ChiSandy, that passport thing has been a thing for at least 10 years. Air France and British Airways even warn you when you make a reservation, but it is a generic warning that doesn't actually look at your passport. Still really too bad for your companion.

Lacey, I will be in touch.... do you want a tour of the house this week?

Eric, I am so proud of your DD. I think she is good people with a balanced and grounded head on her shoulders. Not too surprising given who her parents are!

The kids are spending their first night at their new home. The cats are exploring. I spent several hours unpacking more of the kitchen today, but came to the end of what I was "allowed" to do. When I arrived home, I fell asleep in my office chair for a full hour. My stomach has been unhappy and I paid the chemo price. Dinner was a bit of take out and a bit of home cooked. I made some basmati rice and we got some Bombay tandoori wings from our local Indian restaurant. Mostly, I ate the rice. I needed a BRAT diet item tonight. It is odd to have such a life-less house. There are four beings missing. But, you should see all the empty pantry shelves! I will be able to reorganize in a way that works for us. This is a new phase, which will come to an end when the P'nut is born, and then we will start another one.

*susan*

Special, hsant my younger son loves old BMW's too. He has a 99 M3 and a 1970 2002. Does all the mechanics himself. The oldest one only comes out in summer.

My pineapple chutney is easy. One chopped pineapple, hard apple cider 2/3 C, red onion small chopped, a cinnamon stick and pinch of red chile flakes. Bring to boil and simmer about 15 to 20 min.

Took a container of ground turkey "dressing" or stuffing out of the freezer. Leftover stuffing for colored bell peppers that I made recently. Breakfast and lunch were a little high on WW points so the side will be Indian spiced cauliflower and potato mash. The recipe is on the WW site and I thought I would try it. The spices are cumin, coriander, turmeric and cayenne.

T. S. Eliot, American poet, said in one of his poems, "April is the cruelest month of the year." In Louisiana, late March comes in the same category. I have been sneezing and blowing my nose and taking allergy meds with no relief.

Black humor mother anecdote. My mother said to one of my brothers yesterday that she sure hopes she doesn't do all this therapy and then up and die! Never an exercise person, she is working hard with the therapists to build strength in the hopes of going back home.

Carole -- funny from your mom. I agree with Minus -- good for her! The cauliflower dish sounds good.

Eric, add my congratulations to DD for her achievements. You are right to be proud of her.

Susan, I'm sorry about the stomach issues. Crappy that you have that to look forward to every cycle. Your house must feel quite empty for a while.

Long day yesterday, first with my eye doc who removed a weird cyst from the corner of my eye (has a long name that I promptly fogot). Now I have a bb sized hole there into which I have to put antibiotic ointment 3 times a day. I must say, I look rather odd with eye makeup on one eye only lol! After that it was off to the hospital with dad. It turns out that dad has esophageal ulcers caused by severe acid reflux and exacerbated by Plavix. He is being given more proton pump inhibitors and they ran some more tests today. It's going to be tricky trying to treat the ulcers. They want to take him off Plavix but then there's the vascular issue. I still don't know what all of this means in regard to his rehab and release. I do like the hospital he is in now way better than the other one and he is now in the Intermediate Care Unit. He desperately wants to go home from there instead of going back to rehab, but I don't know if the hospital will go for it.

I'm thawing some thick cut pork chops for dinner. Recycled green beans from Sunday, as well as the scalloped potatoes turned au gratin, will be sides.

Special K, wow! That is an amazing price, and 25,000 miles on a BMW is basically a new car.

Quinn, It's understandable why he wouldn't want to take the car out during the winter. MN winters are harsh. Your pineapple chutney sounds delicious.

Dinner tonight will be leftover bbq pulled chicken sandwiches topped with leftover Cole slaw on brioche buns with left over mashed potatoes as the side. Basically a repeat of dinner last night.

Hsant how do you make coleslaw? I finally made it with cabbage and cole slaw dressing for one of my husbands who said, "this is the best coleslaw you've ever made!" Humph.

Susan, it is traumatic. I cried when my daughter moved 45 minutes away, but we still see each other and text all the time. (phone calls are so 90s)

Thanks for all the surgery wishes!

Carol I think your Mom is funny and I hope she is doing OK, as well as the rest of the parents. Mine died when I was 5 (dad) and 25 (mom) I used to think that it was the same as people who were their parents power of attorney and caregivers in their 40s and 50s, but it is different for people who's parents have dementia. My Mom had a different kind of cancer. I wish you all well.

Eric congratulations on your DD.

I can't go back too far as I am getting ready for surgery tomorrow, stocking up food, kitty litter and such. But I will be returning to my childhood this summer!

I have two offers for camp, one in Woodstock and one in the Berkshires both of which I would love, and an interview for student health in the fall today. Whoo Hoo!

I am so over checking linemen and welders for hernias for their DOT licenses lol among sicknesses lacerations and injuries. Men are clumsy. Sorry Eric!

For dinner the last of the Hello Fresh meals, Edamame and sweet potato rice bowl. I hope I haven't waited too long.

Ha ha Eric!

Carole - the chops weren't from our The Pig but I'm trying to make room for it in the freezer. The Pig is supposed to go to the butcher this week but I haven't heard that it has yet. Congrats on your friendly scale!

Sad Dad update: Feel free to scroll through the on-going saga . . . He was released from the hospital yesterday evening and taken back to the rehab center. Unfortunately, they moved him out of his room (understandable since they didn't know how long he would be out) but now he has to share a room with "some old guy" as he put it. He is not happy because he was in one of the few Medicare private rooms. To make matters worse, since he had a stay in the hospital he now has to be re-evaluated for physical therapy, and to make matters worser still - he managed to fall while the physical therapist was in the room working with the other "old guy" . He wasn't hurt but I'm sure it didn't make him look ready to go home. To be fair -- he is a faller (runs in my family) which is why he has a lifeline at home, even before all this happened, and I'm not sure that's ever going to be fixed no matter how much physical therapy he gets. Just to add insult to injury, he's on a soft food diet because of the throat ulcers, which he HATES. He begged me to come over and take him out to lunch. It was rather pitiful. I'll be taking him to the foot doc on Tuesday so we'll go out but he may lose his mind before then. SIGH.

Nothing very exciting for dinner -- pork burgers, cole slaw and maybe some roasted vegetables.

Oh Susan - are you doing OK with the 'empty nest' a second time? Thinking of you. How did the cat visitation go last night?

Nance - forgot to mention that my Dad fired the first 3 or 4 people I hired as soon as I flew back to Texas. He finally had to give in when his doc told him that he (the doc) could loose his license for condoning what could be charged as my 'elder abuse'.

On the final day of March, we have reservations for dinner at our club tonight to collect on my complimentary dinner for my birthday. The restaurant is the grill fancied up with table cloths, not the more dignified dining room, which we actually prefer. There are two specials on Thursday night, a small filet with sides and a fish entrée. I like both and will decide on the spot what I'll order.

My mother is having difficulty learning to propel herself in her wheelchair. Many of the residents in the nursing home get themselves about very well using their feet and arms. I think part of her difficulty is physical and part is mental. She did not ride a bicycle in her youth and did not ever have a driving license. She has wrecked her house with the electric wheelchair she has used for quite a few years. Her tendency when she runs into an obstacle is not to back up but full speed ahead. Walking is not a realistic goal and the therapists realize that now. She has bone on bone in her right knee and also has spinal stenosis. The goal is to build strength for transferring.

Hsant, how lucky you are to have fresh halibut available. It's a wonderful fish. I stopped at Fresh Market on Tues. hoping to find some appealing salmon, but what was in the case didn't look good. I avoid the farm raised with color added by the food.

Dinner out at the Oak Grill was delicious. We had a cup of the soup special, kale and Italian sausage chowder. Than we both ordered the filet with au gratin potatoes and haricots vert. The dinner would have been enough without the soup. I enjoyed a tiny crusty roll with butter.

I have a lunch date with some of my golfer friends. Afterwards will go to visit my mother. Not sure about dinner. Maybe a Subway for dh and a snack for me.

Minus, only the entrée was free. Not the extras like the soup and my two glasses of wine! The rolls were like mini ciabatta loaves, very crusty. One was actually enough.

The goal of all the patients in the Retreat is to go home. And many of them do. Some go home walking when they haven't walked in quite a while. Humans have the amazing ability to build strength at any age. Tufts University demonstrated that some years ago. My mother is working on balance and the ability to transfer. Walking as her primary method of getting around isn't in the cards. She will need to rely on upper body strength. The therapists regard electric wheelchairs as more detrimental than helpful for the elderly. With a manual wheelchair, an older person continues to use the arms and feet if they're maneuvering the wheelchair themselves and not just being pushed.