Before/After

Right now I'm the before; laying around with this stupid kidney stone, taking so much medication I'm useless, and waiting for Monday's surgery.  But After?  I'll tell you what I'll do after - when I return to the Land of the Living!

1. Get my grill on!  Can't wait to start cooking again.
2. Get my garden planted.  I lost the window for onions, but the rest should be OK.
3. Clean out my room.  Our bedroom has become the family dumping ground.  Time to purge.
4. Get up to the State Capitol and show my support for Marriage Equality.
5. Walk, and walk, and walk.  Don't know if it's the drugs I'm on or what but I'm out of breath in my own home and it's NOT a good feeling.
6. Get the dutch oven out and have some campfire meals.
7. Start riding my bike.

Still stoned with strawberry salad

The blasted kidney stone refuses to budge, and now I'll be having surgery sometime next week.

In the meantime I'm indulging in one of my favorite comfort foods; Frozen Strawberry Salad.

Here in the Midwest, we have these delicious combinations of fruit, cool whip, cream cheese, nuts, etc and we call them "salads".   And with a straight face no less.  If you attend a midwestern small town funeral, you'll see all manner of them on the "salad" table.  Their only resemblance to anything truly salad-y is that they do contain fruit, and they come in a bowl.  But they are mighty powerful in the comfort department.

STRAWBERRY SALAD

8oz cream cheese - I used low fat
1/2 cup sugar
20oz can crushed pineapple, very well drained
2 ripe bananas, mashed
1/2 cup nuts - I used pecans
10oz frozen strawberries, thawed
Cool Whip - about 2 cups

Cream sugar and cream cheese.  Add pineapple, bananas, and berries.  Stir in nuts.  Fold in Cool Whip.  Freeze in a 9x9 pan.  Remove from the freezer 20-30 minutes before servings.  Or pop it in the microwave on low power for a few minutes.  I love it when it's kind of half frozen.

Slawed

I made some fantastic slaw today and it seemed appropriate to share.  Still haven't passed that @#$&*#* kidney stone, so I'm still on drugs.  Therefore this slaw's deliciousness might have been enhanced by my altered state.  Drugs make everything better.

This is a great all-purpose slaw dressing.  Next time I'm adding bacon, 'cuz bacon AND drugs make everything better.

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Dressing:
1/2 cup well shaken buttermilk.
2T. mayo
2T. cider vinegar
2T. minced shallot
1T. sugar
3T. minced chives (I used green onions from my garden)
1/2t. salt
1/4t. pepper

Slaw:
1 lb napa cabbage, cored and thinly sliced
6 radishes, diced (I'm going to skip these next time)
2 celery ribs, thinly sliced diagonally
I also added some shredded carrot.

Whisk together dressing ingredients until sugar dissolves.  Toss with the slaw.

Stoned

Will the wonders of my sick body never cease?  Just when I'm recovering from the Mother of all Cruds, along comes a kidney stone.  I spent Tuesday night in the hospital, now I'm home waiting and waiting and waiting for this thing to pass.  Heavy narcotics mean I can't drive or do much else of significance either.

So in the meantime, enjoy some videos from my youtube favorites list.  That's all you're going to get from me right now.

Happy Chicken Salad Day

Darned nice Mother's Day - very quiet but swell.
Started with Cupcake and Johnny C bringing me breakfast in bed; pancakes, bacon, strawberries, and coffee.  They also gave me a birdhouse that Cupcake had designed, built, and painted in beautiful shades of red and purple, and a flowered roof.

The twins had to work.  One of them gave me a dinner out with her.  I'll take it when I can actually speak again.  The other says her gift is a secret.

Later FINALLY made a kick-ASS chicken salad.  First I started with chicken breast I had poached to perfection; cooked in a water bath full of carrot, celery leaves, green onions from the garden, garlic pepper, and sea salt.  Then chopped, and stirred with pecans, red grape halves, more green onion, tarragon, garlic pepper, mayo and more sea salt.  It's almost gone that's how good it is.

I must be getting better - I wish it were Saturday so I had another day to garden and cook.
And to love my family.

Spring lasts about 2 days

I've been down with the crud for a week!!  Missed 5 days of work and to pour salt in a wound, our computer was in the shop all 5 days.  Both the PC and I have a weird infection,  The one in my body has whipped my asthma into a frenzy.  I can't talk and get out of breath very easily.

Now today - the first really lovely day of spring that we've had - I could barely walk to the garden let alone work in it.  I pulled some old stalks but gave up when I got light-headed.  Creeping Charlie has taken over our beds, and it's going to take some work to get it out.  The link mentions a method of applying borax, but it can't be used in vegetable gardens.

I have some absolutely lovely red and white onion sets, and garlic that need to go in right now.  Also lettuce, herbs, spinach, carrots.  In June I'm trying the "3 Sisters" - planting corn, squash, and pole beans together.  The beans climb the corn, and the squash provides the "mulch".  I'm also growing red beans along the fence.

Think I will add some hay bales - just to stretch my growing area.  Can't wait to OWN my own yard again so I can plant the whole darned thing in edibles.  I'd add raspberries, a plum tree, and maybe even blueberries.

And don't forget the chicken coop!

Goddess Help Me

Bleh.
Someone come over here and turn my face to the sunshine, willya?

Sick and tired of being poor.  Not that we were ever rich, but money was NEVER this tight.  Just spent $60 filling the gas tank.  There goes about 1/2 of my paycheck from job #2.  The hardest part is telling my kids "no" for even reasonable requests.  And watching my friends enjoying their still-solid incomes.  OK, I admit it, I'm jealous. 

(Goddess-of-my-better-nature says "But darling that means you HAVE jobs!  And you HAVE healthy kids who need things.  And you have friends!)

Looked at the calendar today.  Between jobs #2 and #3 I can't go visit my family until sometime in June.  And I need my peeps know what I mean?  By the time I CAN go gas will probably be $5 a gallon.

(Goddess-of-my-better-nature says "Sweetie again that means you have employment.  And you have an extended family you love.  And you have a car!" ) 

Lately a friend has been rather rude to me, and for the life of me I can't figure out why.  I've wracked my brain and just can't figure out what's gotten into their britches.

(Goddess-of-my-better-nature says "Honey, you know in you're heart that it's their issue.  Like you said, you haven't done anything mean or with evil intentions.  You can't control their perspective" ) 

This weather - AAARRRGGGHHH!  Will the sun ever come back?  Will it be warm enough to lounge in the grass?  Will I ever find a free afternoon that actually does not contain rain or snow so I can plant my garden?

(Goddess-of-my-better-nature says "Love - remember the serenity prayer.  Or move" ) 

This kitchen!  I had apartments in college with bigger kitchens.  Together the kitchen and dining space are about 10' x 10'.  This has seriously cut into my cooking enjoyment and my ability to have friends over.

(Goddess-of-my-better-nature says "But you DO have a kitchen in a cute little house.  It's warm and cozy and clean.  Good friends will still want to come over and sit cheek-to-cheek" )