Internet Cooking.

Awhile ago, someone had posted a cauliflower recipe on my facebook page that looked delicious. You coated it with a yogurt based coating and then baked - low fat, low calories, healthy. So I made it - the outside was as promised - the rest? Have you ever eaten hot, baked plain caulflower? I would not recommend it, it has the texture of a plastic bag and tastes about the same. Just because it's a recipe someone posted does not make it good and had I looked at it a bit more I probably would not have made it and wasted all that time and effort. The upside of recipes on the internet is well, they're free, you can type in what you have on hand and you don't have to buy a full cookbook for a  recipe or two. When I page through my old cookbooks I can tell which recipes were made time and time again - the pages are splattered with old food stains, often the book will fall open to the page. I have some of own old books with the same few pages stained with batter and what not from the things I loved to make. 

My biggest issue with recipes on the web are it seems like the people posting them feel like it needs a novella before they get to the ingredient list. I've often been sifting through a huge amount of nonsense such as the history, when they thought of it, the different things they tried, how much thier inlaws like it, what they were doing when they thought of it, on and on! The other new things is to make a list describing what is in, why, what it looks like, ......and this is followed by a ten minute video of them adding and stirring the ingredients because obviously no one knows how to do this but them. I wanted to make a sugar free low carb cake this week and found one I really liked. It took me a while to actually find it way down at the bottom of an endless well of drivel........

But I did finally find it. it turned out better than I thought it would and a slice only had 16 carbs so win win! It ended up being worth that endless scrolling. 

 

It Was A Fun Visit.

So I'm catching up - Friday was a mixed bag. Poppop had not made anything for dinner or picked up toys, I was beyond beat - 500 miles in two days after a full day of work. He ran up to the store and got a frozen pizza- the toy issue would be dealt with the next day.  The girls ate everything they could get thier hands on and in that area Poppop did not disappoint, he had bought enough snacks to support a sumo wrestling team. Bath time was a mad scramble, we have an olympic sized claw foot tub and they could not wait, I managed to find some passable things to play with, then off to bed with our two exhausted visitors. We have trundle beds  in the room next to ours so we would hear them and the bathroom was close by. Around 1 am Chloe woke up complaining of a tummy ache so she got in bed with me and David went upstairs as it was getting a bit crowded. She started to drift off and just as I fell asleep  she bolted upright and gave a giant barfy belch. It was a bit like a geyser but way not as fun. She panicked and tried to stand, fell in it and  then puked again, managed to get upright, back in it and more barfing. This woke Delilah up so the next 45 minutes was me putting Chloe in the tub as she was covered in vomit, stopping the other one from stripping since it was Bathtime!, changing the bed, starting the wash......C felt better and since they were both up they decided to play with the dog...... Poppop remained in hiding and they both bunked down with me.

That was Day One. 

Saturday Nana went up and bought a bag of toys from the Dollar General where you get a lot of bang for your buck. David loaded Rueben in the car for his vet appointment - I'd considered changing it but it took me 3 weeks to get this one and honestly with the weird cough I thought it was CHF, etc... 

It was not. 

The vet did the exam and she told me later she too thought it was an enlarged heart,CHF, etc - she did an xray though and found large masses by his lungs and heart, one is almost the size of his heart. In an odd way the girls being here was a good thing - you cannot go to pieces in front of two little kids. We did have some private crys but I was so glad to have them to focus on and it gave us time to calm down and think clearly. Our friend and neighbor down at the end of our road had invited us and the girls to visit his farm - yeah they were excited! Sam told us to bring a bucket for apple picking so the first half hour was spent doing that. Sam turned off the fence so they could get right up to it and then called the bull over to feed him apples. They were all about the cows til they got up close, then they were more than happy to let Sam feed him! He was so big - Sam said he weighs about  a thousand pounds. But then we headed to see the horses, the girls were so excited and had no fear of those giants - they fed the horses as many apples as they could hold and pet them. The horses were just wonderful, so gentle with them. It was a good afternoon for everyone

Sunday - Aunt Kim and Uncle Steve came over bringing these cute little navy dresses and the girl's friend Piggles the teeny dog. They're both very good with all animals even though you do have to tell them to be gentle - more from enthusiasm than anything else. We did brunch - the girls enjoyed it and just had a ball with all the people and pets around them. Kim looked at my livingroom and laughed - said she saw I had decided to change my style. The rest of the visit we just played and hung out at the house. With COVID still enforced playgrounds and everything else is still shut down. Monday afternoon we headed to the halfway mark to give them back. They both travel very well and were very happy to see thier mother. The video chatting does make everything easier though, when they wanted to talk to mom we just fired up Alexa and there she was! Looking suspiciously relaxed. Sometimes eating pizza for breakfast. She got most of her paperwork done - we dropped the girls off later so she could finish without them in tow. 

Then back to real life - I took the rest of the week off as I tend to take a day here and there, but not an extended period. My plan was to get things done but I spent most of my time crying over Rueben. I got to speak to the vet and she of course could not tell me what to do but from what she saw - in the event of aggressive treatment (maybe) six months to a year. So we're doing prednisone to slow the growth and keep him comfortable, he's tolerating it well but of course it makes him urinate a lot so we just run home alot. I plan on having another xray in a few weeks to see where we are but at this point - it's just waiting. 

 

The Elephant In The Room

I have not blogged since July 5th - close to 6 weeks which is a very long time for me. There are times when I don't feel like it or just get too busy - or there's simply nothing to say.  But unfortunately there is too much to say right now and I don't feel like saying it. Molly getting so sick and dying we never saw coming - this? This is a whole other can of worms. I don't think a whole of people read this, but to me it's an running account of everything that has happened in the past - believe or not - almost 20 years. That's how long I've been keeping this online journal, since 2004 I think. It feels weird not to be blogging at all. And I miss it, but how to get started again? Well, from the beginning of course. 

The original plan was for Brandi and the girls to come visit, but with all the paperwork she had going on she just couldn't do it. I've been there myself and I know you don't enjoy anything at that point - so I suggested she meet us halfway and we could take the girls for a few days. That way anything left to do could be done without having to haul them around too. So - we were going to meet Friday morning- and then they rejected her immunization and it needed to be done again. At this point it was Thursday, I left work a little early and drove - I couldn't book the ferry that late so through Tacoma, Seattle and Everett I went - I hit ALL the rush hours, fender benders, turning my 4 1/2 hour drive into almost a 7 hour one. I got to the house at almost 8 pm, rummaged around and had a cheese sandwich for lunch and dinner since I hadn't been able to stop anywhere and then just fell into bed. UGH. 

On the upside, I was able to book the ferry going back and we left around 9, I felt better since I'd at least slept. Everything got packed, everyone strapped in and off we went. Waiting for the ferry was fun, we explored the beach, petted every dog we could reach, ate a ton of snacks, fun! As soon as the car was on the ferry out we went again, the overhead "recommended" we all stay in the car - yeah..... no. We did all four floors 9 times, used the potty on the boat, ate more snacks and then off again. It took us about 6 hours all told but that included waiting for and riding the ferry, stopping for potty breaks and .......Nana's low tire light going on. Yup, of course it did. I did what I usually do which is call and yell at David like the ship is going down, does no good but tradition and all that. We pulled into the gas station and I attempted to check the tires which looked fine while everyone in the car unstrapped themselves since if Nana gets out EVERYONE gets out - and of course we had to continue The Tour of Potties. Two 4 year olds are bit daunting, I was explaining to one why she could NOT sit on the urinal (unisex bathroom) even if it did look fun while the kept trying to wash her hands with a full quart of soap. Fun times. In order to get out of there I bought them each a drink and a bag of M&Ms which turned out to be  family size. As we started down the highway I sang out "does everyone have thier seat belt on?" which Chloe sang out "No" - we argued about it for a minute and then I looked in the rearview......HOLYSHIT. Chloe was very rightous about the whole thing since it was Nana's fault and she pointed it out like 600 times. About 20 minutes later she was Oops and announced she had opened the rest of her chocolate milk which I told her not to and had spilled it? "Hmm. I asked if she had spilled a little. She thought about it and then said 

"No Nana, I spilled a LOT". 

The rest of the ride after I got her cleaned up was not awful - they are very good and well behaved,  ignored the tire light (turned out to false alarm). We arrived back to the house in pretty good time despite everything, they went flying out of the car because Poppop who is apparently a major celebrity  was on the front porch with Rueben The Dog waiting for them. A lot hugging Poppop and dog petting went on - Nana just wanted to sit. For a few hours. Or so.