Hot Day for Interstate Travel

Here is what our car said that the temperature was as we headed back home from seeing Woody's orthopedic surgeon!  A hot day in Music City.  I think that officially the high was 97°, but out on the interstate we saw it hit 100°. Pretty hot for the last day September!

Woody's doctor appointment went well.  She did ask him if he was ready for a tibia transplant.  He said not yet!  We go back to see her in 6 months.

Off to Elijah's ball game...next to the last one.

Simply Saturday

I read for a while after I woke up this morning. I finally headed downstairs and got busy on the marinated veggie salad.  That took a lot of slicing and dicing.  It is chilling and melding flavors in the fridge and will be ready to eat tomorrow.  I ended up making a recipe of macaroni and cheese because I needed to use up some milk or throw it out...went the mac and cheese route.  That cooking took I the morning.

Woody made his usual public library trip and included a couple of errands while he was out...a stop at the grocery store for some celery and zucchini and a stop at the pharmacy to pick up one of his prescriptions.  The rest of the day he has filled with crossword puzzles, reading, college football, and more reading.

After my first cooking spree, I rested and read some more.  I even managed to fit in a nap.  After I woke up, I headed back to the kitchen to figure out what Woody would eat for supper!  He decided that he wanted zucchini, yellow squash, and sliced onions that I flavor with olive oil and Italian herbs.  This is a dish that I cook in the microwave...I guess I am steaming when I cook them the way that I do.  I originally made this concoction with a can of tomatoes or tomato sauce added in, but tomatoes are on Woody's list of foods he isn't supposed to eat.  It's still good this way.

I got the kitchen all cleaned up for a second time today and got the dishwasher running.  I decided that it was time to dust mop the new floors in the kitchen and bathrooms and then give them a quick mopping.  That job is done and I am ready to once again sit.  I think that I will sit at my sewing machine and machine embroider another design to use for a Christmas ornament.  I did finally get underway with my Christmas sewing last night...so the machine is once again cranking out creations of one sort or another.  I pick the design that I want, put fabric in a hoop that attaches to the machine, thread machine with the first thread color, push a button and watch it sew out...and change colors of thread when the machine stops and beeps at me!  Easy...right!?  Hardest part is substituting colors called for with colors of thread that I have on hand!  All I can say is that I had better put the pedal to the metal and get these cranking out as Christmas is fast approaching.  I can't believe how close it is to October!

Friday

,

Our clock arrived yesterday while we were in Nashville for Woody's doctor appointment.  I'm still debating about what they did to the positioning of the picture.  They pulled the barn into the center and took out most of the foreground and thus put a bunch of the numbers in the shadow.  When I submitted it I was concerned that the 4 would be hard to see and now many more numbers joined the 4!  I'm trying to decide if I will be a squeaky wheel and complain.  The way I submitted it was the way I wanted it.  I have a way to communicate with one of the people in the company as I had asked a question of them and had emailed back and forth a couple of times with her.  So know that I can actually email a person with the problem.  It just seems like we have had to do too much communicating with companies to get replacements.  I wanted this last purchase to go smoothly!  Oh, well...

I am pleased with the quality of the clock.  The photo is actually printed onto the wood of the clock face.  And it is a silent clock...nice, as our last one was not!  I'm waiting on Nathan to help me hang the clock.  I will put it up and see if it continues to bug me about the numbers and positioning of the barn!

Today was grocery shopping day for Woody...seems like that day comes around all too often!  I got the groceries brought in and put away.  I guess I will call this day a "cooking prep day."  I didn't do much cooking.  I mainly got some first steps done to be able to cook some things...another day!  I just wasn't in the mood to actually complete a recipe!  I did roast some fresh red peppers...getting them ready to use in cooking and in making red pepper sauce.  The red pepper sauce has become Woody's catsup...a condiment that is okay for him to use on sandwiches, etc.  I washed and spun dried red leaf lettuce...ready for Woody's salads...and, he did have a salad this evening.  I also hard boiled some eggs for his salads.  I was gong to get some green beans cooked to put in a marinated salad...but realized that I had forgotten to put green beans on the grocery list.  Oops!  Woody got the green beans when he was out running errands with his friend.  So I still have those to cook...tomorrow!  I just started the dishwasher and will go down and wash by hand the few things that didn't fit or don't go in the dishwasher after I publish the blog. And, then the kitchen will be closed for tonight!

We both got up too early this morning.  I know that has made for a lazy afternoon for me.  I did finish one book that I had been reading for too long.  It was one of those books that I wished that I hadn't started, but once I started I was determined to finish it.  It was a Pulitzer Prize winner, but I really didn't care for it.  There is a movie coming out based on the book, and after reading the book I have no interest in seeing said movie.  The book was The Goldfinch.  It got a thumbs down from me!  I checked out a light read from the public library e-book site after I finished The Goldfinch.  And, I am enjoying a book once again!  I have been trying to branch out with my book choices, but this last one came off a wrong branch...at least for my reading taste! 

I think since I napped some this afternoon, that maybe I will have enough energy to go make a Christmas ornament.  I keep saying that I must get started on them and just haven't yet.  I did get the patches sewn on Graham's Civil Air Patrol camoflauge shirt. He will be happy with his Grammy!

Play Dough & Vanderbilt Visit

Joseph had asked if he could make play dough today.  After he read, we headed downstairs and he made green play dough from this recipe.  When Isaac found out about the new play dough, he chose to make some too.  Isaac worked on his spelling words and then read.  Elijah and Esther had their times to read.  Isaac chose to have today's long time be dedicated to play dough and Joseph joined him and they had a great time.  Amazing what a little flour, salt and water can do to occupy children's time!

After we ate lunch, we headed off to Nashville for Woody's check in with his infectious disease doctor.  She felt that it was time to take Woody off one of his antibiotics and leave him on his maintenance antibiotic, which he will stay on for the rest of his life.  The traffic was bad both going and coming home.  We went a back road on the way home as the interstate was at a stand still when it was time for us to enter it!  It took us 2hours and 10 min. to get home...longer than usual but who knows how long it would have taken on a stop and go interstate!

We are off to Elijah's ball game now.

Fall Blessings

I don't think that I welcomed Fall on Monday!  Maybe I am just trying to slow this year down delaying mentioning divisions of the year!  All I know that it is going too fast.  When I wrote the date today, I realized that Christmas is just three months from today...surely not!!!

I have started our Christmas shopping.  I ordered some gifts over the weekend and the first one arrived today, so I guess Christmas preparations have officially begun.  The one thing that I wasn't ready for was seeing Christmas out in the stores...that is just too early!

Woody ventured out and got his hair cut today.  Donna and I worked in the library this afternoon.  I did various and sundry jobs around the house this morning.  I don't have school on Wednesday as Nathan and family provide/cook a meal for the Motlow Baptist Collegiate Ministry Center on Wednesdays.  The whole family pitches in and cooks the meal along with getting their lessons done either at the BCM or back home after the lunch.

Checking His Swing

Today for Elijah's long time Woody decided that he wanted to check to see if Elijah was swinging level.  So he engaged me as the videographer and he got the pitching machine cranked up and I videoed Elijah hitting.  Woody came to the conclusion that Elijah swings level most of the time.  After Elijah hit several rounds of balls with the pitching machine, he came back in and I put him to work on some domino challenges.
He made dominoes knock other dominoes down going up "steps" and down again.  We used my grandfather's blocks for the steps.  He tried doing some of his own configurations, also...some worked and some didn't!

Everyone else had their regular Tuesday of school.  Everyone is coming right along with their reading.  Esther and Elijah (and I) are enjoying the books that they are reading.  And, Isaac and Joseph are working hard on their reading skills.  Joseph is also working on math also.  Today he figured out how many units and tens there were in two digit numbers.  He did great!  Isaac is working on spelling which in turn is helping him with his reading.

I ate a quick lunch and then headed off to run errands and get a hair cut.  I stopped at the Post Office first and mailed a book to a favorite author of mine.  She has written several books about the Shakers and I had recently acquired a book about the Shakers' founder.  I had contacted the author through Facebook Messenger and she hadn't read it.  Once Woody and I had finished it, I told her that I would put it in the mail to her.  That was my first stop.  I then headed off and got my hair cut.  After that I went to Walmart and picked up a few things that I needed.  By the time that I got home it was time to fix supper.  Tonight I made chicken fricassee and homemade biscuits.  Of course, the recipe had to be adapted to Woody's dietary needs...not too hard to do with the chicken fricassee, but the biscuits were another story...can't use milk and can't use baking powder.  I found a recipe for "No Milk Biscuits" and then substituted baking soda and cream of tartar for the baking powder.  I used coconut oil for the fat.  They came out good enough for putting something saucy over...not the fluffiness biscuits, but adequate for the recipe!  It seems like I have been putting in lots of pictures of food lately...guess that 

is what you get now that the kitchen is finished...no more kitchen progress pictures so now pictures of what is being made in the kitchen!  It was pretty tasty despite no salt, no butter, no milk/cream!  We just make do with what we have to use and not use!  Now...I have to clean up the mess I made!

Peeping in on You!

Just checking in to make sure all of our blog readers are doing okay!  This is Esther's main accomplishment of her long time over here today.  She learned how to draw an eye that looks quite real!  I'm impressed with her first try.  She watched a video and followed right along...pausing when the gentleman got ahead of her too much!  She didn't quite have it finished when her time was up so she came back after she got all her school work done and finished it.

We have just come back from Elijah's game.  His team won tonight.  Elijah got hits both of his times at bat and scored each of the times that he was on base.  He played first base tonight.  Good game, Elijah!

Woody headed out shortly after lunch to take his friend to another doctor appointment.  This time it was McMinnville and as Woody said, that is a much easier trip due to so much less traffic.  Less traffic or not he was gone four hours!

While he was gone, I made a cake from a new recipe that I found and hoped would work with one adaptation to make it "Woody diet friendly!"  I substituted baking soda and cream of tartar for the baking powder and it worked fine!  It is a 12 Yolk Pound Cake.  I wanted to try it to see if I could use up egg yolks from making an Angel Food Cake.  It is a good cake...just perfect to put spoonfuls of strawberries and their juice over.  Woody bought strawberries the other day so he needed another cake to eat them over.  And, it came out of the bundt pan perfectly.  Here's a picture of it cooling in the pan before it was time to turn it out.  It is a pretty yellow color.  This bundt pan is an antique, I guess, as Woody bought it for me our first Christmas...if I'm remembering correctly...if not our first,  then our second!  Now that the game is over, I think that I will go cut myself a sliver of it!