I skipped lunch with my mother (rescheduled for early next week) to get some extra sleep. It was worth it to be rested for my afternoon customers. So nice!
Contacted the Pres. and VP of the SFPA about the 2011 Halloween poetry reading page, and we are on for this year. I must formulate my announcement and get it posted, because I really would like a workable page no later than a couple of weeks before Halloween, this year.
After the trip to donate blood, we stopped by the meat market and the grocery to pick up food for the next week or two. I cooked the chicken breasts in Newman’s Own Lighten Up Sun Dried Tomato Dressing. The sample I tasted was very good.
I haven’t tried the chuck arm roast, yet. I lost track of time, and so the roast was cooked to Well rather than Medium Rare. I am not hopeful…except that on the roast, before I put it into the oven, I added both fruity olive oil and raspberry blush vinegar. I think I’ll taste that next.
After my blood donation I cheated on my diet and had an “oat peanut” granola bar. It was very good, but I should not have eaten it.
I had an appointment at the blood service, today, to donate whole blood. When I got home afterwards and looked at my donor card, I discovered that no information at all had been filled in on it. I do at least have the card and sheet of paper that provide the code number for my donation, and I have taken a photo of it. I will have things to say on Tuesday when I receive the link for filling out the survey.
Not exactly a recipe, but rather the line-up for today’s lunch, which was thrown together hastily. I took a picture, but it is of course on the computer upstairs, and I am not getting up, again, tonight. (Well, here I am, and there will be a picture, after all!)
Just before the weekend I had put a pork tenderloin in to roast. What with the chest colds and the trip to the emergency room and all, we didn’t really get to the roast. We did, however, make a grocery stop on Sunday to pick up fixings for this week’s lunches.
Monday's Lunch
Around the Edges/, posted at my Postcard Art blog, last night.
I do rejoice that (1) people who are not breathing well enough to walk more than a few steps at a time before stopping to collect more air go to the head of the ER line, and (2) the air in the hospital building was actually chemical/fragrance free to the point where it didn’t make me pass out, this time. Also, I even got a chest x-ray, this time, which showed nothing remarkable.
Probably one of the worst of the colds that I’ve caught in my lifetime. Undoubtedly not the last.
I’ve added a recipe compilation list for an excellent luncheon salad to the “My Kitchen” section. Sorry that there is no photo to go with this; it looked so good, I couldn’t bring myself to wait for picture taking. Maybe next time!
I am especially pleased with the dressing I used on the salad. It goes well with the raw apples.
The day was most beautiful, aside from its being a little hotter than I cared for. What little business there was, today, was taken care of in the morning, after I’d finished clearing the weeds from the vegetable garden and scattered wildflower seeds and watered everything thoroughly. My weeding around the summer squash vines disturbed two grasshoppers, one of which stuck around while I went back into the house for a camera.
On Summer Squash a Grasshopper
After lunch I trimmed back the cotoneasters a bit (did you know that they’re members of the rose family?) so Al would have an easier time of mowing around them. I will have to go out again tomorrow, if it doesn’t rain, and pick up the branches for disposal. Something has scared our younger Cocker Spaniel, Samantha, so that she is afraid of loud noises, afraid to go out into the back yard, so I added to the time we spent outside together, taking the trimmer to little trees that are springing up through the fences. So much warm and wet, almost everything is growing rapidly. The exceptions: the lettuce that finds itself in the shadow of the gigantic summer squash leaves and the summer squash plants that were planted in the lower part of the garden, where I am afraid they are too well watered.
One very positive effect of my going back onto my low-carb diet is that my energy level and resulting activity level are so high. It feels good. I must keep that in mind the next time I go out to eat with my mother at the Snap Dragon, and not have tapioca pudding for dessert.
This evening, I am finishing Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. There is a lot to be said taking time off from the social networking sites. Room for my own thoughts…
Also, if an activity ceases to be fun (or challenging or interesting or whatever one was getting out of it), why continue to do it? Breaks are good.
In spite of planning to sleep in, I got up early. And as long as I was there, I fed the dogs. There had been quite a storm, the night before, but by the time I awoke, there were only these strange clouds. As the sky cleared, our neighborhood resumed normal activities.
The weather has continued to be unreasonably hot with severe thunderstorm warnings several times a week. Since the telephone repair person mended the squirrel-chewed telephone line, our land-line telephone and Internet service have stayed up through even the worst of storms. So has our electricity, fortunately. Today’s temperature today at 5:00 p.m. was 88°F with 55% humidity, but although our chance for thunderstorms tonight is 50%, according to the NWS, I don’t’ see anything on the radar heading in our direction.
During the days that LiveJournal was not working properly (I understand that it still is not), I gathered a number of photographs and made smaller versions suitable for inclusion here. If I can get this “gallery” thing to work. (Ah, yes! Click on one of the photos to reach a gallery that shows one picture at a time. Click on the picture to go to the next, or click on the small titles to go forward or back.)
Short Poem Category
First Place
“Peach-Creamed Honey” by Amal El-Mohtar
Second Place
“Binary Creation Myth” by Karen Romanko
Third Place
“Dogstar Men” by C.S.E. Cooney
Long Poem Category
First Place
“The Sea King’s Second Bride” by C. S. E. Cooney
Second Place
“Dark Rains Here and There” by Bruce Boston
Third Place
“Wreck-Diving the Starship” by Robert Frazier
