It's Been a Week!

Since I posted here... YIKES! I'm still alive, but barely. I've been battling the flu since Thursday and I haven't enjoyed it one bit. Gosh, seems like we're so busy these days, getting ready for baby, visiting family and friends, enjoying ourselves in general. Big news is that we are going to see Unwigged and Unplugged at the Warner Theater on 5/13. I am so stinkin' excited I could puke. Because I called the theater and requested ADA seating, we're going to be sitting in the second row. Yes, on the end, but I really don't care. We'll still be damned close. The people in the box office were SO NICE. So tonight while we were exercising, we watched "A Mighty Wind" to celebrate. It was a lot more fun doing my steps in front of a movie than while I was staring at the wall. Made the time go by a lot faster.

Last weekend, we spent a few bucks of our tax return on a freezer. We'd been wanting one for a while as we figured buying in bulk would be a good way to stock up on things and save some cash. It was delivered last week and this past weekend, we took a trip to BJ's to have some fun and stock up. We got beef stew meat, ground beef, chicken breasts (regular and thin sliced), meatballs, Texas toast, ice cream, french fries, chicken fingers, burgers, and more! We bought fun things too that we might never buy again, but for our first trip to BJ's in forever, it was a good time and we got things we can use in the coming months. I've made some plans with my mom that she and I will do a lot of cooking when she comes to visit in a few weeks, and hopefully we'll be able to add spaghetti sauce, pizza dough, chicken enchiladas, and other things to our stash. I might not have to do any serious cooking again till the fall!! WOO HOO! :-)

The freezer arrived with a small dent in it--so small that you can't see it unless it's pointed out to you. However, this garnered us a 10% rebate on the cost of it, so that was awesome. The very night it was installed, the washing machine broke, which was a total odyssey--I couldn't find the receipt and when I called Lowe's about a repair, they told me if I didn't have the receipt, they wouldn't honor the warranty--despite the fact that we purchased the extended freakin' warranty. When I asked the woman on the phone about that, she said, "No receipt, no warranty" and hung up on me! We drove over to Lowe's to see if they could help us locally, but they could not, so we came home and Michael called Bosch directly and played helpless little blind guy and Bosch had someone here two days later who fixed it and left, no problem. We still need to resolve the warranty issue with Lowe's, but at least our washer works!

From my Pampered Chef fundraising show, I ordered the deep covered baker. At my show, the consultant demo'd how to make shredded BBQ chicken in the MICROWAVE with this sucker, and I was totally dying to try it, because I had loved it. I made it tonight and it didn't disappoint. Eleven and a half minutes and I had perfect cooked chicken breasts, which I then "shredded" with scissors and then smothered in BBQ sauce. Very low in points and delicious and the easiness of it was so great. When you're not feeling good, ease is essential.

So due to my illness, I haven't been able to do any cooking of any importance. This weekend we WILL do Italy. Also, my friend Jacalyn sent me a recipe from her friend at church who is from the Philippines, so I will try that. And Syl, my new follower and friend to the north, sent me some Indian recipes, so we will have to try those as well. Turkey will come up next week for my book club, and I'd like to hit Greece as well. But I'm learning not to plan ahead, because when I have lately, all I've gotten is sick.

This was a bad cold. In desperation, I finally slathered a solid half-inch of Vicks VapoRub all over my chest and while I couldn't smell it, at least I could breathe again. I'm still not smelling things very well--tonight I asked Mike if the house smelled OK because he is sensitive to smell and I don't want the rabbit to be smelling, but I just can't tell, honestly. Fortunately, he gave me a good report. So I spent the day magic erasering the walls instead. Nesting just a bit, I've plans to bleach the bathrooms this weekend if we don't have any progress in the next couple of days. Our neighbor is coming in to help us out with some projects and bringing over his contractor friend too, so we can hopefully get some estimates on some projects that desperately need doing around here--fixing the broken shutters, putting up the porch railing, etc.

I guess that's about all for now. Several members of my book club are going to meet Franz Wisner tomorrow night--he wrote "Honeymoon with My Brother" which we read last year, and we were supposed to speak with him by telephone, but the signals all got crossed and he's been actively emailing me ever since in an effort to get the club to talk with him. haha! So he's in Bethesda tomorrow and some of us are going to meet him and have drinks afterwards. That should be fun!

Wednesday I'm in Baltimore with B. again, who is vowing to make me help her walk until this baby drops and who has concocted a theory about castor oil/water that she swears will work and she is drinking it Wednesday. Consequently, I packed up baby's gear today, just in case she is successful in this little venture. She had an ultrasound last week and they claim not to be able to tell if it's a boy now, so I'm deeply suspicious that we might get a girl, owing to the fact that it seems to me it should be pretty darned obvious at this late stage if it was a boy. But we'll see.

G'night! I'll see you all in my next post, which hopefully won't take a week to find you :-)