I'm Late This Week

I said I was going to post every Wednesday, but the day AND the evening got away from me.  Yesterday I just couldn't seem to move a muscle of this old body, so I just relaxed and let everything go.  I am doing a little better tonight, so have no good reason to procrastinate longer.  Besides, I am eager to hear from everyone again.  It's still hard for me to believe that it is Thursday though. 

I just have to say, before I forget, that my new glasses are working great!!  It's about time.  It is so much better to have my prescription glasses work, instead of having to use the kind you buy at the drugstore.  My eyes don't get quite so tired now when I do all my puzzles each morning.  I'm definitely having some problem with allergy in my eyes though, due to all the junk that is floating through the air.  They are scalping all the grass and planting rye for the winter here in our beautiful Palm Desert.   A lot of it has beeen going on the last week or so in our neighborhood, so of course each fall I have a bit of a problem, not as much as I did before I started to take a nasal inhalation of a spray with cortisone in it.  It is called fluticasone.  It has helped a lot.  I take it in the spring too for my hair fever, or I would really be miserable.  Darn these allergies of mine!

Our party last Saturday at Pikes was a great success!!!  It was for the husbands of the High Priests and their wives.  We had almost forty people there and the food was absolutely terrific!  Everyone brought either an appetizer or a dessert.  It was from 4:00 to 6:00 in the afternoon, but I think everyone ate so much that it was likely  no one went home and had dinner.  So many of the appetizers were hot and yummy.  I took one of my all time favorite and EASY desserts called Butter Pecan Squares.  It is the easiest dessert ever and I needed something easy.  I decided to post the recipe right now.  Try it...........I can gaurantee it will be a hit with you too.

Butter Pecan Squares:

1/2 cup butter, softened                            1egg
1/2 cup brown sugar                                 1 teaspoon vanilla                 
3/4 cup flour                                              2 cups milk chocolate chips
3/4 cup chopped pecans

In large mixer bowl cream butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla until light and fluffy.  Blend in flour. Stir in 1 cup chocolate chips and 1/2 cup pecans.  Pour into greased 8 inch square baking dish.  Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.  Remove from oven and immediately sprinkle with remaining  1 cup of chocolate chips.  When chips melt, spread evenly over top with knife.  Sprinkle with 1/4 cup chopped pecans.  Cool, then cut into squares.  Makes 16.

Try it:  I know you will love it!!  I sometimes use regular chocolate chips for the dough, but always try to use milk chocolate one on the top.

Yesterday we visited an older lady from our Ward who lives in a beautiful assisted living facility.  We took a whole recipe to her so she could share it with the other four ladies who live there.  I am sure they will love it.  I meant to call her today to see how they liked it, but have had such a busy day that I forgot.  This morning I went to my hemotologist to get my hemoglobin tested and to see the doctor.  My hemolglobin was way way down, so they kept me there for the rest of the morning to have an iron infusion.  I have to go back in a week and have another one.  It's no wonder I could hardly drag myself around.  I know I will feel much better after getting my iron next week.  It seems like I do have to have these infusions fairly often and I hadn't had one since May.  They never have been able to find out why I am losing blood.  They did an endoscopy and a colonoscopy but couldn't find anything amiss in either my stomach or my intestines.  So I guess I'll just have to keep on with the iron, or even have another blood transfusion one of these times. 

Sorry I'm late, who knows, I may take Sue's advice and just post when I feel like it, but after all twelve of you post I know that if I want to hear from you again, I will need to post.  Also, I do like to keep track this way of what I do each week.  It is like keeping a journal for me.  I can't imagine that any of you can truly be interested in that, but I am glad you are.  I LOVE HEARING FROM YOU GUYS ANY TIME, and that's the truth.  I love you all.................

Dar

Fun Filled Week

First of all, I must tell you that I have lost the six pounds that I gained on our trip!!  Yep, today when I got on the scales I was 170, which was where I was when we left.  I was so happy that it came off relatively fast.  I am now poised to go into the 160's.  I only have to lose the 10 pounds I gained over the year end holidays last year that I was never able to lose thus far this year.  I really need to get back there so I will be poised to get into the 150's.  I am sure I will feel much better when I do.  It has been quite a few years since I was 150. 

What a busy week this far!!  I hardly had a good rest before I had to start my rounds of doctors.  I had to go to my retina specialist Monday morning.  My eyes have been hurting me plus I think my vision is getting worse too, so she did the  heavy duty pictures  and that is not much fun, let me tell you.  She had to inject me with something intravenously and then take the pictures behind my retinas.  It really hurts to look into those bright lights and then afterwards I can't see normally for hours.  Everything is pink and green, other colors too.  She called my optometrist, who is a very close friend of ours, to make an appointment for the next morning to get my eyes tested again.  Instead of asking me the questions, "which is better, this or this," which always confuses me, he had me put my newspaper in front of me to where I do my puzzles each morning.  I do two crosswords, one cryptocrip and one sudoko.  Then he just kept changing the lens until I could read everything clearly.  I really think this time it will work!  My distance glasses were fine and he didn't think I should have to wear glasses all day.  I would hate that as I have never had to do that.   I will see soon, maybe even Monday I'll get my new glasses.

Then Tuesday afternoon I had to get a mammogram, which is always unpleasant.  She did a very comprehensive exam this time and took a bunch of pictures and told me I would have to come back in a few days to have some more pictures taken and possibly have another kind of test, all because I told her my left breast was extra tender and hurt sometimes.  She told me something I found quite interesting.  She said that almost always when one experienced cancer in a breast that it was the left one.  Isn't that something? 

I told Dick that today I didn't want to do anything at all today!  I have to say that I haven't done a darned thing either.  I've just rested the whole day and Dick has waited on me hand and foot.  He's fixed all my meals, brought me whatever I needed and just totally let me rest.  I have napped a lot too, so I must have been more worn out than I thought, because I never sleep during the day.  I decided though that I'd better write something on my blog as I did say I was going to do it every Wednesday.  Sue tells me that I should blog only when I feel like it.  I'm afraid that I wouldn't do it at all any more, but I would hate not hearing from some of my favorite people.  I really do feel like I have gotten to know the few people that comment on my blogs.  I have never really wanted more.  I just love the ten or twelve that I do have. 

Dick had to go to church to do some kind of report for the stake, so it is very quiet right now.  I guess I won't be posting any pictures, but I don't know what the heck I would post that would be relavent to what I've done this week, so it is probably just as well. 

I just want you all to know that I am really doing pretty well and I'm looking forward to another good week.  We are having a church get together at the Pike's this Saturday afternoon.  I have to make a dessert.  I am so glad as we haven't had a church party for so long.  We have a new Bishop and I think we will be having more parties.  I think it is important for people to socialize more.  It's hard to visit with very may people on Sunday's. 

Take care, everyone, I hope I will have more to report next week.  Love to all...........

Final Week of Trip

Yes, we are finally home again.  We actually got home Monday evening after driving straight through from Lake Tahoe.  We made it in 9 1/2 hours, the last three hours being absolutely horrible travelling on a two-lane highway with so much slow traffic that we had no way of going much over 50 mph in a 65 mile speed limit.  I was beginning to wonder if we would ever get to a decent freeway, which we had about the last 1 1/2 hours.  Needless to say, it was great to be able to sleep in our comfortable beds once again.  I do have to say though that the beds we did sleep in at Rich's and in Reno were very good beds, so it could have been a lot worse.  The biggest problem in Tahoe, of course, was the altitude, about 6500.  Dick and I both had trouble breathing, especially Dick.  We couldn't move around too quickly or we would get out of breath, so we had to move in slow motion.  At least we didn't have to get oxygen though!

We met our niece, Nancy Lee, in Tahoe where we spent her birthday.  Unfortunately, we didn't get many pictures at all and the ones we did get weren't very good but will at least post what we have:

 

This table is very long. Stacy's three darling children (my new grandchildren) are pictured 

with Nancy Lee, Dick and me. Trent is on Nancy's right, Troy and Lilly are to my right.

 

I'm not quite sure that I am the only one that had their picture taken with Nancy's birthday cake. It was truly delicious and we ate the whole thing, except for two pieces between the ten of us. I think we all had at least two pieces.

Stacy and Rich behind their super wide bar preparing salad.

 

Rich's boys, Sean on left and Blaine. They are such great kids and are so good with Stacy's three.  These two families have blended perfectly.

Trent, Lilly and Troy with Winnie in the foreground

Rich has a huge backyard with many many trees. There were a lot to begin with and Rich bought 40 more. I wish I had a picture that showed the whole yard, along with a terrific deck where I love to sit in the sun.

View of another corner of the yard

The next three days we spent in Reno where we attended the Four Freshmen Convention.  It was truly a great success and everyone that attended were so glad they did.  We plan to go to next year's convention which will be held in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  Each day was pretty well packed with different events, which we attended.  We had two different sesssions that were called "The Wannabe's" where we sang Four Freshmen songs from musical scores that had all four parts.  At times we sounded pretty darned good, but the idea was just to have fun, which we all did.  We also had a session where people related stories about interesting things that happened to them when they were with any of the many groups that toured over the years.  It was really fun to hear about those experiences.  We had a fairly interesting experience with the current group when we ran into them at the elevator.  We had quite a nice talk with the four of them and Nancy particularly enjoyed talking with Vincent (the bass player) about the years she spent when she worked at Capitol Records in Hollywood when the original group was recording there.  Vincent was really interested in hearing about that time.  I got into a pretty interesting conversation myself with Brian (the lead singer) about Jim Pike who lives in our ward and who we have become pretty close friends with.  Jim was the one who started the Lettermen.  He happened to be at a Freshmen concert and he went up to Brian  afterward and started to introduce himself to Brian and Brian must have had a lot on his mind, because he pretty much ignored Jim.  When I told him about this, he could hardly believe it and he was really sorry that happened. 

I just have to mention how wonderful the hotel was.  The whole affair  was at Harrah's in Reno and they were all so helpful and happy to have us there.  The two dinners they served to us on Friday and Saturday nights were absolutely incredible.  They did such a wonderful job and the food was presented in such an appealing way each night.  We had chicken the first night and it had the most delicious sauce on it.  We had key lime pie for dessert, which is one of my favorites.  Saturday night they served prime rib and it was all beautiful too.  I have a picture of the dessert they served.  It was really terrific, but I can't remember what they called it.  

The Freshmen were amazing both nights and they sang so many neat songs.  The second night was devoted to performing a lot of the love songs from their new album.  We enjoyed it all so much that we were hating the fact that it was over.  But all good things must end and the next morning we were off to Rich's again.  Nancy came back with us as she wanted to spend a little more time with the family, even though she had to get up pretty early to go back to Reno to catch her flight home.  The shuttle didn't work with her schedule so Stacy arranged for her to have a driver who drove her to the airport in Reno.  It is about an hour and twenty minutes from Tahoe.  Everything went smoothly for her and she was quite excited when her seat mates turned out to be a couple of board members whom she had been talking with.  They had to change planes in Dallas to go back to their home in Fort Wayne where the convention will be held next year.  In fact they are in charge of it, so Nancy really did get the inside scoop on what woud be going on there. 

We had an enjoyable day with the family on Sunday as Rich and Stacy were both home so we spent a very relaxing day with them before we both had to leave Monday morning.  Here are a few pictures we got at the concert Saturday night.

 Here they are, "The Four Freshmen."

Here we are with our name tags.

  

These are four lovely Filipino women who were at our table. We all got along so well together and Dick was the only man so of course we called ourselves his "Harem." We had the same table and seats both nights, so we really did get to know these four.

This is the lovely dessert I mentioned. The "25 years" was written in chocolate on our plates. It was actually the 25th anniversary of the Freshmen Society, which is their amazing fan club. We have only been members for four or five years. The membership is between 2500 and 3000, so it is quite a large Society.

Our last day in Tahoe was a very relaxing one and Stacy and Rich fixed an amazing dinner  for us.  Rich did cornish game hens on the barbecue.  He cooks them really slow for for almost two hours.  He also did snap peas and fresh mushrooms wrapped in foil on the barbecue.  It was so delicious.  The hens were so tender and juicy.  The veggies were outstanding.  I don't know what seasoning he put on them but it was perfect!!  Stacy made a huge ceasar salad and we had three desserts!!!  Everyone had to have a taste of all three, chocolate pie, lemon pie and strawberries with lots and lots of really thick whipped cream.  We were all so full we could hardly move.  We took enough of everything home in our freezer so that when we got home we had another great meal and all we had to do was warm it up.  Unfortunately Dick gained six pounds during that week and I gained six and a half!!!  Darn............at this rate, our doctor is going to win the bet, but we are right back on it so hopefully we will lose it quickly plus lots more.  We'll see.

Here are a couple more pictures we got of the kids in their Halloween costumes.  They were happy to model them for us.

 Trent and Troy

Lilly and Winnie. We didn't get Winnie in her costume, but she did have one which she modeled for us later but unfortunately we didn't get a picture of her. She had a rufferie uniform. I was told because she was a dog it was a rufferie uniform instead of a referee one.

 

Oh, by the way, I am now going to do my blog on Wednesdays instead of Tuesdays.  I still have to get Dick's help and he is too busy to help me on Tuesdays.