I hope everyone had a great Mother’s Day! We went to breakfast with youngest and his wife. After that we came back to the house, and youngest and Wizard attempted to hang the outdoor ceiling fan. That was a fail, LOL! So the problem is the stucco ceiling that had too tight a space for the fan we bought (the patio is built on as part of the house). Anyhow, the have the bracket up, we just had to get another fan designed to fit without cutting stucco. That should be a simple fix (I know, famous last words!!). But in the scheme of life, this barely qualifies as a micro hiccup and will be solved one way or another.

Otherwise, it was a good weekend, but somehow I’m just exhausted. I think it was a just a really long week with lots of worries about people we love. That’s how life goes, and it will pass.

This week I’m on call for jury duty. I’m on standby for today (Monday) so I’ll check again tonight to see if I go in tomorrow. It’s not hard. It just means we can’t make concrete plans this week and have to remain a bit flexible, but it’s only for a week. See my jury duty attitude has improved

How was your weekend?

TGIF! And Happy Early Mother’s Day to all the moms out there! Okay, time to jump into sharing five random things about our week. Here’s mine:

1. I’m actually reading a book! It’s been a while since I’ve even opened one. This book BREAKING BADGER (The Honey Badger Chronicles #4) by Shelly Laurenston. I really needed something light and funny, and Shelly is perfect.
2. We went out to Wizard’s mom’s yesterday and are mentally wiped out as I write this Thursday evening. This time we didn’t take Maggie because we needed to take care of some things. But on a sweet note, when his mom found out about all our planting flowers for our backyard, she went out and collected a bunch of cuttings from her flowers for us to plant more. Wizard and I will plant those today. I hope the flowers take and we can have “his mom’s flowers” in our backyard for a very long time. (By the way, this really is normal life stuff we’re dealing with — people get older, and other people get sick, we are just dealing with a lot of it at once lately).
3. Maggie was sad we didn’t take her to Wizard’s moms, so when we got home, we took her to Home Depot to buy some pots to plants the flowers. She forgave us then
4. Biker Witch and I planned to have coffee, do some shop browsing and then to Trader Joes yesterday, but both our lives decided took a plot twist and we couldn’t do it   I guess the good news is it worked out best for both of us, and we’ll reschedule as soon as we can.  Also, I know Trader Joes is a weird place to want to go, but it’s in the outlet mall we were meeting at and we both like the store
5. It’s Mother’s Day Weekend. Hilariously, I didn’t realized it until a little over a week ago We’ll go to breakfast, and see youngest for sure as he asked us about it last weekend. The other two live farther and it’s harder to arrange that, so a phone call is probably best. Hopefully we’ll see Turbo soon too!

That’s my kind of lame five, I bet your five can top mine!

Happy Mother’s Day and have a great weekend!

Fun fact about me — I’m a danger to myself while cooking, baking and sometimes, just breathing, LOL.

I am getting pretty decent at making plain old “white bread” sourdough, except for one minor detail.  Every time I use the special razor called a “lame” to score the top of dough, I somehow cut myself.

This last time I cut myself AFTER I’d carefully put the lame back in the box. I mean…that takes talent right? Well it slid out the other end of the cheap cardboard box and cut my index finger. The cut is healing, but it required creative bandaging and I wore a glove while prepping the enchiladas and chopping herbs for the rice to not add any unwanted ingredients.

Then I cut myself cutting the sourdough bread on another finger   It’s a gift people. It’s not the sourdoughs fault, it has a nice crust while the inside is soft and slightly chewy as we like it. But my breadknife can slip and bounce if it doesn’t catch on the first pass, and that slip always finds my finger. (Also I need new knives, but that’s another issue having to do with me not wanting cheap knives but being too cheap to invest in a good set.)

Then, I swear this is true, I cut another knuckle when I reached for my saran wrap. My knuckle barely grazed the edge of the cutting side of the aluminum foil and slit open. I swore in frustration at that point.

Now here’s an interesting part. Wizard had to deal with a difficult phone call during all my prep and put it on speaker so I could hear it. I was peeling and slicing apples for apple pie at the time (with a glove on). I listened to this call intently, not paying enough attention to what I was doing with the knife and yet, I didn’t cut myself then. Weird.

Anyway, by the time company came over, I was covered in Band Aids. To their credit, no one asked, and everyone pretended I am perfectly normal. They also seem to really enjoy all the food so it was all worth it!

What’s a fun fact about you?

We enjoyed the beautiful weather this weekend.

First we got our new patio table got go with our chairs. Wizard and I went to pick it up and I couldn’t quite lift my end of the box. I’d get it part way, the table would tilt and I’d lose control. A guy walking by saw me struggling, jogged over, took my end, and he and Wizard slid the table in our SUV. I was so grateful! Sometimes, people you’ve never met will be there when you need them! We love this space.

Here’s a pic of the table and chairs.

And here’s a pic of our view this weekend:

Then Saturday we had Wizard’s brother and sister and their spouses over. I spent two days making sourdough bread (for bruschetta appetizers), two kinds of enchiladas and an apple pie. So Maggie knew something was up. Then an hour before they came over, I put Maggie’s little scarf back on her. That confirmed her belief people were coming over. Here she is staring at the front door and waiting for company to get there! Wizard and I were cracking up. She loves company!

We had a good time with his family. These days, we just don’t get together as much as we should. And I should mention, I enjoy doing all that cooking when I have the time and energy. They were all very appreciate, but no one expects me to work that hard unless I want to do it

Sunday was our quiet day and I loved it!

So how was your weekend?

I told you guys how Wizard and I couldn’t get into the air show when we tried to go? We sat in line for 2 and 1/2 hours? Okay now that your memories are refreshed, I want to update that story.

We found out yesterday they are refunding our money. I went through the ticket company (by the way, NO REFUND was clearly marked while purchasing the tickets, and on the tickets themselves), and they indicated they had a lot of complaints and worked with the event planners to refund the tickets. We feel that is good customer service after something went wrong, and that they will work to correct whatever went wrong at future events.

Since I complained here, I felt I also needed to give equal space to people and organizations that try to make things right!

So how is your Wednesday going?

It’s May already! The weekend was pretty good. Friday I made the cupcakes for Saturday.

Saturday, I got my mammogram done, which made me happy since it took three months to get that appointment. Plus they were on time and the technician was quick. Then we went out to Oldest Son’s for the late April Birthdays Celebration. That was so fun. It was just our three sons kids, their wives and Turbo and us. We BBQed hamburgers, had pasta salad then cupcakes. Easy and fun!

Sunday, Wizard and I went to breakfast. Later I planned to go see youngest, but Wizard invited himself then hogged youngest by taking his drone over there :-(.  I was irritated. If that sounds petty, that’s because it totally is, LOL! But in my defense, Wizard had already been over there earlier in the day helping youngest with his garage door. But I did get to hang out with my daughter-in-law and grand puppy.

Later in the day, the sinus headache I’ve been fighting all week got mean. But I fought back with a combination of sinus meds and yoga. It sounds weird but it helped. I was able to cook and eat a dinner of shrimp and gluten-free fettuccini with some sourdough bread and all was well. Then I scratched my eye washing my face I don’t even know how I do these things. I think after I took out my contacts, an eyelash must have gotten under my eyelid. I imagine it’ll be much better by tomorrow — which is actually today since I wrote this last night.

Today I see my GI doctor in the afternoon. I certainly feel a lot better than I did, so that’s good. It’s a bit of a work in progress but I’m hopeful that he agrees we’re headed in the right direction.

That was my weekend, how was yours?

I don’t play this game on purpose, this is just how my brain works sometimes.

So today while grocery shopping, bought a tri tip roast. Which made me think of dry rubs for seasoning. That made me think of herbs. And because my brain loves a good game of hop scotch this is where I landed:

I mean there’s beef and herbs in this shot right

Do you ever play Brain Hopscotch? Happy Wednesday!

P.S. If you have a good dry rub or tri tip recipe, please share!