We have been living here now for 2 months and have had much to learn and think about. This is not Texas, nor is it California. Arizona has a personality all it’s own. Somedays, when we get CBS alerts every hour, declaring that someone has been shot or stabbed, we feel that we are living in the Wild Wild West.
Other days, when we are out, and people constantly strike up a conversation with us just waiting in line or sitting waiting for our car’s to be cleaned, we feel that we live in the South, the home of hospitality. Then there are times, when our neighbors come over and just walk in and hug us and are excited that a Christian has moved in next door, we feel that we are living in the Bible Belt.
Yes, we have found that folks out here ask us if we are Christians. It is certainly a place which has such a diversity of people, all of which combine to make this a place that has already warmed our hearts (except for the shootings, which so far, has kept to a different part of Phoenix)
This past Tuesday, we attended the Bible Study here at the clubhouse where we live and then went to a potluck dinner, which is held the first Tues of the month here at Las Palmas Grand. I felt like I was in the fellowship hall at First Bapt church again. It has been so many years since I have been to a potluck dinner. After a opening prayer blessing, we all got up to feast on all the food that had been brought. There was meatloaf, Jello Salads, Pasta salads, ribs, roast, you name it, we had it. I took Randy’s request, my cream cheese pound cake with strawberry sauce. We met new people and even signed up to bowl on Thurs evenings and I signed up for art class. Randy’s arm is still keeping him from doing to much, so he said he would go and watch me make a fool of myself…I mean bowl! We also discovered that in order for us to fit in with this Pot Luck group, we should have brought our own divided trays, you know the kind; like the kind that we use to use in school. They are plastic and have a place for your utensils, a place for your cup and then a couple of places for different foods. Not me, missy, we brought the biggest plates we had in order to fit more food. We are Southern Baptist and grew up on Pot luck dinners, we know that some little divided tray that fits maybe two different kinds of food was not going to cut it with his couple. Our plates allowed us to get more foods at one time, thus avoiding so many trips back to the tables, which in all honesty, is always so embarrassing as I think people must think, “how much food can that girl eat, hasn’t she been up there 3 or 4 times already. Our plates only require a couple of trips. Personally the others should learn from us and bring undivided large plates. Less trips; more food! One of the first things you learn at church dinners.
We sat at a table that had two of the sweetest couples. This is the part of the story that I’m not sure I should share, but it just is such a part of what we are having to get use to. One of the couples who sat with us was a little older than we are. How do I know this, well…a couple of reasons. For starters, when we began to talk and share that we were new, they began to tell us about the Mesa Senior Citizen Center. I glanced at Randy and he just smiled at me, like “don’t be rude, you will be there in a few years.” But it was when they invited us to go to lunch with them that I just felt like I was 80 years old. They raved about how good the lunches were at this Senior Center and they went every day and ate for $3.50 which included their milk, coffee & water. Now, I am not saying that there is anything wrong with going to the Senior Center, but for lunch ever day? Do they not know that there is a Sonic down the street where you can get a hamburger with fries and a cherry coke for almost the same price? It was at this point that I told Randy, that until we were to old to drive or our stomachs couldn’t take grease anymore, he had to promise me that we would not do that. Even if the food there is the greatest since sliced bread, we would still drive through In & Out, Whataburger or Sonic. I’m just not ready to hit the Senior Centers quite yet.
Hopefully for a few years, do not go looking for us at any Senior Center, unless of course they are serving Tex-Mex or Hamburgers & Fries!
Seniors We Might Be, But Sonic is the Perfect Place for ME!
Author: Chocolate Castles
Welcome to Chocolate Castles, a blog about food, family and stories that hopefully will bring a smile to your heart.
Thanks for reading chocolate castles and may the recipes and stories help bring your family and friends a little closer around the table!
Remember that Princess On The Porch is still available on Amazon! Makes a great gift for anyone who enjoys being in the kitchen and needs a little laughter in their lives.
Monsoons, Meatloaf & Munchkin
I’m back…..finally! Between caring for a hubby with one arm right now and trying to train a little new Munchkin we are calling Oliver Leopold, I feel like I am in a house with a new baby. The only difference between a new puppy and a baby is the baby at least poo poos in a diaper instead of the floor. This past week we experienced our first monsoon, which after hearing from folks out here, we truly expected a little more excitement. After living in California with earthquakes and in Texas where lightning and heavy rains are as common as nachos, we found ourselves sitting there watching the heavy rains discussing what we would have for dinner with Randy looked at me and said, “don’t you think we should have meatloaf during the monsoon?” So that is exactly what we had. He reminded me that I had not fixed meatloaf since leaving Dallas the first of March. Randy fell the night before our things arrived to move in and fractured his shoulder in two places and dislocated it also. So we call him the one armed bandit now. Being today is his birthday, we didn’t get to do to much as he says that he feels like either a little kid or a really old man because I have to cut up his food, (but he loves the fact that I have to do his hair, he is getting very spoiled)
Today a recipe showed up on FB and it sounded delicious. It is an Italian Lemon Cake and I have to make it. But today I had to make German Chocolate Cake, which is a tradition for his special day. But this week, as soon as the last crumb is gone from the GCC, this lemon cake will be in the oven. I have to tell you that when I looked up different recipes for the frosting for the GCC, I came across one that used light brown sugar instead of regular granulated sugar. It is really good. In fact, both of us think we like it a little better than the normal frosting that you see on the package of Bakers German Chocolate. So live a little the next time you make one and try using the brown sugar instead of the white. Just gives it a little more caramel flavor. So back to the recipe for the Italian Lemon cake and Happy Fourth of July!
3 cups all purpose flour
1 teas baking powder
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup sour cream
4 tablespoons lemon juice
zest of 2 lemons (about 2 tables)
1 teas vanilla
Preheat oven to 300 Grease and flour baking pan
Sift flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside. In another bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Mix in the sour cream, lemon juice, vanilla and lemon zest.
Mix half of the flour mixture into the butter mixture. Mix in the buttermilk and then add in the remaining flour mixture. Mix just until the flour disappears. Pour the cake batter into the prepared bundt pan.
Bake for 60-70 min or until cake tests done. Remove cake from oven and allow to cool for 5-10 min. Turn cake over onto cake platter.
Sprinkle with powdered sugar, or frost with cream cheese frosting.
Hot Time In The Old Town Tonight
Even though this is the title to an old song it describes our weather here in Phoenix today and all this week. Since today is father’s Day and we are having a pretty heavy meal of chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes, green beans, gravy and hot rolls for dinner,I wanted it to and on the cool note so I made the frozen strawberry pie with whipped cream for our dessert. After the dinner fiasco last Wednesday night I have actually made myself get back in the kitchen, get my recipes out and began to cook again. Friday night I made an Italian spaghetti soup that ended up delicious with olive bread toasted and then last night we had pineapple cheeseburgers for dinner. Since the heat is forcing us to stay inside more I figured that The best thing I could do was cook and bake. The strawberry pie recipe is under Valentines Strawberry Pie recipe from February, 2015 posts. Here is the recipe for the soup:
Italian Spaghetti Soup
3 links of mild sweet Italian Sausage (take out of the casing)
1 small onion, chopped
1 small green bell pepper, chopped
3 ribs of celery, chopped
1 16 oz can of chopped tomatoes
2 cups of chicken broth
1 zucchini cut into 4 vertical pieces then cut into small bite size pieces
2 carrots
1/3 cup of chopped fresh basil
1/2 cup of butternut squash,cubed very small or can of white navy beans, drained
1 teas Italian Seasoning
3 garlic cloves, chopped
Spray a Dutch oven with Pam. Sauté and crumble the sausage as it cooks until no longer pink. Add the onion and rest of ingredients to pan. Stir until well combined. Add lid and bake in 300 degree oven for 4 to 5 hours or until veggies are tender. When soup is done, remove from oven and cook, according to directions, about4 oz of thin spaghetti, breaking noodles as you add to the boiling water. When spaghetti is done, drain almost all of water, leaving a little to add with the spaghetti to the soup mixture. Salt and pepper soup as desired. Serve with toasted garlic kalamata olive bread and sprinkle Parmesan cheese on top of soup.
Adjusting to Arizona
We have been here since April 19th and in our new house since May 11th. Maybe it’s because we are old and not as easy to adjust to new surroundings, but my goodness, how young would we need to be to adjust to the heat, and yards adorned with nothing but rocks and cacti? Also, we have never seen so many electric scooters, tattoos and folks wearing black socks with white tennis shoes. Apparently they have never been visited by the fashion police.
In spite of the afore mentioned observations, we have to say that we really do feel at home here and are enjoying the casualness and friendliness of our community. This past Wednesday evening we invited a new friend to dinner. She was the lady who we met through Airbnb when we leased her casita behind her house until we could get moved in to our house. We owe so much to Diana. She is the lady who owned her own construction company and sent out her employees to our new place to do most of the work on our house. So I wanted to show her how much we both appreciated her kindness to us. Because I have not really cooked or baked but about 3 times since the first of March when we moved out of our house in Dallas, I guess that my cooking skills took a nosedive (to say the least, more like hit rock bottom). Because I had not cooked in a while or had company over for dinner, I decided to make an old standby, the one pot spaghetti with garlic bread, capresse and baked Parmesan zucchini sticks.
How hard can that be? Diana arrived at 6 and I put out olive tapenade with homemade garlic toast. Since we stil have boxes which we had taken to storage on Saturday, just to get them out of ou sight for a couple of months, things are still missing from my kitchen, like bowls to eat spaghetti from. So Wednesday afternoon, after deciding to make something “safe”, I headed out the door to stores around our neighborhood to see if I could find some bowls. I could not find any of the large flat bowls, other than just round soup bowls. But At Walmart I found a beautiful little turquoise cut glass bowl and matching plate, made by Pioneer women. So deciding to just use my China bowls that evening, I headed home. I washed my new purchases and went on with my cooking. Following the recipe exactly, I began to cook, feeling very prideful that Diana was in for a great evening of Italian food and would probably walk away thinking, “wow, boy can that Texas girl cook!” Well, the spaghetti was in the pot, waiting to be turned on, the bread was buttered with garlic and herbs just waiting to be put in the oven and the capresse was in the fridge. Diana arrives and we visit and show her around the house that her employees had helped us transform. All of us had stood around snacking on the olive tapenade and garlic toasts and visited. It old Diana and Randy to go ahead and sit and I would serve the meal. When I lifted the lid to the spaghetti, it was a pot of mush. I panicked and tried to pick out the noodles which had not turned to mush, but just could not find enough for her, much less all 3 of us. Quickly I apologized and told her that I don’t know what I did, but we just could not eat the pot of mush. Well, at least we had good garlic bread in the oven, but when I went to take it out, it was hard as a rock. What is happening? I grabbed the plate of tapenade and put it on the table and said that we would just have a dinner of capresse and tapenade. The zucchini sticks were also mush and I instantly just threw them out. I have never, in 40 years cooked a meal like that. And for guest, I just was such an embarrassment. Lucky for me, she loves strawberries and I had made fresh strawberry pie with whipped cream. Trying to be fancy, I had saved some of the larger strawberries and dipped them n chocolate to top off each piece of pie. Pulse the strawberries were really tart. She was kind enough to say that she thought it was the end of strawberry season and that was probably why they did not taste very good. I didn’t see the chocolate covered strawberries in the fridge until I was cleaning up after she went home. At least had they been on top, the dessert would have looked pretty. The grandkids ended up eating them the next day. Then tonight, two days later, I got out my new acquired Pioneer woman plate which I had used Wednesday night. I carried it to the table where I had made more garlice bread for our dinner tonight. During the meal, I saw Rany peeling something off that plate. When I looked over, he was removing the Pioneer sticker off of the front of it. WHAT????Had I washed that and used it Wednesday evening with the sticker still on the front of it? I have not been in this town for 2 months and I have already done enough to earn a reputation as being the worst cook from Texas to settle here. It scares me to think what she was really thinking on her way home, “please Lord, don’t even make me go back and eat at their house again.” We may have to move again. I just don’t think I can take the stares of folks that might have talked to Diana that next day. If she ever does come back, I think we will just take her out to eat. It will be much safer for my reputation as a cooking blog contributor.
Old Man In Ojai
Since it is almost Fathers Day this old post came up in my FB memory today! When I Reread it to Randy just now he looked at me and said,”look It’s been 3 years and I’m still using a cane, still eating donuts but in a new place to go exploring”! That’s my hubby! He is always ready to go see what mischief we can get into !
Yesterday we planned a trip to go explore a new place about a 2 hour drive from our house. It is a beautiful little town nestled in the valley just east of Santa Barbara. Friends have told us that we just have to go and see this place, as it is truly a great little place to spend the day. So we had made up our minds that this weekend, we were going to get out of the hustle bustle of schedules and just eat anything we wanted and go explore. So Saturday morning, we got in the car and headed out. I had told Randy to make this an official “exploring, do anything kind of day” we would need to start off pretty soon with some junk food, so we decide to find a Starbucks knowing that we could always munch on their lemon loaf cake and down that…
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Police, DMV & Storage
Since we are once again headed to storage today here in Arizona, this brought back so many memories!
Yesterday didn’t turn out exactly like I had planned. I had studied the DMV handbook until I knew every question that might be ask of me on the written test. It was going to be exciting to tell my kids, who think that ” poor mom can’t remember anything anymore” that I passed my test on the first try. The appointment was at 1:30 so, since I am still the type who likes to get to her tests plenty early, we arrive at 1. When we walk in, I notice that certainly, normal people, such as myself (yes, I do like to think of myself as normal, although I’m sure some of you might disagree) had surely hired someone to take their place to avoid standing in the 3 deep 10 foot long line to tell them I was there for my 1:30 appt. Looking around the huge room, all…
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VBS Is A Life Saver
It is that time of year again, when you see more mini vans circling the church parking lots|
My daughter called this morning on her way home from dropping Caleb, our 3 year old grandson off at Vacation Bible School. I asked her, ‘oh I thought he went last week to VBS” and she politely told me he did, but this was another one. In the sweetest little voice she could muster, she remarked, “mom, don’t judge me”. Now, I began to think that maybe she was just wanting Caleb to have a definite idea of if he might want to be a preacher when he grew up and she was showing him what it would be like to be around the church all day, every day. But before I could begin to quote the Ten Commandments, she told me that she had signed him up for 4 different VBS’s this summer, as a way to keep her sanity. Now, I do admit that Caleb is rather, hum…how…
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SouthernWestern Hospitality
It is time to speak up. During my 60 years of living in Texas, you hear and observe hospitality in many different ways. When we lived in California for about 5 yrs off and on, we discovered that hospitality certainly was alive and well in the neighborhoods where we lived, even though we lived in what was called, “LALA land”. Now that we have moved to Arizona, I just had to write to brag a little bit on the people here. Maybe Randy and I walk around with a sign on our backs which we cannot see that says, “we are old, please help us” because out of the many trips which we have made to Home Depot and Lowes due to the redo of the house we bought, I cannot tell you how many times, we have been approached by men who spot us loading things from the cart to our car, or returning unused boxes of tiles, or boards or cans of paint. Each time, different men have come over to ask if we need help loading or unloading. With a smile on their face. Today, Randy (yes still with the sling on his arm) rode with me to the store. We were getting in our car with a little bag of groceries, which I carried and a very nice man who had parked in front of us, came walking over to ask Randy if he could help him close his car door. Randy graciously thanked him and said, thanks, but he could close it. The gentleman wanted to be sure, so he waited in 103 weather to be sure Randy could indeed close his door before he walked off. He then smiled and waved and left. Seriously, what is wrong with these people? Do they not realize that they do not live in the South and they are not suppose to be this friendly? I called Jodi when we got home to ask her if she ever noticed how friendly everyone is here. She said, “isn’t it amazing, Mom? Everywhere you go, even cashiers at the store start up conversations with you.”
I acknowledged that yes, I had noticed that no matter where we are, people just start talking to me. One of the first questions that they ask me is where I am from. I don’t know if it is my Dallas big hair that gives me away as not being a Arizona native or if I do possess just a tad of a southern accent. But we have just been so pleasantly surprised at the genuine conversation which we have seen.
It seems like forever since I have posted a recipe. But that is about to change. Tomorrow, our “stuff” comes. I will have my baking dishes, our silverware, dishes, linens, measuring cups, mixer,canisters, and all my wonderful Paula Deen cookbooks, which I hid underneath some sheets, since Randy had told me that I had to throw out most of my magazines, as he didn’t want to rent a pod just for my recipe books and magazines. So tomorrow, is the day I have waited for for almost 4 months. Wonder what recipe will catch my eye to post? Whatever it is, I bet it will be something cool, as it is suppose to be 115 tomorrow while we are unloading boxes.
Confession time: today we bought a can of whipped cream and prepared chocolate pudding from the gorcery store. Randy could not believe he saw me reach in the case and retrieve store bought, canned whipped cream. I told him that if he ever told anyone, his other arm might somehow become dislocated also. What is a girl to do, when it is so hot outside and she has no mixer or bowls to make her own?
So here is to Arizona, the most friendly southern-western state west of the Mississippi River. We have already fallen in love with the beauty and the hospitality. Randy thinks I just like it here because every day is a good hair day, since no humidity. It would be so nice if I could see my good no humid hair, but it is so dry my contacts are so stuck on my eyeball, I don’t see very well. We have no toll roads here, but the extra cash is being spent on moisturizers and breathable underwear. I have given up worrying about my upper arms showing. The state uniform here is sleeveless everything. Guess self-tanning lotion will be my next purchase. You know what they say, if the cellulite is fat, it doesn’t look as bad. Maybe I will get a tattoo of a giant Hershey Kiss on my upper arm. That should hide the wrinkles pretty well. Folks will just think the chocolate kiss is beginning to melt in this awful heat.
Discoveries, Dislocated Shoulders & Dishes
Since the last blog, May 22nd, there have been quite a few lessons learned. We have discovered where the nearest Hospital in Mesa is located, we can eat for weeks out of paper plates and…Randy dislocating his shoulder with 2 fractures will not slow us down, ok, maybe a tiny bit, but he has learned that there are truly some things that cannot be done with just having one arm. He has learned that it does humble you quite a bit to have to depend on others to dress you, cut up meat, drive (which made me feel like my mom because she always drove since riding with my dad driving scared us to death), and some other things which I will not write about right now. All of this to say, both of us have had to repeat several different times, “for better or for worse” “in sickness and in health” to remind ourselves that marriage isn’t just about fun and games, which of course, we would like to think. There have been times this past 8 days which I had to remember that love is a choice, not a feeling, as some of the feelings which I was having certainly was not one of love (like all the multiple times he had to wake me up to go get meds or help him up or down). It is these times which we want to remember that we did indeed repeat in front of God and a preacher, words of love and affirmation, declaring our love “till death do us part”. Yes, there have been maybe one, ok, ok, maybe 2, no 3, ok, maybe 4 times these past 8 days, 7 hours and 36 minutes which tested my sincerity of those words. In the scheme of things, we both know that this temporary set back of having only one arm for the next 4-6 weeks is certainly nothing compared to what others have to deal with. And that is good for us to remember, that sometimes things like this make us more aware of what some experience on a permanent basis.
Because we have had to postpone our trip to Italy until further notice, we have to think that sometimes, things like this happen for our good. To not look at it as a negative, but see it for what it might be. God’s Hand of protection over us. As we sat last night watching the news and saw that Italy is now on the list of places which they are warning Americans not to visit until further notice, we both looked at each other and began to consider that, as we both pray and ask God to lead and guide us according to His will and timing, maybe Randy’s accident was something that was meant for our good and protection. Wen we discussed this last night, he looked at me and said, “well, I wonder why it had to be me and not you that dislocated their shoulder”? I’m sure it was the meds speaking and not really him. Life sometimes throws us certain little bends in the road which, even though we would never choos to have them, end up teaching us that even though “our ways are not Gods ways”, those bends seem to have lessons in them. Lessons, which, if we accept and not fight them, bring us closer to Him in our walk of faith.
Randy has had to learn to sit back and accept that he has had to humble himself to let me do things for him. I have had to learn that every day cannot be all fun and games. We have both learned that there can be laughter even on the bad days. We both were wanting something sweet, so we headed to Paradise Bakery, which is right around the corner. Randy gave me his order of 2 sugar cookies and an iced tea. I returned to the car with just cookies in a bag. When he ask me where the tea was, I had to tell him that I just could not pay $2.50 for iced tea when I knew I could get it at McDonald’s around the corner for $1. He looked at me and said,”oh my gosh, you are turning into me”. He was right, the old me would have never thought anything about paying $2.50 for tea and would have just bought it to keep from going to another place, but this new retired me, just could not bring herself to pay that much. You have to understand that I always have tea made and either cookies, pies or cake made, but since our dishes, linens and boxes of all of our stuff will not be delivered until this Friday, we have not baked anything since our stove and fridge was just delivered a few days ago. But because of the accident to his arm, the pod which had at least our furniture in it was delivered. Jodi and I hauled one of the beds inside, some chairs and a table so Randy didn’t have to sit in a lawn chair. We also knew that he would never be able to get up or down off the air mattress which we had been sleeping on. So lessons which I have learned since his accident are:
1. I can muster myself around Hom Depot and Lowes and actually learned to saw baseboards in half, load them through the the sun roof of our car.
2. I can paint rooms, remove kitchen tile and unload furniture like a pro.
3. We can live without cable TV, HGTV and water in the kitchen.
4. I have learned that people in pain have a much better disposition after you give them pain meds.
5. That to be woke up several times a night is better on young moms than grouchy old ladies like myself.
Life lessons come in all shapes and sizes. Maybe by the next lessons to be learned his shoulder will have healed and we at least have homemade cookies baked and tea in the fridge. That will make it all better, I’m sure.
Camping Out In The City
We have been in our house for 12 days. If I remember correctly from all the Bible Studies I have done, I remember that the number 12 (in Hebrew) meant “complete”. But in Mesa, apparently it just means, 3 more nights until we are out of the air mattress And into a bed. After these 12 days of having nothing but 2 borrowed lawn chairs to sit it, we have discovered how comfortable car seats really are. We go driving around just to sit in something besides the lawn chairs. We have also learned that around these many over 55 communities, couples have cards made with both of their names, their emails, phone numbers and last but not least, the couples picture. So Randy and I have been trying to come up with what our “business” card would say. We are thinking something like
Rickey & Trixie is our names, Bingo & Chicken Foot is our game!
Randy thinks we still need to work on it a bit. In the spirit of camping out, since our stuff isn’t here yet, we have been using plastic silver wear and paper plates. on Friday, because they delivered the stove top, we were so excited that we went and bought eggs and bacon and gave us a whole new reason for jumping off the air mattress Saturday morning. As I was using a sharp car key to open the bacon, I get my brand new Paula Deen skillet out that Amazon just delivered on Thursday, and began to fry the bacon. It dawned on me at that moment that I still had no toaster, but we wanted toast to go with our bacon and eggs. Well, they don’t call me little miss Pioneer Princess for nothing. I just got my other new Paula Deen skillet out, buttered the bread and proceeded to fry our toast. As the bacon began to cook on one side, I got the plastic fork out and began to turn it over to the other side. It would not turn over. As I began to get frustrated, I looked at my plastic fork and discovered that it had melted in the hot bacon grease. Well, it doesn’t take me more than 2 slices of bacon to learn that you cannot use plastic table wear for cooking utensils. I learned that if you use one fork to turn each slice of bacon, it does NOT melt. Bends a little, but it didn’t melt. I was planning on having fried eggs, but remembered that I had no way to turn the eggs, so we had scrambled. Note to self, Do not keep the plastic spoon in the eggs as they cook, as melted plastic does not taste very good with eggs.
As of Saturday afternoon, the plumber came to take the sink out so we have had no water in the kitchen. But for one morning, we had a home cooked meal, melted plastic and all. Was mighty good.
We have made a list of “friends” who have actually called or emailed us and told us they wish they could be a fly on the wall just to see us getting up off the air mattres in the mornings. Those so called “friends” will not be getting one of Trixie & Rickes new business cards, much less a Christmas Card. We want all of you to know that we have mastered getting off of the mattress very well, thank you. All you have to do is roll back a little two or three times, with your feet firmly planted on the floor, and then using your hands, push yourself up on the last roll. There have been only a hand full of times, when either of us have had to actually roll over on the floor on our hands and knees and pushing on the side of the mattress, push ourselves up.
When we were staying at the casita for the couple of weeks before moving in to our own place, the owner (and now new friend) told us about a drink that she had every evening when she came home from work. she invited us in one night and made us the most refreshing drink. She put 3/4 cup soda water, 1/4 cup organic apple juice and grated fresh ginger. Put it in a blender and pour over ice. It is so good. Randy and I have been drinking ever since. Also because of the grated ginger, it is very good for tummy aches. Plus, after the stress filled morning of picking out melted plastic our of the scrambled eggs, the drink settled my nerves.
We are already settling in, in spite of no furniture. Both of us have talked about how little we have had, the last few weeks but have still felt at home. It Has shown us that so much of what we have is probably unnecessary, but we realize how spoiled we are to all the “extras” that we have gotten so use to. Extras like, more than one towel, real silver wear, a refrigerator in the house and a television that you don’t need a magnifying glass to see. But by the end of this week, life will be returning to normal with all of our ‘extras” arriving on Wedneday. We will feel like we are living the American Dream, having a real bed to sleep in and a couch. Ah…..the good life!
Chocolate Castles 