Common Ground Coffee House #105

Good Morning Everybody,


Sue: Celebrate Brent becoming a teenager. Before too long he'll no longer be a teenager, and be out of school.


Jim: Beauty comes with age.My Mother-in-Law is approaching "Magnificent."


I brought in Raspberry-Stuffed French Toast with Custard Sauce, Sausage Scramble, and Skillet Sausage with Potatoes and Rosemary. Enjoy.


Well, we were going to visit a new church today, however; two of the grandchildren woke up with stomach, and intestinal flu.


Time to do chores, then make Farmhouse Chicken Dinner with Hot Biscuits, No-Cream Creamy Broccoli Soup, and Warm Caramel Bananas for dinner.

 

Helen, sounds like y'all had a busy Saturday!!

Rob, would you post some of your breakfast-y recipes? If you haven't already, that is. They sound delicous, and we love breakfast!

Sue, we definitely don't want a relapse. Too bad Illinois is so wintery this time of year!!!:smilewinkgrin: :laugh:

 

WHAT??? NO CREAM?????

FOG---Son!!! You have just upset the cows!!! You had better raying: they don't stampeed on you!!!!!

 

Good Morning Everbody,

I "herd" you Blackbird, and I am "mooved" by your concern. I refuse to be "cowed" by pressure that I could get "creamed" however. Guess I've "milked" this for all I can get out of it haven't I?

Some early morning poetry to get the blood moving...
Spring has sprung, Fall has fell, it's Winter now and cold as all-get-out.

It is 31 degrees here and we got about 1 " of snow overnight + some ice. I miss the 40-50 degree temps already.

I brought in Breakfast Kabobs, and Peach and Sausage Waffles this morning. The coffee is made, the hot chocolate is hot, and the water is hot and ready for tea. Enjoy.

Yes. I did post some breakfast recipes in the recipes thread.

The grandkids are in school(1st day back), the walks and driveway are shovelled, and I'm ready to start my chores.

 

First day back! When did the G-kids get out? January is half over in case you haven't noticed.

Good Morning Everyone!

Well, now it's a good morning. I just got through paying the last of the bills for this month and there is still just a bit of money in the bank account. Yay! No more bills until next month! Well doggone, I do have another bill to pay, I forgot one. It's on the list and I skipped it. Back to the telephone. Doesn't change the bank balance though, cause I had already subtracted it.

I pretty much got the closets cleaned out this weekend so today will be spent doing general housecleaning stuff and sewing! (now that I can get to my fabrics again.

See ya'll later, I'm off to see what battles await me in the Pit Stop.

 

The Grandkids got out of school on Friday, December 23; and returned today.

Sure is awful quiet around here all of a sudden.


I'm making their favorites for dinner tonight. Weeknight Chicken Fajitas, 15-Minute Taco In a Pan, Cheesy Mini-Burgers, 5-Minute Southwest Layered Salad, and Apple-Caramel Sundae Tarts.


Their bedtime snack will be S'mores Dessert Squares, and Hot Chocolate.

Sue: Have you ever tried wearing a filter mask? They protect from really cold air, and are ususally cheap and available at a hardware.

 

Hi all,

Petty clear and cold here. We're due for our first snow down here on the valley floor later this week. We have little enough so that it is always fun.

Made myself a list of things to get done and a basic timeline for the day. Leftovers tonight.

Heater at my feet, cuppa tea and toast in my tummy, and all is well with the world.

God bless you all.

 

Help!! My back really hurts right now!
I'm not looking forward to lying down on the bed in a little while, either.

MK, is your back pain in the lower back? What do you to try and relieve that nasty pain a bit?

 

Gayla, most of my pain is in my neck and upper back, just below my shoulder blades. I have a better description of where it is but we're in mixed company. But, to keep my legs from falling asleep and to keep from siezing up (my lower back isn't beyond causing trouble) I do as Sue suggested and sleep with a pillow. Not much I hate more than waking up with the certain knowledge that I can't move and that trying is going to hurt more than I already do. I've gotten pretty good about waking up and moving before I reach that point, but it still happens if I get off my sleep schedule.

I'm in pain myself this morning. Neck hurts, shoulders burn. I've already had an alieve, but I'm about to take a second. I'd like to do karate this afternoon, but I don't know. I don't want to make myself worse. We haven't had much winter, but you can't tell it by my joints!

Good Morning Everyone!

I have several things to do today so ya'll won't see me here much.

Coffee's on, water's hot and there are several boxes of cereal on the counter. Ya'll enjoy!

 

Good Morning Everybody,


It is 23 here and we're scraping ice off car windows. Brrrr.


I have the hot water ready for tea, the coffee, and hot chocolate are ready too. Hmmmm, what to eat? Is Sausage Apple Quiche, Cranberry Sausage Quiche, and Oven Breakfast Hash okay? Enjoy.


Maybe now that Brent is in Christian school Sue can make a prequel to Home Alone. I can see it now...Home Alone - The Granny Chronicles. A sweet, cookie-bakin' Grany take on two punks who try to break into her house. Sue will portray herself. The two punks are played by two hollywood unknowns named Norris, and Eastwood. Their first names are Chuck and Clint, but their names might change to make them more like tough-guys. Cindi, Ann, Gwen, and Gayla play the punk's girl friends/groupies. Jim plays the Godfather the punks work for, and Helen plays the punks parole officer. The punks have an 'ol war buddy called Preacher who has a psychotic/manic squirrel played by BH. Rob plays a crazy cook who loves Arsenic and Old Lace. The director is Barnabas, and the actor's agent is Blackbird. Sounds like a hit to me.


The Perils of the Coffeeshop continue I see. Sue, Ann, and I are reasonably healthy, and Cindi and Gayla have back problems.


Time to get somebody to sing the theme song. Any ideas?

 

Reading the threads, perhaps that Home Alone thingy should be General Hospital.

I have been most fortunate all my life and seldom, if ever, have colds or aches that can't be explained simply. Then, I did have major strokes and diabetes, but they were just minor setbacks. I sure feel for all you folks.

Mary has a breathing problem and sleeps with a machine all night. I do suffer with very cold feet, but lately solved that problem with Alpaca wool socks..They cost $25.00 a pair, but they do work well.

Cheers everyone, and keep looking up,

Jim

 

annsni, are you having carpal tunnel surgery? If so, I can sympathize. My right hand was done last summer. It's survivable! If that is what you are looking forward to, I have some ideas for you, but I don't want to take up a bunch of space here if I am on the wrong track!

Chilly today, partly cloudy, possible snow tomorrow and the next day.

Barry wanted a rose garden so we have 44 rose bushes along the south side of the property where we can see them from here in the den. They are gorgeous in bloom. But we got a freeze quite early this year -- in October as I recall, or maybe early November. At any rate, I think the leaves just froze onto the bushes and stayed there! In Califiornia the roses would lose their leaves around December and that would make it easy to prune them. No such luck this year. So asap now I will have to get out there and, one by one, strip and prune each bush! That is my January project outside!

Revising all my menus for the week as they were meat-heavy and Barry has asked that we get back to somewhat healthier meals -- more veggies and such! For us the holidays are not nearly as bad for sweets as for meats! When we have guests, which is frequent then especially, I tend to serve steaks, roasts, things like that. I need to reform! Maybe I should go to an SDA cooking school? Actually, we have some close friends who are Seventh Day Adventists and they are totally vegetarian and boy can she cook!

So I'll be off to the store today to get lots of fresh veggies (the guinea pig and parakeets are clapping) and instead of leftover T-bones tonight, I'll slice them up and make a stir fry with enough left over for either the freezer (stir fries don't really freeze well, though...) or tomorrow night, too.

God bless Barry, he doesn't mind the same dinner two nights running!

Have a lovely day, folks, and Gayla and MK, I sure hope your backs feel better! I have been so blessed to have a strong back, which is really nice because my legs are pretty shot! But the times I have hurt a muscle in my back have been excruciatingly painful -- that's your whole body that's incapacitated.

MK, what do you mean you do karate with a bad back????? How does THAT work?

 

I'm going to respond here, annsni, because there are probably others who will be in line for it at some time so why not give what I can now by way of help?

First, I was a deaf interpreter through a good part of the nineties, and, also, after my ex left in 1991, we found it necessary to do a lot of food raising ourselves, so I was hoeing and shoveling and that sort of thing constantly. I stopped teaching in 1998 and sort of fell into free lance science editing, which required a lot of computer work (I would get the manuscripts as Word files and work on them that way). Then Barry and I got married in 2000 and when my youngest daughter graduated from the high school that was a block away, we put that house up for sale -- after painting the rooms, caulking and fixing up and all that sort of thing. Then we moved up here to Oregon where we needed to shovel tons (quite literally) of topsoil and bark for our gardens. So by two years ago I was starting to wake up with shooting pains going from my fingers to my elbow about three or four in the morning. I would be in tears from the pain before I even woke up! After awhile it no longer waited until the middle of the night, but would attack during the day, leaving me almost paralyzed with pain until it decided to retreat -- and then I would start working again. I wore a wrist brace almost 24/7. I wanted to tell you what kind of pain I was in so you would understand how desperate I was for the surgery and the mistake I made afterwards, as well.

The surgery was fast and I don't think I was on vicodin more than a couple of days afterward, although the tylenol and ibuprofen were very good friends for some time after that! (By the way, taking them both together is, as my doctor told me, as good as a narcotic without the dangers or side effects -- just don't drive or operate anything more than a vacuum cleaner if you can stay awake...LOL).

I was bandaged almost up to my elbow. I knew I wanted motion back asap, so I practiced touching my thumb to each of my fingers as soon as I could, within a few days. It hurt a lot, but I was determined. For the first week Barry helped me shower while my hand was in a big plastic bag to avoid getting it wet. But I was able to blow dry my own hair with my left hand and sort of brush it out after the first few days. I was in no mood to try for fashion model at that time, so that is all I needed. I just wanted to feel clean.

My hand was weak and it hurt. I got more skilled with my left hand, but I couldn't do dishes and there was NO lifting of any kind with my right -- doctor's orders. No, I could not grip for several days, AT ALL. After that, I could hold my hair dryer rather gingerly and pick up a few things that were not too much of a challenge. Folding clothes out of the dryer was hard and it hurt for awhile. You know we have horses -- Gina (Gina L. here on BB -- although she is too busy to be here right now. We moved her and the three girls out from Ohio where they were in VERY bad living conditions and they are now in our 'guest house' and Gina helps out enormously with our retarded 22 year old son. She and all three girls are in school and all holding down "A" averages. We're really proud of them) and Barry did it almost all at first, despite the fact that I totally wanted to be out there again. Because we have old rescue horses I don't have to worry about lounging them (it's a French term and I think it has the 'o' in it...), but it is quite necessary to take care of hooves and that takes both hands. So yes, I was restless.

At the two week mark I was back at the doctor's to get stitches out. Now, I had hoped it was just the kind of surgery where a couple of holes are poked in and the work done. Sometimes they can do that. Easy in, easy out.

Not so. As the nurse unwrapped my bandage, I was shocked to see a 1.5 inch cut going up the bottom of the palm of my hand. I have to admit I was in tears almost immediately. Not crying/sobbing, but tears in my eyes. I remember thinking "my poor hand" -- isn't it funny how we do that? It's not 'poor me', but 'my poor hand'. I think we know from the start that we are only using these bodies and they are not really who we are!

There were eight stitches that needed to come out. It hurt, yes, a lot. Stinging hurt. But it was only a very short time and although I was shook, I did survive it!

Then rebandaged for another month, as I recall. I could change the bandages myself now, though. After the stitches were out I had to wait about three days before I could get it wet and I was not to soak it for a couple more weeks.

At a Bible series Barry and I had given here in Grants Pass in the spring, there had been a man who had just had carpal tunnel surgery and when I asked him about it he replied "Oh, nothing to it!" and showed me the tiniest of scars and told me it was just a few weeks old. THAT is what I was expecting.

And that is why I made my big mistake -- I tried working too soon. Now you probably will, too, and, like me, you will regret it. It does not really damage your hand, but it takes ever so much longer to heal. It's been six months now, and I am finally comfortable shaking hands again. But my hand will always be much weaker than it was.

Was it worth it? YES! The shooting pains are gone and only minor discomfort remains. I can live with that.

Do as little as you can for as long as possible. Use every help available to you and know that there will not be a lynch mob outside your house if it is dirty, if your housework is behind, if you are ordering pizza in or depending on macaroni and cheese and whatever your children can do....

I had my surgery in mid-July. It was about two months before I was comfortable doing a lot of stuff again. It was last month when I could carry a bucket of wet horse food to Cami's stall with my right hand. I will never be able to force open stuck jars again with that hand. My handwriting is fine, though, and, as you can see, typing is not a problem. Actually, I could type with both hands almost as soon as the stitches came out.

If there is any way to put those horses on hold for at least a month, do so. Other than that, your pain will be telling you what you can and can't do once the stitches have come out. But at the least, figure 3 weeks of being out of the picture pretty much. Wish I could be there to help!

 

I brought in Mini-Meatloaves for Lunch. There are four varieties[Italian-Mediterranean-Fiesta-BBQ]. They're easy to make using Muffin Tins.