GROCERY HAUL

The heat wave continues.  One more day before it breaks -- or so the weatherman says.  It is so hot that I don't want to do anything.  Even when it cools off in the evening I still have no energy.

I told you that Joe and I went to Shop Rite after Bible Study on Wednesday.  Here is what we got.

We needed cat food.  That's an every week occurrence.  Or at least every two weeks.

Country White bread, Joe's favorite.  We were out of mustard and bananas.  I got some cinnamon raisin English muffins.  And the Valentine and snowman cupcake papers were only 50 cents apiece in the clearance section.

 

Joe wanted orange juice and we were completely out of eggs and margarine.

I got a large package of chicken thighs and a package of brown sugar and honey sausage.  Because it is so hot we wanted something cold.  I got my favorite Klondike bars and Joe got the wiser choice of Outshine all fruit mango bars.

And we needed fries, lunchmeat and cheese.

This morning I picked up Donna and we went to Shop Rite.  Donna did her two week shopping and I finished up what I needed.

We needed milk.  Nathan's hot dogs were on sale, so I got a package.

The strawberries looked good, so I got a box.  I got a couple of bags of salad.  We have been eating a lot of salad.

A pork roast, pork chops and flounder.

The mushrooms were two boxes for $4.  A sale for sure.  I also got carrots, Jazz apples and green beans.

Joe was out of sugar free grape jam.  I got the Italian salad dressing and the barbecue sauce for a recipe I'm doing later this week.  OK, I didn't need the cake mixes, but they were 99 cents each.  At that price I got a few and will put them away for when I need them.

The past two days I have seen a butterfly outside my front door.  I have not seen a butterfly in years.  I am never quick enough to get a picture of it.  It flits by, lands on the artificial flowers outside of my door, sees they are not real, and moves on.  I want to attract butterflies so I decided to get a real plant to put out front.  I have tried to have real plants in the past and they always die.  Too much light?  Not enough light?  Too hot with all the concrete and brick?  Not enough water?  Too much water?  I have never figured it out.  Joe and I have been talking about it and when we saw hydrangea bushes in Shop Rite on Wednesday we considered them.  I said it wouldn't work because they get so big.  But finally we decided to at least try it.  So today I got one.  I think the prettiest one in the store.

I was able to plant it when I got home before the rain.  It rained just a few minutes and didn't even cool things down.  I think it looks good out front and I hope the butterflies think so too.

It is actually two plants together which is why there are two colors.  The white one is starting to turn purple.  I think it's so unique.  I may end up getting another one since I have another large pot.

I don't have any photo challenge pictures for you today.  I am going to have to work on that.

And now it is getting late so I am going to get ready for bed.  It has been a long day.  Hope you all have a peaceful and restful night.

Kathy

IT IS HOT IN MY GARDEN AND PHOTO CHALLENGE DAY #21 - SUMMER AND #22 - GREEN

Well, my friends, are you hot?  We are in the middle of a heat wave here in Philly.  It was 90*F (32*C) yesterday and expected to go to 92*C (33*C) today.  Even higher tomorrow and Saturday.  I know not everyone enjoys the heat, but I would rather have it hot and go into air conditioning than have it cold and not be able to get warm.  Of course my ideal would be somewhere in the middle.

Yesterday Joe went out for the first time.  We went to Bible Study.  Pastor taught this week so all Joe had to do was sit there which was good.  The bad part was when we decided to stop in Shop Rite to grab a few things.  It turned out to be a little more than a few things and the walking was too much for poor Joe.  It is almost dinner time and he is still in bed.  I will get him up when we eat.  We didn't even get the entire week's groceries so I have to go back tomorrow and finish up.  I am going to take Donna with me.  She has someone coming to her house in the afternoon so we are going to make it a quick trip.  I will show you the haul tomorrow.

As for the garden, it is lovely.  I took some pictures to show you the beautiful roses.

I took these pictures with my tablet and I think they turned out pretty good!  Of course now my tablet is missing today.  *sigh*  And I still haven't found my missing lesson plan.  *another sigh*

I haven't been feeling too well this week.  Between the heat and my blood pressure (which has been back to normal) and my headaches and tiredness not much is getting done.  And there is so much to do!

On to the PHOTO CHALLENGE.  Day #21 has the word "summer".  I really couldn't figure out this one.  But last night I took a picture of the blooming hosta at church.  They bloom in summer -- right?

And Day #22 was "green".  That was easy.  Everything is green around here these days.  So I took a picture of the shady corner of my yard.

And with that I am getting off of here and making dinner.  Pork chops, rice with mushrooms and veggies of some kind.  I was going to have a salad but forgot to buy it last night.  Hope you all have a great evening.

Kathy

MONDAY MAGAZINE

Hello, friends!  Welcome to the first Monday of the summer.  I hope your weekend was just wonderful.  The weather was so beautiful today and I didn't get outside at all.  I slept a lot and tried to feel better.  My pressure is just about normal again, so that was good.

I was sitting at the kitchen table at lunch time when I heard a great commotion outside.  I looked out the window and saw "Stash", one of the outside cats that I feed, chasing something.  I thought it was a rat and then I saw it was a squirrel.  The squirrel was able to climb the fence and run into another yard and get away.  Bad Stash.  But he doesn't know the difference.  It's all rodents to him.

Joe is getting better each day.  He says the pain is letting up.  He goes to see his primary doctor tomorrow.  We'll see what she says.


I finally finished another magazine that I want to share with you.  This is Country Home from April 2003.

Isn't this a pretty porch?  It belongs to Mark Harmon and Pam Dawber.

I love how this porch stretches across the front of their house, almost like another room.

They have a beautiful living room.

The fireplace was originally flanked by open shelves and a solar vent that lets warm air rise to the second story.  "The shelves were always a mess with games and binoculars and other stuff," says Pam. Now, new painted built-ins with doors and a firewood box attractively hide the clutter.

And look at this cute hardwood fired stove in their kitchen.  It isn't used anymore, except for storage.

There were other beautiful kitchens in this issue too.  I really enjoyed looking at them.

One article I really liked was about making miniature cakes.  They had the recipes too and I have to copy them before I get rid of this magazine.

But of course, the best part is seeing the last page.  They are always so charming.  This one has a lot of sheets hanging on a clothesline outside.  I love the smell of sheets that have been dried in the sun.  Do any of you remember doing this?

The caption says:  Laundry Day photograph by Helen Norman/Corbis
For grandmothers, the sight of sheets snapping on the line brings memories of Monday wash days.  For mothers, a clothesline filled with fresh sheets means spring is finally here.  And for kids, sheets dancing in the wind simply mean fun.


I didn't get to take any pictures today, so no photo challenge.  I figure I'll just do it as I can and eventually I will finish it.

I am teaching Bible Study tomorrow.  Joe is well enough to leave alone for a couple of hours.  My only problem is when I went to the hospital last week I took everything out of my tote bag that I use for Bible Study because it is small and I wanted to take it with me to hold my sweater, Kindle, etc.  I put my lesson book and the previous lessons someplace safe.  So safe that I can't remember where.  *sigh*  I had to go online and buy a Kindle version of the lesson plan to do my lesson tonight.  I know the book and lessons will turn up.  I just hope it's before I finish the book we're studying.

And now it is getting very late and I have to go to bed.  Even though I took a nap today, I am so tired.  See you all later.

Kathy

SUNDAY AND PHOTO CHALLENGE #19 - REFRESHING AND #20 - BOOK

Hello, friends!  This is going to be a very short post.  I didn't get to church today because I needed to stay home with Joe.  But it's just as well because I am feeling awful.  I have a massive headache which is starting to go away since I took some aspirin.  I took my blood pressure when I went to Rite Aid for Joe this morning and it was very high.  I think that is what is going on.  I am trying to do nothing today and rest to see if I can get it to go down.

Joe is doing better every day.  He has a ways to go, but so much better than he was a few days ago.  Thank you so much for your prayers and good wishes and keep it up!

On the way to Rite Aid I passed a house about a block from where I live that is getting a face lift.  I wish I had taken a picture before this, but at least I have this.  It is a brick house, but obviously they are putting a new coat on it.  You can see it's wrapped in some kind of under sheathing.  I love brick so I don't know why they would do this.  Nevertheless it will be interesting to watch and I hope to take a picture every few days so you can watch the transformation with me.  Here is what it looks like today.  As you can see a lot of the houses in this area (including mine) are three stories tall.

PHOTO CHALLENGE
I have another two photos to show you today and I hope to have two more tomorrow.  Day #19's word is "refreshing".  When I was at the store I bought Joe a bottle of ICE.  He likes the mango orange.  It sure looks refreshing on a hot day.

And for Day #20 the word was "book".  I decided to give you more than one book.  How else would a librarian think?  Here are the top two shelves from Joe's bookcase.  Between the two of us there are plenty of books in this house.

And that's it for today.  Hope you all have a wonderful Sunday and enjoy this beautiful summer weather.

Kathy

GROCERY HAUL

As of 11:54 a.m. it is officially summer.  I love spring.  I love summer.  I love fall.  It's just that other season I have a problem with.  Ha, ha!  But here it is summer with 90 plus days of loveliness ahead of me.

On Monday I went to Shoprite knowing that the rest of the week would be taken up with Joe's surgery and recovery.  Boy, am I ever glad I did!  So let me show you what I got.

I had run out of gallon freezer bags, so that was high on my list.  I got a couple of cans of cat food, some mushrooms, grape tomatoes, salt and pepper (I was all out of pepper) and a cheat for lunch... a small bag of Doritos and an iced tea.  I had been craving Doritos and I ate them, but didn't really enjoy them as much as I usually would have.  A few would have been enough, but I plugged away and ate the whole thing.  *sigh*

I got the last small package of pork chops in the store.  I also got a package of chicken wings.  I thought I was getting thighs.  They were in the section that said chicken thighs and I just grabbed it without looking.  So Joe and I will have wings one night.  I also got thin cut chicken breast strips to make lemon chicken.

We needed more bird seed.  Those creatures go through it so quickly.  It's a smaller bag than I usually get, but it's what I could handle since Joe can't lift anything for a few weeks.

And I got spinach and four sweet potatoes.

It wasn't much this week, but I am finding by meal planning I am able to see what I have and what I need and I am buying less.  Of course this week's meal plan went by the wayside with all the chaos we've been living in.

For lunch I made a salad with the tomatoes and mushrooms I had just bought.  It was good.

Joe reminded me that I had never shown you a picture of the lunch we got at Yamoto's last week.  So here it is.

Joe had a teriyaki chicken bento box.  It had sushi, rice, crab balls and the chicken.  A lot of chicken.

And I had the vegan Sunshine Sushi with that wonderful mango sauce on top.  Yum.

Last night it got very late for dinner and I needed to make something quick.  So I boiled some pasta and since I didn't have any bacon, I fried up some ham and added tomatoes, mushrooms and spinach.  I mixed the two together and topped it with mozzarella cheese.  It was so good.  I love it when I can look at what I have and put a meal together.

Are you hungry yet?

Joe says he feels better today.  The pain is lessening.  I told him it would take a few days but he had no idea it would be so bad.  As for me... I'm tired.  Very tired.  And now my stomach is bothering me.  If it's not one of us, it's the other.  But I have to be OK to take care of Joe.  I'm going to take it easy the rest of the day and hopefully that will do it for me.

Sorry I don't have any photo challenge pictures again today.  I am going to work on that tonight and tomorrow and hopefully have something for you in the next day or so.

And with that, I am going to end and get some things done around here.  Thanks for reading and hope to see you later.

Kathy

BACK TO THE HOSPITAL

Hello, friends!  I am really tired today having just spent 11 hours in the Emergency Room.  Joe wasn't feeling well.  I called the doctor and he had left for the day.  Then I called the hospital for the doctor on call.  She talked to him and then said after surgery sometimes blood clots develop.  Since he was having shortness of breath, she said we should go to the Emergency Room to have some tests done.  So I put the stuff for dinner back into the refrigerator and off we went to the hospital.  We got there about 6:45 p.m. or thereabouts.  I dropped him off and then went to the parking garage.

I met up with him in the ER and we waited awhile for a room.  Once there it was monitoring, testing, and doctors and nurses looking at him.  It turned out we stayed there for 11 hours.  I was guessing it would be 12 but was glad to leave an hour earlier than I thought.  Joe was able to doze off now and then, but I was awake the entire night.  I got really groggy at the end because I had been up for over 24 hours.

The doctors and nurses were great.  Especially Joe's nurse Stephanie.  I started feeling so nauseous since I hadn't eaten since lunch so I went to a vending machine and got a bag of pretzels.  I was so proud of myself because there were chips, cakes and candy there.  I looked at everything and knew I didn't eat any of that anymore.  The pretzels were the best choice.  But they really take your money.  A tiny bag was $1.05!

The result of all the testing was Joe was OK.  He was experiencing effects from the gas they used for the laparoscopic surgery.  We left as the sun was coming up.  At least I didn't have to drive in the dark.

We stopped at Wawa on the way home and got breakfast sandwiches.  Joe could eat his right away, but I had to take my medicine and then wait an hour, take another pill, wait half an hour and then could eat.  Then I fell asleep on the sofa and have just recently woken up when the phone rang.

The surgeon called to see how Joe was.  He said he had the test results in his hands and everything was fine.  So we are very relieved about that.

But now I have to get a move on because Debbie's husband is coming over to put our air conditioner in.  Just in time for Summer tomorrow.  It is very hot in here.  And humid.  We ran out of time to do this before Joe's surgery and now he can't lift anything for four weeks.  So Rusty very generously said he would do this for us.

I have no photo challenge pictures for you.  I'll catch up the rest of this week.

The adventure continues.  Let's hope today is better than the last few have been.

Kathy

JOE'S HOSPITAL DAY AND PHOTO CHALLENGE #17 - STRIPES AND #18 - SOMETHING OLD

Hello, friends!  This has been a very busy time in my life so I won't be getting on here everyday.  I will do my best to keep up with things with you, but I just have so many hours in the day.  And facebook can just not expect me at all!  But I wanted to tell you how things went with Joe's surgery.

It was quite the day, folks.  The night before we were supposed to get a call telling us what time to be there.  But... it never came.  We had no idea when to show up.  So finally at 9:00 p.m. with no call yet, I called the hospital.  At first I was told he wasn't on the surgery schedule.  I told the lady on the phone that was impossible and to check again.  She looked and said he had an office appointment on July 3rd for a follow up.  I asked her a follow up to what?  She said his surgery that he was having yesterday.  "Yes," I said.  "And just what time is that surgery?"  "Be here at 7:30 a.m.," she told me.  OK!

So I got up at 4:30 a.m. to get all my medicine taken and have time for breakfast.  Joe got up shortly after me.  Around 6:30 we got a call from the hospital asking if we were still coming.  Yes.  "You were supposed to be here before 6:30 a.m."  "What?  We were never called," I told him.  "We are on our way!"  Joe and I rushed out of the house, and got there a little after 7:00 a.m.  I dropped him off to check in and went to park the car.  I went across the street, into the building, checked in, and found him in admissions.  We didn't know we had to pay a co-pay so it was a good thing I was there because I had a credit card.

We were at Pennsylvania Hospital.  It used to be it's own entity, but now is part of the University of Pennsylvania Medicine group.  Pennsylvania Hospital was the first hospital in America, founded by Benjamin Franklin and Dr. Thomas Bond in 1751.  Here is the link to a short history about it. https://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20170227/HALL_OF_FAME/302279996/pennsylvania-hospital-a-large-dose-of-history-along-with-healthcare

This is the original building, but of course it has been added onto over the years and is much larger and more modern now.  I just found out you can take a historical tour of the hospital and when Joe is well enough we are thinking about doing just that.

It took about an hour for Joe to get checked in and on his way to Pre-op.  The surgeon was waiting for us and wanted to know where we were.  We told him what the hospital told us last night and he said it wasn't our fault.  The nurses were super nice and got him ready really quickly.  When they wheeled Joe out to the operating room, the doctor was actually pushing the bed.  He was almost an hour late getting to surgery!

One of the nurses walked me to the waiting room which was on another floor.  What a place!  I checked in with the receptionist.  She took my name and cell phone number and gave me a card with a six digit number on it which was Joe's ID.  On one wall was a large screen which had all these numbers color coded and showed you where your loved one was (Pre-op, Operation/Procedure, Recovery, etc.) by color and told the time they got to each step.  Wow!

It was a large room with groupings of furniture.  There were about six large screen TVs set to different stations so that you could watch whatever you wanted -- news, Rachael Ray type programs, documentaries, etc.  Each grouping had seating and a coffee table with magazines and newspapers.  There were even recliners and sofas if you wanted to lay down.

Since they had my cell phone number, every few minutes I would get a text message saying, "Patient has been given anesthesia and we are about to begin."  Or "Patient is doing well.  Surgery is almost completed."  Or "Patient is being moved to recovery."  Plus there were four in-house phones where first the doctor and then two different nurses called me to tell me how he was and what was happening.  I snapped a couple of pictures of the room where I was.

There was free wi-fi so I was able to post on facebook as things went along.  And if you notice, there were two computers in case you didn't have your own with you and wanted to use one.  I have never seen anything like this.

There was also a really nice Liaison Nurse named Pat who went from person to person acting as a patient advocate and making sure both you and your patient were being taken care of.

I finally got the call to leave the waiting room and go to the discharge area on the 9th floor.  Nurse Pat walked me to the elevators because it was like a maze in there and I would never have found them myself.  When I got to the area another nurse walked me to the check in area and the lady there buzzed me in and took me to Joe's room.  He was sitting in a recliner and had already eaten some crackers and drank some cranberry juice.  A few more checks and I helped Joe get dressed, went to get the car and we were on our way home.

As you might suppose, he is in a great deal more pain than he expected, but all in all he is doing so well.  He was able to eat dinner last night and everything seems to be OK.  Thank you all so much for your prayers and good wishes.  That really means a lot to us.

And now for our...
PHOTO CHALLENGE
Day number 17 was stripes.  I knew just what I wanted to do for that.  Last summer when I was in Lancaster I stopped in Kirklands for the first time.  I really liked the place although I thought some things were a bit high.  But one thing that was on sale (because the Fourth of July was over) was this "America" sign.  My sister and I both got one.  Mine is hanging on the front door, so here is my "Stripes" picture.

For Day #18 the topic was Something Old.  I have a lot of old things -- mostly packed away.  Although this isn't too old, I have had it for about 40 years so I think that qualifies.  My sister gave it to me right before I moved into my house and I've been here 39 years.  So here is my spice rack that is hanging on my kitchen wall.  I love it because it looks so old and country like.  And now I guess it really is old.

And that's it for today.  I'll be back tomorrow (or the day after) with another post.  Have a wonderful day.

Kathy