Last Week

Well, last weekend was quite the weekend and this has been quite the week. 

The Recipe Contest challenge had the choice of two recipes and for some reason I had defrosted two pounds of ground beef to feed two people.  Option 1 was Patty Melts. I have made Patty Melts before but this recipe involved a fancy way to brown the onions and a special homemade sauce which we really liked. It took longer than it usually takes me, but I think this is our new Patty Melt recipe! And again, we had leftovers for lunch the next day. 

Wednesday we dropped off the grandson at preschool and drove the truck to the garden center where a backhoe dropped enough soil in the back that I thought the truck might flip. I am hoping I wasn't asked to go on this trip to provide additional weight to the front of the vehicle. 

Here is the original Big Mac Wrap Dinner. 

I still had leftovers from the Big Mac Wraps so we had those for dinner - only this time I grilled them on the panini press.  They were even more delicious although they look pretty boring on the outside, LOL.  I am thinking I could make these ahead of time and refrigerate to grill later for a quick dinner on a busy evening. 

Thursday is my dress like an adult day.  Got up early, did hair and makeup. Wore dress slacks. I was unrecognizable.  My first meeting was the Homeless Task Force which is now meeting at our county health department. I looked for my phone to shut it off and couldn't find it. Went back to my car, traced my steps, searched my belongings. Have you seen the show Elspeth? I carry the same amount of bags. No phone. Yet, when I left two hours later, my Spotify on my phone hooked up to my vehicle. Somehow while exiting, I had flipped it over the seat and under the backseat where I had not thought to look for it.  I stopped home and grabbed some cold pizza and went to my afternoon shift in my charity office. 

And in our spare time we watched my silly husband's investments continue to tank. (I told him to sell in January)

I came home in time to make some quick sandwiches and we drove to the granddaughter's school for the spring recital "Toys".  I was very happy when the family next to me said, "Oh look, Legos" when my costumes came out on stage.  I was hoping people would recognize them. 

And there was a nice thank you to me in the program which was unexpected.  

And if you are wondering why the performance photo is so wonderful, here was my view during the play. 

Friday is normally field trip friday but we had an early phone call from my youngest son that his 9 year old who woke up with a fever and upset stomach, but was perfectly fine on arrival.  He joined grampa and his cousin in setting up what I am calling at this point our "victory garden". 

It was grampa's idea to purchase some small raised beds and I guess I am growing more than tomatoes and peppers this summer.   It was snowing a week ago and today our temperatures reached 77 degrees. But there is more snow in the forecast next week.  

Since the five year old was spending the night while his parents and sister went to the girls state basketball championship, we did go out for ice cream after dinner.  The ice cream shop is located in a tiny storefront and the people out the window are waiting for a turn to order. 

Luckily we got a bench in front of the building so we weren't eating ice cream in my vehicle. 

And the local team won the State Championship! 

Which brings us to today.  We were awakened early by 1/2" pieces of hail drumming on our roof and I was making breakfast for the 5 year old when he was stricken with a tummy bug.  Parents stayed overnight a few hours south of us so he won't be picked up for a while.  We had to skip his tennis lesson (thank goodness illness didn't strike there with his teen boy teachers).   I do have a roast in the crock pot so dinner is done, lol.  And SNL is a rerun so I have no excuse to stay up late.  Except I am reading two books (in different rooms so it doesn't count) and I can't be trusted to remember bedtime. 

And here is a random photo from last week. It's my 12 year old six foot tall grandson sitting with me at the Shrek performance. He goes to a different school with an earlier start time and plays tournament basketball and soccer all over the state in his spare time so we don't see him much anymore. 

Our new recipe challenge involves a fresh (not smoked) ham hock.  I think we tried a ham hock last year.  In my small town, grocery stores do not carry ham hocks. I tried some butchers and they were out.  And now it's round two.  None of the butchers has one listed in their online listings and I guess I might be able to special order but how much am I willing to pay for a meat we were not fond of last year.  I did google replacements which included a "picnic ham" so I guess if I can find a fresh picnic ham at a reasonable price somewhere, we might try that.  I really don't have time this week to run to a neighboring city with grocery stores to look for one.  

What is on my schedule?  Monday is my charity board meeting followed by a road trip to a rural school in my county's school board meeting.  It is a dicey situation where the school hired a music teacher a few years ago. He has led the choir to honor performances, is popular with students and is a quiet good guy who is not on any social media.  This school has a strong affiliation to the new trend of taking kids out of class for religious education and one of the leaders of that group discovered the teacher is gay. The teacher and his husband live outside this community and he commutes. When the group figured this out two years ago, they went to the superintendent and demanded he be fired. The superintendent told them that he cannot fire a teacher for being gay.  This has been simmering and it is my understanding that the group is coming to the public meeting to demand he be fired and make accusations. My friend "group" is not affiliated with the district and can't speak at the meeting, but we are able to attend a public meeting and we are all wearing a certain color shirt with no writing and sitting silently in the audience and joining a show of support to the teacher. 

Another group I belong to (my former postcard party club) rented a meeting room and invited our United States Representative to a townhall meeting in our town. We know he is in the area because he is sending photos of himself shaking hands with invited guests/campaign donors to local media after the fact. But he will not meet with constituents or answer phone calls.  He has not responded to our invitation but we are ready with a speaker who is a former Navy Seal and works with veterans to talk about changes in veteran benefits, a college professor to discuss changes in immigration,  a past president of our farm union to speak on changes in agriculture and a healthcare benefits professional to talk about changes in funding to major hospitals in our area.  So this seems like a long  townhall meeting, but with great speakers so I have no excuse to leave early. 

Wednesday I have the night off! Wooo. And hopefully time to do laundry during the day unless I have committed to something not on my calendar. 

Thursday is my all day shift at the charity followed by an hour drive to see my other third grade grandchild's spring concert. We will probably have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the car on the way there. I am not making any costumes for this one. 

On Friday night my oldest grandson and his garage band are the opening act at a bar in a college town west of us about an hour and a half away.  Grampa was a little leery of going but we talked to one of my middle son who might go with us. His band is on stage at 6pm.  My son's girlfriend's daughter was going to this college to hear a different band last night and she was not leaving our town until 9pm.  We expect the only people there are 6pm will be the band's family members.  There are 2-3 other opening acts before the main band. We will be home in bed by then. 

And on Saturday I will be leaving in the morning with my youngest daughter and her daughter to go east to another college campus about 45 minutes away for a fancy lunch and a performance of the Sound of Music featuring one of her friend's daughters. 

My oldest daughter and her family are leaving for a week in England on Sunday.  

And I heard a rumor (and it's only a rumor) that the bathroom project might start on March 24.  Maybe.