49 3/4 Anniversary Trip: Day One, Birthdays

The first day of our anniversary trip started with a tea party with a friend, not the husband. My friend Marilyn was turning 70 and I had asked her what her plans were. She did not have plans to celebrate. My new favorite tearoom just happened to schedule a tea on the very date of her birthday so I made reservations! 

When we arrived we each picked a tea to be brewed in our pots. We chose Apricot Amaretto (decaf) and Cherry Marzipan, which was a green tea. Both were delicious. We later added a pot to share: White Ginger Pear. 

As our tea brewed, our individual tiered trays were delivered to the table.  On the bottom tier we each enjoyed pumpkin bread, two egg salad tea sandwiches on white bread, two cucumber and herb spread tea sandwiches on wheat bread, two turkey, apple and brie tea sandwiches on wheat bread, and a chicken salad croissant.  So delicious but the turkey sandwich was our favorite. 

Our second tier featured a strawberry scone, strawberry dipped cookie, a lemon berry parfait, a strawberry cupcake with a candy pretzel, and a candied pecan brownie bite. 

The top tier featured a mini apple pie (it wasn't mini!), an cherry almond crisp bar and a strawberry cheesecake.  Everything was so delicious! 

She has had a rough year with a bad fall early in the year which resulted in a broken humerus (upper arm). They were unable to do surgery. She lives alone in senior housing and was sent to a nursing home to heal enough to come home to her apartment. This is the bone I broke (I did have surgery) and you are really never 100% after this bone breaks.  

Marilyn and I have been friends since 1974 when we both got jobs in a little factory down the street from where I live now. They hired a group of 18 year olds who had just graduated from high school. She had gotten married right after graduation and we all took turns having bridal showers on our lunch hours that year. 

She was very happy with the tote bag of fun gifts including a bottle of wine in a bag that said "Goes well with turning 70". I also include a special wine glass, a candle, a little makeup bag, a TIARA and a sash in case the birthday girl really wants attention.  This is the fourth friend I have taken to lunch to celebrate and I have one more special birthday luncheon in October. I hope it falls on a tea party date!

After the tea party and all that sugar, I went home to pick up Mr Merry so we could have more sugar! 

I'm not sure where my son and his wife found the banner but I think it was supposed to say Happy Birthday. 

Our fourth grandchild and third grandson turned 14 and invited us to help eat his delicious ice cream cake!  We measured him for his birthday and he is 5'11" and going into the eighth grade. 

After eating more sugar and watching him open gifts, we returned home, put the suitcases in the car and left right away to try to avoid the rain. 

And More Pickles

 

The vacation recap starts next, but you all guessed correctly, pickles came first.  I have been experimenting with different recipes and I have found our favorite.  I am printing it and taping it to the inside of my cupboard door so I don't lose it. And I am sharing it here for you.

It is a very easy recipe to do what I call "pickle math". I slice my cucumbers (however many Farmer Merry brings in) and put them in 4 cup measuring cups to see how much we need to multiply ingredients to make pickles. 

https://www.justapinch.com/recipes/side/other-side-dish/bread-butter-fridge-pickles-small-batch.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawTTM-tleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFOTEhLd1ltbjR1TlNlcDFlc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHk7anrGleAlisZFcPAjCG4uk9YDz7eGUhrr9oFe9tKIdn-QaWGSBXJ_LQtRJ_aem_sbYqh9R_zIOaC_STaZPNTw

This time I multiplied by four and got 13 pints. It is a recipe with some downtime.  I did let my slices chill overnight instead of an hour and a half. And they were in the large bowl and a smaller one before rinsing and draining.  I swear I am only doing one more batch because I need to make room in the freezer for a quarter beef in early October. 

Our tomatoes did not do well this year and we are eating them as they ripen. Sadly don't need room for freezing my whole tomatoes this year. I am squeezing in as much yellow squash as we get. I like to dice it and fry it like hashbrown potatoes as a side dish. 

More Pickles

We are home from our trip and it was fabulous. I can't wait to share it with you!  But first I have to do something with the mound of cucumbers that were waiting for me when I got home.  

 

How I am Spending my Summer Vacation

 Sept, 2016: For our 40th Anniversary we are leaving for Kentucky in the morning; where the highlight of our trip will be the Loretta Lynn Concert that I spent 4 hours dialing on my cell phone while refreshing my computer screen to get tickets.

And as we drove down to Kentucky, Miss Loretta fell and broke her hip.

We did return in December when this fabulous woman did share her talents while sitting in a chair. It was one of the highlights of my life.

July 2026: I guess that is a theme with us. We are leaving tomorrow on a trip to celebrate our 50th (which isn't until September). Sunday I had booked very nice seats on a train that travels through a scenic part of our state. At 5pm today I got an email that my tickets were cancelled due to the air conditioning in our car breaking and the smoke has made the air quality too bad to use the car. I spent a lot of time online trying to rebook and we now have two seats at a table of four with two strangers. We traded plush seats for what looks like kitchen chairs. I will let you know.

Monday we were going to go to a comedy club who has now shuttered it's doors.

Tuesday I sprung for very good tickets to see John Mellencamp in concert with access to a deck with a bar and, more importantly, private restrooms and even a premier parking pass close to our seats. John has cancelled concerts last night and tonight due to air quality so we are hoping and praying that the smoke dissipated by Tuesday. It will, right?

Meanwhile my husband the gardener has been "harvesting" to give me something to do. The vegetables are shiny because I spend a lot of time scrubbing them. I was able to get a gallon of tomatoes, 2 quarts of diced squash, lots of small bags of pepper strips and diced peppers and 14 cups of sliced cucumbers for pickles that made it to the freezer tonight.

This is for ApacheDug who wanted to see my potato salad. Tonight I made T-bone steaks, sliced tomatoes with herbs and balsamic glaze and the last of the mega recipe of potato salad.

And here is a dinner featuring cucumbers he grew, tomatoes he grew and yellow squash he grew and I think chicken? We seem to eat the first 3 items almost every night with a different protein. 

Here was a few days ago:

And a different batch of pickles:

And my baking last weekend for my church festival. 

The six pumpkin came out great, the two cherry weren't bad and I think the three blueberry looked runny. I could not stay to help at the festival so I warned them that they might be trash and to feel free to talk about me behind my back because I wouldn't be there.

I think I'm caught up.

I want to apologize for any goofiness in the presentation of this post. I dropped my laptop, had to replace my laptop and I am on a learning curve. And my editing icons in blogger are different. I am too old to learn new tricks!

Busy Summer and Proof of Life

 I have been trying to keep up with everyone's blogs instead of going to bed at a normal hour, lol.  But I haven't been able to actually write anything.  Here is a quick snapshot of my day today. 

I got up early and put the first load in the washer and made a quick breakfast for my husband so he could start mowing before it got too hot.  

My son dropped off his youngest and we discovered my internet was gone. I spent almost 45 minutes on a "chat" on my phone convincing the company it wasn't just me as my neighbors were all texting they didn't have internet either. Finally they wrote a ticket and I could transfer the clothes and start the second load. I managed to get load one to my bedroom to fold in total silence since I couldn't stream anything without the internet. 

My grandson drug out the wooden train sets.  As soon as I folded load one and got load two in the dryer, I left with him to pick up his older brother and take both the doctor for a well child checkup and a sports physical.  Of course the doctor was running late so we sat lots of extra minutes and then had two appointments. 

By the time I got home with them, it was 12:30 and my son was here too.  I ended up taking all of them, including my husband, out for lunch and didn't get home until 2.  

We are one of the states with the explosive diarrhea so my next task was scrubbing fruits and vegetables and I did put 3 quarts of diced yellow squash in the freezer. I also scrubbed potatoes and peeled and diced many more than I needed, boiled them while dicing scrubbed celery and onions and boiling eggs and made enough potato salad for a family of 12. We are a family of two. 

I folded load number two.

We went to the air conditioned rec center to walk our two miles and got home around 6:30 p.m.  I grilled some burgers and we finally had dinner with potato salad a little after 7.  And our internet returned. 

I had hoped to contact a venue where I need a parking pass for our vacation but couldn't since I couldn't access my internet.  Amazingly the pass came in the mail today. 

Now dishes are done, laundry is done and whatever we have for dinner tomorrow will include potato salad as a side dish. 

I would like to mention that we attended my oldest grandson's graduation party on Saturday and several people messaged me privately and said they could tell I had lost weight in the photos my daughter shared on Facebook. So that was nice. 

I had a MUGA MRI a few weeks ago and finally got the results on the portal Friday night.  The combination of going almost salt free, changing my diet, inventing my own cardio program and doubling all the prescriptions my cardiologist has been prescribing (he doubled the doses, not me) has resulted in good results, better than we hoped for. The damage to my heart is permanent and can't be changed, but the steps we are taking are making it the best it can be.  And I am pretty happy about it. 

Happy Fourth of July

 This is my aunt that I am named after, my mother and my Great Aunt Betty. They are standing in front of their house on Garden St. (Aunt Betty and my great grandmother lived with my grandparents at that time - which was around 1935). 

We will be spending July 4th in front of our air conditioner during our town's annual parade. We will then travel in our air conditioned vehicle across town to my daughter's house for my grandson's seventh birthday lunch. We will return home while the rest of the family gathers in a parking lot to watch the fireworks. 

I hope everyone stays cool this weekend. 

Unofficially

Our outing to the Unofficial Taylor Swift Lover Tour was beyond our expectations!  This is a heavily photo blast post. Ten years old seems to be the perfect age for this outing - although there were at least three limos full of bachelorette parties among the crowd of hundreds! 

We posed by the sign showing off our bracelets. 

And we were featured in the facility's Facebook reel! (screenshot)

I sprung for the expensive seats (only $20 for the unofficial Taylor Swift) on a terrace with table service. It cost me much more for the chicken fingers and ice cream than I paid for tickets. 

I guess we will get right to the costumes - the unofficial Taylor performed twelve eras, I believe and I think there were that many costumes if I caught them all. 

They aren't in this shot, but she even had backup dancers. 

We cheered every costume and every song.

The girls were disappointed not to be on the grass until the concert started and they saw the standing crowd! We were seated above even the bleacher seats at the stadium and could see over everyone.

This is a crowd shot from their website - we are under the table with the red umbrella on the top right. 

This is outfit eleven!

And now I see there are more than 12! I did not expect live music, but she had a guitarist and a drummer. And she actually sang, it wasn't lip sycing. 

We were crushed that we came this far and she still did not sing "Shake It Off". That was the song they were waiting for.

These girls! She asked for heart hands and they complied.

She included the "Showgirl" era. (this is out of sequence.)

And ended with "Shake It Off", fulfilling all of our dreams. 

They had the best time!

Posing with mom aka Mrs H (her friend was in her mother's class this year.)

Posing with a grandma with an awful haircut. 

End of the Week

 

I survived the week of VBS with three year olds. By Friday we were down to a managable dozen. My daughter is a super teacher and all the children just love her. 

Our bible verse was Jesus is the Light and those creative snack ladies made a cupcake inside an ice cream cone to look like a flashlight. It took me over five minutes to convince the class to take a bite. They thought the frosting was cheese.

Yesterday was a rainbow gummy over blue jello for a verse that I have forgotten. We were afraid to try this too. Luckily there was 1/2 a banana too. 

Eating bananas and the marshmellows on top. 

Our music teacher

My daughter, the child pied piper.  She is very low key and everyone talked about how much calmer the preschoolers were this year. 

We practiced for the show tonight. We also practiced at the end of the day with the other classes. By then 3 classmates were in the back of the church with me, refusing to walk up the aisle. 2 more started crying during the song. We are not performers.  I did not attend the presentation and carnival tonight. Vacation Bible School wore me out! 

Tomorrow I am going to a Taylor Swift concert! It is not really Taylor Swift but we are just as excited as if it was! It is at a minor league baseball complex and Gramma has sprung for seats on the raised deck with a table with an umbrella and wait staff who will bring us lemonades. It is by the rail and the younger ladies can still dance. My daughter, youngest granddaughter and her friend are going.  I even have a Taylor Swift outfit. It's a t-shirt that says "I am in my Gramma Era".