Easter Dinner

In April 2006 I received my Family Circle magazine in the mail. And on page 142 was a Celebration of Spring Menu.  I made a grocery list (substituted ham for lamb chops since my husband has to have ham for every holiday) and went to the store. 

This has been our Easter menu almost every year since. And the Cream of Asparagus Soup is our all time favorite. 

My Cornish Hens are not that black. I cover with foil after they are brown. I also serve with lemon slices. 

I still have some frozen rhubarb and strawberries left from last summer. If I have time on Saturday, I will be making the cheesecake. 

The potatoes.  Delicious! I have enough to double the recipe but I am going to make it once to remember how many servings I think it makes. 

The rest of the story.  The sad part is that the recipes ceased to remain online when the magazine quit publishing. 

When I was searching for my recipes, I came across a number of clippings of meals we like.  I went ahead and scanned all the pages today and will be sprinkling recipes on my posts.  

Happy Easter! 

Another Tuesday

Well, in six minutes it will be a week since my last post. From what I can remember I was busy with physical therapy (now just continuing exercises on my own), working in the charity office, and lots of cooking. 

My divorced son picks his boys up in our town two nights a week. And now that spring has sprung, they have sports practices in my town and he doesn't have time to take them to his house and back in time for practice. So two nights a week they are coming here for dinner before practice. And since that is the same time my daughter picks up her two after school, we are now hosting dinner for nine every Tuesday and Thursday.  Last Thursday was spaghetti pie and tomorrow is baked chicken.  I love to cook and I especially love it when my kids and grandkids come for meals.

I have a special thank you for my friend Betsy from The Simple Life of a Queen who promoted this wonderful can holder for my trumpcession pantry. Luckily my grandson brought his tools to help assemble it. 

How is the bathroom remodeling project coming? Well, slow. But then we are old and slow so I think we are right on track. He did remove the rest of the wall tile and put up some temporary drywall. Here is a glimpse of the mirror. 

And here we are deciding placement over the cabinet (which is in my guest room). 

And here we are marking the bathroom wall so that he can make a cutout for the inset mirror cabinet. We can't remember if we had a mirror that was inset in the past . . . So we may find a surprise. 

Note, it will be higher. I am not sure how short he thinks I am as he kept asking are you going to be able to see to do your makeup? Or maybe he was insinuating that I need to wear makeup? Anyway. 

Our sneaky state government has restored the name of the fund that funds libraries in our state, but not the funding. See what I mean about sneaky?  So we are protesting on the sidewalk across the street this coming Saturday from 10am-noon. My signs are ready! And I will be home in time to make my Easter dishes. 

My lovely daughter is hosting Easter and I am bringing some of our favorite dishes.  Way back in the olden days, maybe the late 80's?, I think Family Circle had a suggested Easter Menu with a timeline so you could fix and ready dishes ahead.  I lost my original copy, found one on Ebay and then found mine so I have a backup. The original menu was lamb (we substitute ham) along with Lemon Honey Cornish Hens, a Red Potato and Spinach casserole, Cream of Asparagus soup and a dessert I can't remember.  I will be bringing my ham, hens, potatoes and the soup which is my favorite to the meal.  I also purchased chocolate marshmallow eggs for my deviled egg plates. 

Facebook claimed it was siblings day recently so I posted this. It was the beginning and end of my career as a dancer. 

It's Only Tuesday

Well, tonight I ended up with five adults and four children for dinner which was fortunate because I happened to have made two 9 x 13 casseroles. My daughter (who was a last minute addition with her two children) said, "You just happened to have two casseroles hot and ready five minutes after I call?"  It's like she never met me. 

I was going to take a photo of my beautiful table settings, but I forgot. 

I was supposed to be at a "Townhall" meeting with an invisible representative tonight. After I got tickets for a very special and inspirational speaker who was standing in for him, I remembered I cannot climb stairs or bleachers and that there would probably be stairs or bleachers. I gave up my tickets. It is my understanding it was sold out and over 1,000 people were in the overflow room. I have been getting texts and photos and wish I could have been there. 

I went to my final PT therapy yesterday and she gave me pages of exercises to continue with, each stage a little more challenging. I came home and had a bad attack of sciatica and could barely move the rest of the day. I am now using the ramp to get to my weekly Monday meeting.  Tomorrow (Wednesday) I have my final review, with someone new since my therapist transferred to a different facility after my appointment. I  have done well at therapy since I really hadn't had any attacks of sciatica or vertigo since I started.  But I don't think further sessions will change anything. I just need to keep up with exercises to strengthen my foot and leg and keep marching down the hallway with the head motions for the vertigo.  

Tomorrow we are going to "early" vote since I am not clear what is going on with the "Save" Act where I can only prove I am a citizen and can vote if I have a passport. And I need to apply for a passport.  Then I am having lunch with my high school friends at the same restaurant I will be having lunch with my library friends on Saturday. Small town life doesn't have a lot of variety sometimes, LOL.  Then on to my PT review.  Thursday I will be in the office all day and Friday the brown truck should be dropping off the stickers for my next protest sign. 

Ohio is changing how they are funding libraries since 1983 when the state established a Public Library Fund, based on a percentage of that year's budget, and distributes the funding for operating libraries. Communities have a property tax for infrastructure and maintenance. The State actually sent libraries a forecast of the funding for 2025 in January. They have now introduced an amendment to this year's budget eliminating the Public Library Fund entirely forever and replacing it with a line item amount that has cut the funding by 27 million dollars.  They have also included verbiage that requires libraries to remove any materials that might mention LGBTQ+ ( you know, like a newspaper or a book) as well as anything else "objectionable".  And your guess is as good as mine on that one. 

I worked for our local library as a library assistant, as well as children's programing, in the 1980's and 90's.  I had two objections made to the board at that time. One was that my theme of "Bells" for my monthly "Kindergarten Club" storytime  and craft for December did not mention the birth of Jesus and the other was for a book in the collection - The Little Witch Goes on Vacation.  This toddler level story book showed the Little Witch and her cat riding a broom to an island for vacation. The objection was that it portrayed witchcraft in a good light. I would like to say that on my Sundays off, I was a first grade Sunday School teacher where I did mention Jesus's birthday. We did not receive one complaint about the book of naked pictures of Madonna that had a long wait list for check out. 

My sign for this protest will simply say "Restore Library Funding".  

AFTER WRITING ALL THIS - And in the middle of proofreading - I just got a text that the state is already back pedaling on this.  They are going to restore the Public Library Fund, but are not going to use the same funding formula. I may wait until the last minute to make my sign to make sure what is going on.  Instead of a percent of the total budget which is how the fund was previously funded, they are going to assign an amount each year.  I think I am staying with Restore Library Funding.   

Meanwhile the state budget is giving the owners of the Cleveland Browns $600 million dollars to build a new stadium outside of Cleveland which is not making anyone I know very happy either. 

A Week

I have had a week.  I am faithfully doing my PT twice a day and it is wiping me out. These activities include walking up and down my hallway. I am a dish of jello. Meanwhile I have a star student. So proud

I started my week using my lego leftovers to make some signs. 

I attended a protest against a candidate for state governor who wants to abolish public schools. He wants to use my tax money for private school vouchers and the rest of us can home school. He used to be the co-chair of doge.

Me and 100 friends. My youngest grandson told his parents grampa dumped me out on the side of the road. 

The next day was warm and sunny and the preschool got to stand across from a man with a jackhammer! 

Registered for my state genealogy conference this year. This is from their Facebook page - so cute. It is at the end of the month and I am so excited. You may remember last year I won five door prizes, LOL. 

Did you see this? A photographer was taking portraits during cherry blossom season and planning to edit out the people walking on the sidewalk behind. The parents behind her were yelling did you get that!  And when she looked in her camera, Obama had passed behind them. So cool. 

And then we had a first wedding anniversary. They celebrated with pizza. 

Saturday arrived cold and windy and raining.  We were hoping for at least 100 people at our sidewalk along a state route in a neighboring city. 

Hat to keep the rain off my glasses, chair because sciatica. Woman to the left is a new friend who has health issues. I offered my chair as needed and she was a frequent sitter.  I had a second sign but a young man with dreads came unprepared. That one was Hands Off Unions. He asked if he could keep it. 

I am on the look out for a bubble umbrella. What a great idea. 

I met a woman in the parking lot and we became buddies. She is in her 80's and is a retired art teacher.  This Viet Nam vet was very animated about the loss of Veterans Health benefits, especially the defunding for Burn Pits and Agent Orange in the proposed budget. Luckily his wife was there to curb the language from our tender ears. 

I love a sense of humor. 

A screen shot from the video shows we were up to 700.  Yes. 7 times the amount of people we expected. I never left my spot because I didn't want to fall in front of another audience. But there were all kinds of people I was surprised to see, former members of my church, school friends and even my physical therapist and her husband. I met all kinds of new friends, too! Standing for three hours in an icy rain helps bond you together. 

This was the corner across from me. I stayed in one spot.  The traffic was unbelievable. It was bumper to bumper the entire time - in every lane! I have never seen this much traffic here. The local township police stationed an officer across from us as a precaution and there was only one ticket. Someone in a very large black truck thought it would be fun to blow a cloud of black smoke at us. He started way down from me and was out of smoke by the time he got to us (it was useless in the wind and rain anyway). Then he did it again for the second half of the crowd, but started squealing his tires and shooting the big cloud right in front of the officer! Dude, pay attention to your surroundings.  

Meanwhile, hundreds of honks and waves and thumbs up and fists out of sunroofs! Lots of waving little American flags out the car window.  I didn't know that was a thing, I guess I will be investing in little flags for the car. 

Some people drove by and dropped off cases of gatorade.  Another group bought deli trays of little sandwiches at Kroger and dropped those off down the line.  It was very sweet.  And we saw lots of puppies in car windows too. 

It was such a sense of community. Everyone was so positive and happy.  We all looked out for each other. I hope this sense of community spirit continues. 

I should mention the librarians. Our state has decided, along with the federal government, to eliminate funding for libraries and museums. One local library gets 90% of their funding from these sources. They were ready to fight! 

And then I got to come home, dry off and host a sleepover for these two rugrats.  Mom picked them up this morning, dried them off and took them to meet the REAL Easter bunny! 

And now we are scrubbing and deep cleaning our kitchen AGAIN.  We are at war with some tiny ants and I am about ready to get out the blow torch. And yes, we have dumped vinegar all over everything, we have dumped lemon juice all over everything, we have sprinkled cinnamon from ceiling to floor. We bought ant caps and then more ant caps. And sprays safe for kitchens and I think one that isn't.  He sprayed the foundation of the house with something I am sure is not safe for the environment. Today he went to the "man store" and gosh knows what he bought. I am staying out of the line of fire.