Scattered Thoughts . . .

One of the days while Adam and Joi were visiting us was spent in the backyard just socializing.  Liza, Whitney and the grandkids were also there to spend some time with Adam and Joi.  Even Judy and her son, Jamie, surprised us by visiting after hearing that Adam was in town! We haven't spent any time with Judy since before the pandemic so it was nice to spend some time with her on this day.  She and Jamie stayed for dinner with all of us.  I always make more food than is necessary so last minute extra guests never cause a plating shortage.  We were very happy to have them share this day with us... As the sun set behind the trees and the sailboat, it started getting a little chilly in the autumn evening air so we built a small fire to keep everyone warm and cozy... The kids always gravitate toward the sailboat and the playhouse.  Actually, we now have a putting green that also captures Lukey's attention.  If I remember correctly, Lukey spent some time with Ace on the putting gre

E arlier this past week, we went out to dinner for Lukey and Kenzie's birthday.  Gee wanted to treat them to a dinner on their birthday so we headed to Sarducci's.  The kids had chosen a different restaurant but that restaurant was closed.  Gee and Papa preferred to go to Sarducci's anyway so we treated everyone to a nice meal at one of our favorite restaurants. Due to the ongoing pandemic, it was a bit on a quiet side at Sarducci's which was fine by us.  Going out into public is something Gee and I have been avoiding at all cost for the past two years but we all very recently had the virus so, at the moment, our immunity is likely on the high end which allowed us to feel a bit more comfortable visiting a restaurant during an ongoing pandemic.  If we all hadn't just gotten over the virus, Gee and I probably would not have gone out into the infected world.   As always, I had a couple of cameras with me.  This time around, I even had a Fuji Instant photo printer with

A fter a few mistakes made this past weekend which delayed our traditional Thanksgiving dinner and resulted in some ruined alternate meals throughout the weekend, we managed to have a very-well prepared but rather belated Thanksgiving dinner this evening.  My favorite dish of this dinner was and always is the homemade cranberry sauce.  I added some diced apples and diced pears to the cranberry sauce this time around and that really worked out well.  I think I'll be doing that again in the future (if I remember).  It was delicious.  I had prepared the cranberry sauce on Wednesday so all we had to do this evening was open a jar where we had stored it.   I normally totally despise green bean casserole because most people make it with a can of soup and a can of fried onions.  I don't do it this way.  Actually, if I had my way, canned soup would never be in my house and especially not to be used as an ingredient to another dish.  For this green bean casserole, I made a white bechame

W e ended up changing plans for our Thanksgiving day for various reasons all more than likely related to my history of bad luck on past Thanksgivings.  This day has always been my least favorite day of the year and today was a great example of why I feel this way. First, at some point when I started to prep for our Thanksgiving dinner, I realized that I forgot to set a calendar alarm to remind me to remove the turkey breast from the freezer on Tuesday.  That meant that our turkey breast was still in the freezer and frozen solid.  After a few choice words flew from my mouth, I moved the turkey breast to the fridge and quickly accepted the fact that our traditional Thanksgiving dinner was now moved to Saturday.  I don't even like turkey so I'm not sure why I continue to make this particular meal.   Then, we received a weather alert...  A snowstorm was approaching and would begin sometime Thanksgiving night.  This meant that I would need to head outside to prepare for significant

We had a very nice and peaceful Thanksgiving yesterday...  well, the best any Thanksgiving Day can be anyway...  truthfully, Thanksgiving has always been my least favorite holiday and, actually, perhaps in the Top Three of my least favorite days of the year...  regardless, we had a nice, peaceful and relaxing Thanksgiving during this pandemic. We were able to video chat with the family...  Adam and Joi, in California while Adam is in Air Force Leadership School...  Whitney and Ellie, at home, with Ellie being the physical comedy comedian she is...  and, of course, some video time with Liza, Kenzie and Lukey.  Video chatting is an everyday occurrence here anyway but it was nice to see all the grandkids yesterday.  Somehow we missed video chatting with Will and Sue so we'll need to attempt that sometime this afternoon. Dinner was nice for a turkey dinner.  The weakest dish of the dinner, by far, was the turkey breast and Sheila agreed.  I'd definitely prefer a nice grilled steak

After a very busy day of traveling to San Francisco from Sacramento, checking into our inn, walking to lunch, hiking up Inspiration Point and watching the sunset on Crissy Field, we spent a quiet evening back at the inn.   After a long and busy day, dinner was clearly going to be later than we wanted.  We relaxed in our suite, had a few drinks, and talked while we waited for the food to arrive...  this downtime made it difficult to keep our eyes open at this point after a long, busy, active day... We ordered an assorted barbeque dinner for six and had it delivered to our suite.  When it arrived, we brought the food down to the dining room to eat.  The dining was comfortable and the food was delicious!  We ordered from The Pub in Ghirardelli Square (yes, the chocolate people) opposite the San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park.  The food really was delicious but it was far more food than we could eat! After dinner, we spent a little time out back at the firepit...

This Thanksgiving, as with most every Thanksgiving in my adult life, we are hosting a Thanksgiving Dinner with close friends.  We have done very little socializing in the past year due to a few different health issues starting with Sheila second bout of breast cancer and ending (hopefully) with my two and a half months of significantly poor health due to some poor decisions by a couple of so-called specialists. Needless to say, we're both looking forward to socializing with some close friends today! As most of my friends know, this is perhaps my least favorite holiday on the calendar for far too numerous reasons to mention here.  That being said, decades ago, I found that I do enjoy the day whenever I host a small gathering of friends for the day.  Better yet, I always enjoyed being on-duty in the Air Force and putting together a celebration for all those working with me. The same holds true for Christmas... which happens to be my favorite holiday on the calendar! So, in keep

Sheila's birthday is tomorrow but we did most of the celebrating over the weekend. She opened most of her presents already and we had a meal of her choice last night.  Oh, and she chose a nice chocolate raspberry cake which we'd cut into on Saturday night.   The dinner she chose for last night was delicious.  I roasted a garlic herb roast beef. I inserted some garlic cloves into the meat spread out across the top of the roast. Then I rubbed on a mixture of spices and herbs. That was in the oven less than an hour and a half. I tented it under foil while finishing up the rest of this meal. That roast beef was tender and tasty! The asparagus was wrapped with smoked bacon in small bundles. We placed the bundles in a baking dish and then drizzled it with a smooth mixture of butter, brown sugar and soy sauce. Then I added some garlic salt and freshly ground pepper before roasting it just long enough to crisp up the bacon. The potatoes were cut into chunks and par-boiled fi

As always, when it comes to a good corned beef and cabbage meal, we both ate far too much last night! Last night's corned beef and cabbage was tasty! The previous time I made this meal, I attempted to cook it in more of a traditional way... everything in the same pot but each thing added at the appropriate time.  Uggg...  that was nasty. Everything took on the taste of the corned beef yet it all tasted bland because everything tasted the same. Last night I went back to my usual way of cooking this meal... meat in a dutch oven and slow cooked at 275 degrees in the oven. I cut up an onion, added spices, and added a weak beef broth to the pot... covered it... put it in the oven.   The remaining items are cooked separately. The potatoes are boiled but then I do a quick fry in a pan at the end with onion powder, salt, pepper and some paprika. The carrots are separate also... boiled until soft... then drain the water and add some butter and a little bit of brown sugar. The cabba

Sheila's radiation treatments are now behind us... by only days, but behind us nevertheless... and I am now scrambling to get ready for the holidays! My goal is to make the holidays as easy for Sheila as possible and, so far, things are going well in reaching this goal. We are having a few people over for Thanksgiving, quite a few people over for Christmas and a house guest from overseas for about a month between Thanksgiving and Christmas. It was well past time for a new, larger kitchen table so I had to get busy extending our table. I got a great deal on a piece of Birch butcher block (just a couple of hundred dollars)... I grabbed it instantly since Thanksgiving was only a week away... unfortunately, this meant that at this point I was committed to accomplishing another fair sized project before Thanksgiving. I jumped right into this project by building a big tent in our kitchen to contain most of the sawdust... We decided that we wanted one end of this table to be slig