Minutes – June 25

::faithful

Praying for

• A friend’s daughter, Jen – leukemia has reared its ugly head again.   She was diagnosed with leukemia last year, literally weeks before her wedding date.  She and her fiance called all their friends and family, moved back their wedding date and got married right away, determined to fight this battle together. It’s been a long year for them, consumed with chemotherapy, a bone marrow transplant and recovery.  They were planning to depart today on their delayed honeymoon, but found out last week that it’s back.  Instead of their cruise, Jen starts another round of chemo today, to be followed by a ‘booster’ marrow transplant then hopefully remission.

Grateful for

• air conditioning
• healthy children
• coconut popsicles

::healthy

Biking excursions! The Architect had a team ride this weekend at Northshore, and I tagged along.  I did not ride with him and the team on the west side and the new rock section – I couldn’t keep up even if I tried!  Instead, I pedaled over to the east side, which is better suited to novices like myself.  It was such a beautiful day and I’m thrilled to say I finished the entire loop without falling even once.  I was being super cautious, though, because I was riding alone.  I actually got off the bike and walked through the really big drops.

::delicious

The lineup this week includes

• Pork Tenderloin with fresh creamed corn and baked beans
• Bean Burritos
• Ratatouille over Polenta
• Garlic Shrimp and Snap Peas
• Pizzas on the Grill
• Orange Ginger Salmon with Broccoli Slaw
• Lots of watermelon and fresh peaches because they’re in season and abundant at the farmers’ market!

The lemon bars didn’t happen last week.  Our oven has been limping along for more than a year now, very persnickety and temperamental.  Sometimes it will turn on, sometimes it won’t. Once it’s on, it won’t stay on. When it is on, you have to monitor to make sure it’s staying at the right temperature, as it likes to surprise by popping on the broiler element.   We can’t bake anything longer than 20 minutes without fear of burning down the kitchen. Yes, I know this all sounds like a ridiculous thing to live with, but really!  It’s the same scenario as the dishwasher.  We have all the best intentions to remodel the kitchen soon so it seems silly to invest in a new oven, especially because when we re-do, I want a double oven with one convection unit which fits into a different size cabinet space.

The oven would NOT cooperate yesterday, and after a frustrating hour and a half I ended up with bars that were gooey and undercooked on the bottom, and scorched on the top. Very sad.  I asked Mr. Pea to just completely disconnect the oven from power, and we will live without until we remodel.  It’s too hot to use the oven, and baked goods don’t fall in the category of “healthy eating” anyway.  Besides, over the past year, I’ve found all the best bakeries in town. 🙂

::creative

Finish up the baby vest and give it to Miss B. Name Plates for office mates.  We all have ‘nicknames’, and instead of formal name plates on our office doors, we have our fun names.  I’m the self-appointed Name Plate Maker.  Just Because.

Here’s Mine.  It’s an iPhone snapshot so the quality is quirky and glaring from the window.

Yes.  They call me Chef.  I’m the favored breakfast maker in the Breakfast Cartel,  volunteer griller at company picnics, bringer of amazing potluck dishes and maker of vegetarian chili worthy of placing in the annual chili cookoff.

::fun

• Kayaking!  It’s much cooler out on the lake in the evenings than it is landside.
• The kids and I went to see Brave on Friday night.  It was good and we enjoyed it!
• Blowing stuff up!  Okay, this may not seem like extremely safe fun, but when you have teenage boys and that small window opens up each year when fireworks are available, and Mom and Dad are sort of geeky and agree to supervise the execution of said experiments, well, stuff gets blown up.

This was last year’s effort: