Two Bad Days

I have not blogged in a while with the Christmas festivities and business. No it is all settled down and I thought life would get calmer but these last two days have disproved that theory.

Yesterday morning at 7:30 Polly and Jessie drove out the driveway and down the road with the pickup full of totes loaded with Jessie's essentials for living. Her clothing, bedding, a small selection of books (two totes full, I believe), some knitting supplies, the violin, and of course all of her riding equipment, which had to be packed on top and easily accessible. I watched the truck leave with my baby with a quivering lip and moist eyes which spilled over completely as the truck went down the road. Grandma and I were both having a bad time with it, it came out in Grandma with her not having a good day at all and escaping the reality that she did not like. She was pretty out of it all day long, today is better for her, thank God. I kept feeling worse and worse all day which I was chalking up to being upset about Jess and then Grandma on top of it. I got a bad headache and then got sick to my stomach. Somewhere in the night I realized that Polly had not wanted me to miss her to much while she was gone and had left me her stomach bug to remember her by while she was gone for a few days. Children are so thoughtful and considerate of their Mommy.

This morning, while I was once again hugging my porcelien new best friend the phone rang. I struggled my way to the phone to hear that a Mark from the Cargill mill was calling me to tell me that Mike had had an "episode" and the ambulance and EMTs where there and that they were taking him to Albany Med with chest pains after he had collapsed in the mill. Yeah, that really settled the stomach right down. I had not had any problem with being here with no car until that moment, but here I am with this phone call and no transportation. I knew that Mike had to be feeling really bad if he had them calling me. I had no clue what to do until I thought to call Sandy who headed down there to see what was going on. Mark called me back after a while and said that Mike had gone to the ER but they had given him oxygen and an iv before they left and he was feeling better and arguing that he did not have to go, which made me feel a bit better about how he was. Sandy found her way to Albany Med and found him in there and they called me. He was feeling fine as long as he was lying down but Sandy said it was quite fascinating watching the interesting colors he turned if he stood up. They took his blood pressure lying, sitting and standing, and when standing he had a whopping 77 over 57. They are keeping him overnight for observation and to run a stress test tomorrow. I think the problem is the new pill that the doctor gave him for his blood pressure which he started taking on Sunday so he had taken it twice. He already was complaining about that pill giving him a dry throat so I know he will throw these as far as he can. I think that they are going to change his blood pressure meds, hopefully they will not take him off of the one that we just paid $140 for a 3 month supply of, (it was not on Walmarts list of $10 presciptions).

Polly had finished getting Jess settled in and was just waiting to head up in the morning to get another nights rest before repeating the 9 hour drive. When I called her to tell her what was going on she headed home. I am not able to go to bed until she finally gets here, as she is calling me for moral support as she drives through PA in an ice storm. Last call she had crossed into New York so she is now only about 2 hours away. Yeah, I am starting to feel like I have been through the wringer a couple of times today.

Jess, on the other hand, sounds so happy. She loves the people and the horses and the barn and the riding arena and everything else down there. Mommy just has to keep reminding herself that she is happy for her baby, even if she misses her. I kept waiting for her to come pounding upstairs last night, or to find her cereal dish and oj glass next to the couch this morning, or to sit on a knitting needle Grandma's recliner, or stub my toe on her riding boots, or...

Tonight her friend Virginia came and picked up the ferrets, which I will not miss at all. Now, to just take out the garbage bag tomorrow where I dumped their litter boxes and febreeze her room well and hopefully I will be able to forget they ever were here.

It is now another day, so here is hoping that it will be a better one.

todays medical news

Neither Grandma nor I went anywhere today, but the vehicles were busy. Polly had to take her dog to the vets early this morning to have the pin removed from her hip which has healed from her adventure with a car this summer. She left the dog off, came home and left again for a meeting in Fort Plain. Jess had to go turn in a final paper, collect her cap and gown and boyfriend, have a riding lesson, and whatever else in Cobleskill. Polly got home and left with Mike to take him to have his knee drained and get a cortizone shot in it. Jess came home by way of picking the dog up from the vet. Vet said Brittany, the dog, is healed well, Doctor said he now thinks maybe Mike's problem is more scar tissue from a high school basketball injury than he thought before. He was not able to drain much out of it. I know from experience that it takes a couple of days to think that those shots were worth getting, there is more pain at first than before getting shot.

Everyone is home and settling in for the night now. I think each went to the correct medical professional too.

My daughter Betty, er Jessie

Grandma and I have always called Jessie "Betty" and for good reason. Jess has many interests and traits that are so much like her Aunt Betty. She loves flowers and nature and crafty things. She is a very intelligent girl but took a while to figure out that it really is better to just do what the teachers want than to argue with them if you do not think that they are correct. She is in her own world, and has a tendency to not know what is happening in the other world that the rest of us live in, even if it is happening under her nose. Her picture is in the dictionary under the term "oblivious".

Why am I saying this? The telephone just rang and it was my darling daughter. She had just gone to pick up her robes for tomorrow's graduation and was quite surprised when they also handed her honors cords. She would not have known what the pretty gold rope was for if the woman had not congratulated her on obtaining honors as she handed her the cords. Now, let's see if she actually remembers to take the cords to wear tomorrow....

Those of you who know Betty better than Jessie does this all sound like someone you know?

Chocolate lovers utopia

I have been busy baking Christmas cookies, fudge, candy, etc. All that good dietary stuff. Polly has been helping and Jess is going to get making fudge as soon as she becomes a college graduate on Friday. Grandma is our chief test-taster. I just took a batch of cookies out of the oven that is soooo rich and good and chocolately. It may be partly due to the fact that our local WalMart did not have any cheap bakers chocolate, only had Ghirardelli. A double batch took 3 bars but is worth it. I will share the recipe if anyone is looking for a true chocolate nirvana.

Chocolate Mint Creams

1 1/4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
6 tablespoons butter
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon water
6 ounces semisweet chocolate (I used bittersweet, any diff?)
1 egg, slightly beaten
Pastel Mint Cream Kisses ( the mints that look like Hershey Kisses, picture showed green ones, I had white ones)

In a small bowl stir together flour and baking soda and set aside. In a medium saucepan combine butter, sugar and water. Stir over low heat until butter is melted, add chocolate and stir over low heat until chocolate is melted. Pour into large bowl, cool for 10 minutes.

With a wooden spoon, stir egg mixture into chocolate mixture, stir in flour mixture until combined. Cover and chill for an hour or so until dough is easy to handle.

Preheat oven to 350F. Shape dough into 1 inch balls and place 2" apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 8 minutes, immediately place a mint into center of cookie, pressing down slightly, bake 2 more minutes until edges are firm.

It says that you can then swirl mint with knife, that made a mess for me, but hot mint on knife was tasty. It says that it makes about 4 dozen cookies, but that is what I got from a double batch. I made one major error in baking these without realizing that there was only a swallow of milk in the frig. They are a huge Got Milk ad. Grandma, Jess and I were trying to share one swallow of milk after each having a cookie and we all felt rather gipped.

Bake yourselves some and pretend I sent them to you.

La la la la

"White paper packages tied up with string,
These are a few of my favorite things,
When the pig bites,
When the sow squeals,
When the cold turns me bluuuuue,
I think of a few of my favorite things,
Annnnd Then I don't feel sooooo baddddd"

George, the trucker, arrived at 8:00 AM and Cindy and Oscar walked up the tailgate very nicely. They will return home in a few weeks after they get their haircuts and makeovers. I have been really getting anxious for them to make this trip as my mouth has been watering for a nice fresh pork roast for quite a while, to say nothing of a good bacon sandwich. They also were starting to really get mean and showing a desire to have a bite of human on a regular basis, luckily they never got more than rubber boot. I have my homemade applesauce down cellar just waiting. I am not sure just where they will fit in the freezers but I will make room somehow. If I actually went out and hung up some suet for the birds that would help out, we got alot from the last cow but the birds don't seem to eat it well in the freezer.

Adding them to the beef and poultry, and hopefully soon goat, in the freezers we should not need to have tasteless store bought meat for quite a while. There are still some chickens to be processed, along with Goose and ducks, but goose is being invited into the house for Christmas, we need to do ducks before Jess leaves, as she likes duck, and the chickens need to be squeezed in there too.

Why I will keep buying bread

Every so often I get a thought, usually when I am in the bread aisle of the store, that I could save a lot of money if I baked my own bread. All it takes is a meal like tonights to make me realize that it would not save money in this household, and we would all become much larger people. I do not know if I have baked bread or rolls yet that have ever manage to get cold around here. Tonight I made spagetti and meatballs with homemade garlic rolls. I have found a new roll recipe that is quite tasty and quick and easy for a yeast bread, which I brushed with garlic butter prior to baking. When the vultures flew away I had some nice clean bowls and pans to wash. Then I remember why we got rid of the bread machine, that is the most dangerous threat to a waist line that was ever invented. We got into a very bad spell of poring the ingrediants into that demon contraption and waking up to a fresh hot loaf of bread in the morning, which then caused the vultures to have an early morning feeding frenzy and squabble. At least making it by hand takes a bit more work and is not as tempting to be repeated several times in a day.

Silver Linings

It is too bad that it takes a funeral to see far spread members of the family, but it was great to see both Jason and Josh in one week. After two trips to Altmar in four days Grandma will be sleeping well for the next few days, but it does her good to see other people, she is much sharper during and afterwards. It was nice to go and visit snow. It makes it so nice to come home to our bare ground, green is such a pretty color.

I am glad that Jess will be home tomorrow so that Grandma can stay home while Polly and I go to meet with the other livestock superintendents for the county fair. (I am the beef cattle superintendent, last year we did not take a cow, go figure. We showed goats, pigs, and ducks and a goose.) If Grandma had to go to the meeting we would just get there and she would be saying it was time to leave, before we even had a chance to start doing the work we need to get done before Monday night. Then she would spend the trip home telling us how patient she is. We have not left our book changes to the last minute or anything. Then when we get home Polly will go to bed after having been up working all night and I will get to type up our changes before Monday's meeting. Hopefully Jess will be out of class so that both Polly and I can go to the meeting, as she is assistant superintendent for beef, sheep, swine, goats, and unofficially dairy. That translates to she is young and gets to do our running for us. She was lucky last year in that we had two very nice strong teenage boys who were always looking for us to need some help and jumping right in and doing the heavy work for us, we told those boys they have to show there forever.

Mike is hurting tonight after a goat knocked into his bad knee today and knocked him down. He is not real pleased with my babies, to put it mildly.