Since we moved our Mom and her 90-year-old husband, Bill, into assisted living, things have been swiftly going downhill for Bill. I’ve had him in the ER and Sloane receives dozens of phone calls a day from him, as he repeats the same concerns, problems, and fears over and over again. I should also preface all of this by letting you know that Bill and I do not get along. He doesn’t like me and I don’t like him. Honestly, from day one.

Sloane stops by to check on them every single day after work (and sometimes before). Every Day! On her way home from a full day’s work! She’s been doing this for months! I know… she is amazing and I try to tell her so!

Anyhow, Bill is extremely unhappy, completely confused, and very anxious, and his health is rapidly declining before our very eyes. It was decided last week (when I had him in the ER) that he would go back to Michigan to be with his family, at least for the time being.

Sloane has a demanding full-time job, I volunteered to be the one to get him there.

As a result, I shall do my best to repeat the Dalai Lama’s wise words to myself for the next 20 hours! You will understand why when you see my itinerary for today:

Arrive at my sister’s home at 5:30 AM. Leave my car there. Sloane and I pick up Bill and she’ll drive us to Sky Harbor International Airport.

Bill and I depart Phoenix on Southwest Airlines at 7:40 AM
Arrive in Chicago Midway at 1:00 PM

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For years there was a terrible Chinese all-you-can-eat restaurant not far from our home on Cactus Road. I scoffed at it each time I drove by, wondering how such an awful place could stay in business for such a long time.

Then one day, last month, I drove by, and if by glorious magic, it was gone! In its place stood a new intriguing-looking eatery called Salty Sow, with the subtitle Swine+Wine+Beer.

Sounds like a kingdom of bacon, count me in!

Before I got around to making a reservation, our neighborhood Birthday Girls Group scheduled lunch there for Amy’s birthday. Yay!

Yay, because birthday lunches are fun…

…and yay, excited to go to a new place…

… with good friends!

I didn’t take photos of all the food, that would be tacky… just of mine, Amy’s, and Robyne’s, who were sitting next to and across from me. Very discrete!

The Birthday Girl had the Pig Panini, which she thoroughly enjoyed.

Robyne had Open-Faced BLT with Egg.

I had the Brussels Sprout Caesar Salad – delicious!

Connor and I ordered take-out from the Salty Sow on Saturday night.

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Do you remember back in April 2011 when I saved 9 little quail chicks? If not, HERE is that story.

Yeah, that’s a sweet little tale.
I like quail.

But… I LOVE hummingbirds.
Love. Them.

I feel that hummingbirds and I are kindred spirits.
We are naturally attracted to each other.

I’ve blogged about my love for them before. Here, here, and here – to show but a few.

Yesterday I spent the day better part of the day bringing a beautiful little hummingbird, that was on death’s door, back to life.

Yes, this is him.

This was not the first or the second or even the third time I’ve held a hummingbird in my hand. It’s the fourth time! But it was the first time I saved one’s life. Here is what went down –

I was in the backyard, watering plants when I heard a rustling in the brown crackly canna lily that is frozen to a crunchy crisp from last week’s arctic blast.

Before the freeze, the plants looked like this, and now they are trashed. No worries, they’ll come back better and bigger in the spring. But for now, yuck.

So, I hear the noise and look over and see a hummingbird fly up, up from the gravel and dead leaves. I think, “What was he doing down there?” You don’t often see hummers on the ground.

I walk over to see what he could have been attracted to and I see another hummingbird laying there with a hurt wing.

I pick him up and put him on a towel on the kitchen counter. Then I mix up some sugar water to feed him.

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In case you’re not local and just in case you haven’t heard – we’ve been freezing here in the desert this past week.

Literally freezing.
It’s not right.
This is the desert!
That land of saguaro cactus and yucca, not ice and snow!

Winter is our prime time! It’s what we live for, perfect weather! Not freezing temps that damage our desert-loving plants. (Yes, those are sheets covering plants and trees in my backyard.)

We aren’t supposed to be moaning and groaning about the weather now, that’s what we have 6 months of summer for … 115+ degree days … that’s our moaning and groaning time.

I am not happy! Not happy because it forced me to get out and try to pick as many of my Meyer lemons as I possibly could pick in one day. I wasn’t able to get them all. Close, but not all. The photo above represents about 1/4 of the crop I got off the tree.

My dad took home a full crate plus a full shopping bag.

The tree was the most prolific it has ever been. Here is what it looked like on Thanksgiving day.

So many lemons, that they were laying on the ground, still attached to the tree. The weight of them brought them down that far.

In late November and early December, I picked all the low lemons and took several bags to Les Gourmettes, to share with the teachers and students there.

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… from today, is Halloween!

My Illinois BFF, Jen, called me at 8:34 AM this past Monday morning and was buzzing about a blog that she had just found and completely loved. There was a craft on that blog that SHE AND I HAD to do … right now! (yep, that is her above, I know, she’s super pretty, and yeah, I adore her!)

HERE is the blog … and the project … that we I did that very day.

And here is the story of exactly how that went down:

I jumped in my car, which was serendipitously filled with gas just the day before, and headed out to the closest  99¢ Only Store, which is exactly 3.3 miles from my house, to buy the necessary supplies. There, I found 11 black feather boas, 4 packages of black and gray gauze, 4 black glitter skulls, and 2 silver glitter skulls.  From there I drove across the street to Hobby Lobby and purchased 2 foam wreath forms, using a 40% off coupon for one of those wreaths. Total amount spent – $33.79 plus tax.

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All summer, I’ve been snapping photos of miscellaneous happenings around the house. I thought I’d share a few of them with you today. Nothing major, just silly little things that make me make me , say “wow”, a bit disgusted, or just plain happy.

The first is Arizona summer monsoons. Although they can bring awful dust storms, they also produce the most beautiful clouds, as in the photo above, taken with my iPhone on July 23rd, while in my car. Don’t fret, I was stopped at a red light. 🙂

Image

And when they result in a monstrous booming thunderstorm, well that’s the best of all!

Another simple joy in life is cleaning out the kitchen junk drawer. Exactly why it’s so satisfying, I don’t really know. Especially with the knowledge that it’ll be a mess again all too soon. I failed to take a before picture, but rest assured, the rubber bands in the left corner were spread from end to end! As were the stamps. Have you ever noticed how many envelopes are delivered with uncancelled stamps?  I always cut them off and use them again.

So many! About $15 dollars worth! No wonder the USPS has financial troubles.

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Mark Tarbell and Tarbell’s are one of the many chef friends/restaurants that I follow on Facebook. A great side-benefit to following these talents is that they sometimes post what is on special for dinner that night. When it looks tempting, I can hurry up and make reservations… or if we don’t feel like going out… I can try and duplicate the dish for my own knock-off “special of the day”.

This was the case late last week when I saw Tarbell’s post above.  It reads:

“A new week, a new Mr. Fish! Nantucket Sea Bass with a stew of sweet corn, summer squash, and Napa cabbage is topped with a cured tomato relish. We’re loving the veggies we’re getting from local Crooked Sky Farms!“

It is a big recipe, but after not posting a recipe for a full week, a big recipe is called for!

I didn’t have sea bass, but I did have halibut. Additionally, I didn’t want to cure tomatoes for the relish, so instead, I used sun-dried tomatoes as the base. Following is the delectable result.

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The fruit on my fig tree is ripening just in time…. for me to be out of town… and unable to harvest any. No matter, the birds are flocking to the tree by the dozens and feasting on them.

I don’t have a clue what kind of bird this is, but every day, all throughout the day, there are between 10 and 20 of these black birds chowing down on my figs.

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For our Meatless Monday classes this summer, one of the favorites has been this salad. An adaptation of the iconic Stetson Chopped Salad from Cowboy Ciao, which has been open on Stetson Drive in Old Town Scottsdale for 15 years.

Traditionally the salad has a row of chopped smoked salmon. We have left it out to make it a vegetarian dish.  If you would like to make it the Cowboy Ciao way, (which is exactly what I would do!!) add in 4 ounces of diced smoked salmon as the last row of the salad.

The photo above is the salad at Cowboy Ciao. It is an individual serving, brought to the table with the dressing on two spoons, ready for you to toss in as you like.

This recipe makes enough for 8 and is also brought to the table to have the dressing added at the last minute and then served family-style.

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I am nearly buried in cooking classes at the moment, so I only have a couple of minutes to slap up a few photos and a couple of recipes – if you can call them recipes. They are more like quick and super easy ideas for tasty bits… almost too easy to even label “easy breezy”!

A few students are missing from this photo. One was homesick, another was late because she was coming from lacrosse practice, yet another was just running late, and so on. We start at 10:30 sharp because there is a lot to do and we can’t wait. So this is a glimpse of what it looks like at the very start of class – when the students are just getting underway. Trash cans are empty, counters are relatively clear, the floor is still rather clean, and my two assistants are observing, rather than washing, drying, and well, basically “assisting”.

The gentlemen in the forefront are mixing up bread dough, for English muffin bread. My assistants, Connor and Troy, are waiting for something to do. The young lady in the orange shirt is frying up bacon for the Bacon Strip Pancakes, the two on the right are starting on a batch of Cinnamon Roll Pancakes and the young lady in the center, at the island, is working on a batch of granola.

For our breakfast-themed meal yesterday, one of the dishes we made was English muffin bread with quick homemade strawberry jam – here is the jam simmering away. You could use a potato masher to crush the berries, but donning gloves and using your hands is so much more fun!

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