-
Games and more games
On the weekend we had a play with both Dominion and Castle Panic. The first was quite enjoyable and we can see lots of room for more interesting play as we try different decks and get used to playing a deck building game. The game is only supposed to take about thirty minutes but with us playing the first time plus the slowness with which Lego Lover took his turns, it was more like an hour and a half. Fortunately we started fairly early and had time for a game of Castle Panic afterwards. This was the big winner of the night…at least that seemed to be the consensus of the family. Game Fanatic and Lego Lover overwhelmingly preferred this to Dominion (even though they liked Dominion). The nice things about the game are short set up times and the fact the game goes really quickly. We came nowhere close to winning the game we played but we did have a lot of fun playing it.
Just after that, we watched the Tabletop show for Pandemic which is available on You Tube and looked to be really fun too. I have heard this one is another popular co-op game which is similar to Forbidden Island but a bit more complex. Game Fanatic and I had an appointment in Perth so we went into the city proper to Tactics, a board game and hobby shop that carries a wide selection. On the day it was particularly muggy and this place is downstairs from a shopping arcade…it was miserably hot with no air moving in any direction. But there was a copy of Pandemic there and it wasn’t quite as overpriced as most of the other games there. I didn’t buy it, knowing it was likely to be cheaper elsewhere but it was tempting. One day that will surely be added to our family collection.
This morning the postal van delivered more packages for Game Fanatic. This included the games Evo, Summoner Wars and King of Tokyo. I don’t know much about any of the games except they all can be played with just two players. Game Fanatic had hoped to play one this evening but we had a video to watch and we also got pizza from the shop for dinner…in addition to going to the gym today, there just wasn’t time to play.
-
Goodbye 47, Hello 48
I had a birthday on Saturday, inching just a bit closer to the half century mark. It was a nice, low-key birthday spent with the family at home for the most part. The Scientist took me out for lunch at a Vietnamese-Thai restaurant near us and it was a very nice meal although I struggled to finish my meal of pad thai. What a contrast to our first visit when we ate several courses without any trouble. :) I was given a couple gifts by the Scientist and the boys: a Wii U version of Scribblenauts unlimited and a mini lighted photo studio. I hadn’t played Scribblenauts before but it was quite a bit of fun once I started to get the hang of it. My MIL came around in the late afternoon with a vegetarian cookery book and a scarf for me and stayed for awhile to join us for cake. The Scientist baked a Devil’s food cake with chocolate frosting, compliments of Duncan Hines. The cake was quite nice but the frosting was a lot sweeter than we expected. DH has only just started selling their products here and they seem to be not much more than imports even though they are cheaper than the Betty Crocker that has been sold here for years. (Maybe it’s cheaper to import the US version rather than produce it here?) The Scientist added Malteasers to the cake, which tasted quite nice.
During the evening, I wanted to pay a board game with the family and briefly considered asking them to play Agricola. We’ve played that one time but nobody has wanted to play since. It was quite expensive and took quite a bit of effort to obtain so I’d have liked to give it another chance. But the time required for set up and re-learning it was too great to invest with what little was left of the day. Instead we played Ticket to Ride Europe and had a great time. Afterwards we watched To Kill a Mockingbird which I’d bought last year in its 50th anniversary edition. It’s been restored and looks incredibly good now. I’m not quite sure the boys exactly liked it but I think they did find it engaging. I know the Scientist and I both loved seeing it again in its restored glory.
I received an email last week from San Churro’s Chocolateria, offering me a complimentary Churros for Two at their store. The only requirement was it had to be redeemed on my birthday or the two days surrounding it. I chose to go today since I knew I’d have cake yesterday. Game Fanatic didn’t come along as it was likely to be crowded (and was). Lego Lover wanted the same thing for himself, to eat entirely on his own. I intended to share mine with the Scientist but he only would eat one so I was left struggling to finish the others. There was no way I was leaving any of it behind…but it left me feeling a bit full for quite a while afterwards.
We then took a drive down the coast to Cottesloe Beach where a Sculpture by the Sea exhibit has been running and finished today. This has been staged for several years now but we’ve never managed to get there. I don’t recommend waiting for the last day as it was quite crowded, right up until sunset. There were nearly 60 sculptures but we only managed to see about a dozen of the sculptures before it got too dark to see. I took some photos but people kept getting in the way so I’ve had to delete quite a few of them. What was disturbing was the number of parents allowing their children to climb over the sculptures, even though there are signs everywhere asking people not to touch the exhibits. It was a nice exhibit and I hope to go there next year but allow time to see everything…plus avoid going on the last day, of course. :D Â It was quite a noisy place as we left due to the relatively large crowds still in the area plus the birds. Seems the lorikeets return to the trees as night and seem to start shouting at each other constantly. It’s amazing how such beautiful birds can be such pests!
-
Happy New Year!
Since I last posted, Lego Lover had a birthday and it went well. He woke up very early and stayed up quite late to experience as much of the day as possible. No disappointments at the end. This is fairly typical but it still pleases me every year. Such a contrast to his brother on his birthday too. There’s still a small chance I will write up a post for his birthday, even though it’s been nearly two weeks now.
Christmas went pretty well  aside from it being the first day of a week-long heatwave. We had a family gathering at the Scientist’s mum’s house. We all ate quite well on all the food prepared. I’d made my usual vegetable and chickpea patties for my MIL and a potato salad for Game Fanatic. The Scientist cooked a small turkey and his mum made heaps of curries plus a salad. Plenty of food was eaten. I was last to get my food and I made the mistake of having a couple veg patties and was filled way too soon. Almost as soon as dinner was finished, dessert was on. To be fair, it’s also my BIL’s birthday and the Scientist had made a cake so it was time to serve it and sing happy birthday. But I didn’t eat any of the cake because I knew it would be way too much after all the food. Another BIL’s family had brought along four or five things for desserts and it seemed like they had gone a bit overboard. Later on I remembered she told about several family members being sick and missing out on Christmas at an earlier gathering with her family. I can only assume some of that was meant for the other gathering and had gone uneaten so they brought it to ours. Still it was way too much and it was too hot to enjoy so much rich food. I did have some jelly (gelatin) that my MIL had prepared with a little bit of a couple desserts but could eat no more than that. We’d also taken along some chocolate and raspberry brownies we’d made a few days earlier and they weren’t touched at all…just meant we were eating them for days after Christmas.
The rest of the year was hot and hot and hot. Everyone just stayed in cool places as much as possible…Then it cooled off a bit and became humid earlier this week. Not a lot better, really…then a couple days of lovely mild weather. Meanwhile the heatwave seems to have gone east and they are now sweltering there. It’s heated up again here for the weekend but it seems we will be okay for next week.
We stayed home on New Year’s Eve, which is pretty usual for our family. Our clock was slow so there was some uncertainty when midnight rolled around so our happy new years were a bit delayed. The Scientist managed to stay awake that long and then was off to bed almost at once.
The next day our dog Maromi had to go to the vet to have a grass seed abscess removed from his paw under surgery. He has a bad relationship with the grass seeds…usually, though, they get into his ear…which is a lot less costly to treat than surgery on his paw. :( He’s recovering just fine. Managed to pull the bandage off a bit early and it was impossible to get it back on where it would stay. It’s all fine though and the stitch comes out in a week which means he can get rid of the cone.
We also bought a couple of new gadgets at the end of the year sales. We started off looking at one thing but ended up looking at food processors. We have an older one that I’d been using once a year for my veg and chickpea patties and it pretty much is a piece of junk. I had to hold things together to keep it working this year so it was destined to be removed from our house in the near future. Anyway, all my research turned up that there were really no lower end models that rated well at all. Maybe this is an area where you just have to pay for a decent machine. The one we finally chose was cost $435 on sale. I haven’t used it yet but it seems quite solid and has a lot of attachments that are stored in a separate case. The other gadget is an air fryer that uses very little oil to cook foods in. We’ve used it a few times now and it works wonderfully. Mostly it’s nice for making chips (french fries) and they come out nice and crispy in far less time than the oven takes.
I almost forgot we have another expense coming up in the bathroom. Seems that the light switch is now shocking when turned on so it’s not to be used until fixed. We are hoping to have a couple extra plug points installed in the house when the electrician comes out as that’s been on the t0-do list for a while now.
-
50
For nearly an hour it’s been the 1st of December and that means the Scientist has reached his half-century. He’s feeling kind of old now. His hair is probably more gray than not these days and his mental faculties aren’t as sharp as they once were. Which is to say they are pretty sharp compared to most people but have slowed down a bit in recent years. The body parts are more prone to aches and pains too. But like me, he’s been working out six days a week and unlike me he has been quite particular with his diet. In three months, he has lost 11kgs. He’s looking far better these days and I look forward to seeing the further effects of his efforts. Even though we don’t work out exactly together the whole time, it’s become quite a nice habit to go to the gym every day and spend an hour or so. We have joked that it’s almost like a second home…With further thought, I might add that it’s like a second home with too many visitors at times. :D
Happy birthday to my partner in life!
-
Childhood to adulthood
It seems appropriate to again recall the events of this day and night from eighteen years ago.
I reached the last week of my official forty weeks of pregnancy and I found myself being shifted from the relaxed atmosphere of the family birth center we’d been attending into the regular maternity clinic in the main hospital. What a difference it was to go into the big, noisy clinic and have to sit for an hour on uncomfortable seats when I was quite swollen and had elevated blood pressure. I don’t really recall much about the actual appointment. It was all a blur. The upshot was that I was to be induced the next day and was expected there by late morning.
On the morning of the 18th, we piled into the car and I recall stopping for a bit of breakfast at the drive through at McDonald’s of all places. Before I knew it was I checked into the hospital and put in a room. At some point some treatment to start the induction was given and even that I don’t really recall. I do recall sitting around there all afternoon with the Scientist, waiting for something to happen. At some point I was given further treatment and then we waited and waited. I remember drinking Milo (a powder chocolate drink) at some point. Nothing happened and then it was night and I think there must have been a third treatment. And then the Scientist went home as it was quite late and who knew how much longer it would be.
At some point in the next hour, around 11pm, I got up to go to the toilet and it was there my waters broke unexpectedly. To that point, nothing obvious had happened to me but now it was all happening at once. Contractions started and just didn’t stop, one after another. The Scientist was dragged from bed almost immediately after he’d reached it and returned to my side within a short time although it seemed like ages to me. I Â was offered an epidural and refused as I thought I would surely be able to handle a few hours of labor. After a few hours of constant contractions, I suddenly was desperate for the epidural but I was too far along so they offered pethidine instead. I don’t believe that made any dent into the pain but I did get some relief from the nitrous oxide for short bursts of time. Later on I did get the epidural after all as I’d tired so much from non-stop contractions for so many hours. I honestly don’t recall how long it took for the birth to happen once I started pushing but it eventually required some assistance. Possibly I wasn’t feeling enough sensation to push effectively. At 11am my future game fanatic finally made it into the world and was soon making a big noise.
The next couple of days are a blur in my memories now. They consisted of sleeping whenever I could and feeding and feeding and a crying baby. Game Fanatic and two other little boys were all born that day and all kept the midwives busy with cuddling crying babies in an effort to let us moms get a bit of sleep once in a while. And then it was time to go home and we dressed him up in his little green suit and the Scientist drove us back home. Â The next few months are a blur of sleepless days and nights, feeding and changing nappies (diapers). Feedings became quite painful and I was miserable enough that the Scientist suggested formula to give me a break. But I persisted through the pain and we eventually seem to work things out.
Before I knew it, I had a crawling baby who soon was standing and then he was walking. And while achieving these marvelous feats, he also started talking and shared his insights with us regularly. Then it was a first birthday and he had chicken pox! Over the next year he would speak in complete sentences and eat his first chili (by mistake) and develop a love for the hot and spicy foods he eats today. When he was three he started kindy and the next year pre-primary and before we knew it he was school age. Fast forward a few more years and he’d grown quite tall and his voice changed and he suddenly was a teenager. And here we are on the verge of eighteen. He’s a fascinating young adult now and I can’t wait to see what happens next for our baby.
Every year for his birthday, Game Fanatic makes a birthday list to give us so that he always gets what he wants for his birthday instead of something disappointing. This year his list consisted only of games, some which he will be receiving. But I have a special surprise for him. Well maybe not that much of a surprise as I jokingly mentioned it a while back to him. With the Scientist, I’ve chosen a handful of favorite books from his childhood and bought copies for him to keep as mementos.
- The Very Hungry Caterpillar -He had a board book as a baby and toddler and he loved to hear this book read again and again. The copy I ended up with via mail order is a tiny version of the book so I’m not sure how he will like it. I suspect he will prefer to have a slightly bigger copy as this one fits a bit too neatly into his hand.
- Hairy MacLary from Donaldson’s Dairy– This book is the first in a series of books containing the lovable dog, Hairy MacLary. In truth the book we’d read first was about another character, Scattercat, or maybe it was Slinki Malinki. They are all gentle, rhythmic books and Game Fanatic loved all that we read. We never owned our own copy so I thought it was time he had his own to keep forever.
- There’s a Hippopotamus on our Roof Eating Cake– Another preschool favorite that is the first in a series of books about a little girl and her favorite imaginary friend, a hippopotamus, who gets up to some great silliness and fun.
- Greek Myths by Marcia Williams- I think this may have been the first book Game Fanatic read about Greek myths. It’s done in a sort of comic style with lots of illustration and he adored this book so much that he regularly checked it out of the library. I think this will be more of a surprise than some of the other books as he was so much older when he read it.
- The Three Billy Goats Gruff– This one was a bit hard as there are so many versions available and we’d have likely read more than one to Game Fanatic when we were not relating the story from memory. Eventually the Scientist spotted one that seemed familiar so we chose that one. We are still waiting for this one to arrive and hopefully will have it next week. Â Of all the stories from his childhood, this was Game Fanatic’s favorite and he asked for it to be told again and again whether we had a copy of the book or not. We would go to the park for little ones and he would insist on us acting it out using the bridge that connected the two pieces of equipment. The park still has that same equipment and I am often reminded of the repeated performances passing by there with the dogs. I think this one will also be a bit of a surprise but hopefully will keep that special memory alive for him.
It’s nearly midnight and I need to make some brownies before I go to bed. I’d had aspirations of making a lemon tart but never got the recipe started so it will have to wait a bit longer, I guess. Here’s to a very special day tomorrow  and many special days in the future for my baby, who is now an adult.
-
Protected: Thirteen (password required-please contact me if required)
-
During my trip back home last year, we went to Pennsylvania to visit my grandma and to see that area of the state that was my home for the first year or two of my life. At that time grandma was living independently in an apartment so we stayed with her for our five day visit. After spending our first week of visiting in the oven that is Texas, it was nice to be in Pennsylvania with its milder temperatures.
During our visit, we spent a lot of time driving around to family landmarks and visiting some extended family. I saw the location where the hospital where I was born once stood. More interesting was going down the back streets of the town to see the first house where I lived. It doesn’t really look that different to when we lived there. Just a bit older and maybe overgrown a little. I remember we used to make a traditional visit to these places each summer when we made the trip from Georgia to Pennsylvania. Except that the hospital was still standing until I was probably in my teens. I have a vague memory of it, looking a bit like a dilapidated old house.
We drove over to Grandma’s old house, where we stayed most summers. It now belongs to my aunt who lives there with her husband. Unfortunately my aunt wasn’t home at the time so I never got to see what it looks like now. It’s a small house with just two bedrooms but somehow we used to manage to fit my grandparents, my two aunts along with the five of us in for a week at a time. Most summers there was a family picnic at the house on the 4th of July. There was the picnic during the day and at night most of the men would play poker down in the basement. The women would play cars up in the kitchen. Cigarette smoke was everywhere because just about everyone in the family smoked. Big chests of ice filled with beer bottles soon became empty beer bottles filling the bins. Kids would run around inside and out playing and sometimes watching the adults. This was often the time I’d see most of my cousins…or should I say second cousins who just happened to be closer to my age than my mom. I also remember seeing the amazing game Pong, for the first time at this house. I’m going to assume it was for the benefit of my aunts still living at home. Later there was the Atari console with the many cartridges. I remember one year when my aunt spent hours playing a single game of Pacman and collecting some crazy high score. When my grandparents first lived there, there was nothing behind the house, just a hill filled with wild strawberries that grandma would turn into jam each year.
I think it must have been our second last day there where Grandma took us out to eat at a little diner called Deb’s Place. I think the place has been there forever but I don’t recall ever being there. The food was pretty typical diner food that wasn’t bad but not great either. It did provide a break from cooking that night and it was kind of neat to go to what apparently was a popular hangout for the locals. Once dinner was over, we had dessert at the ice cream place that is part of the diner. Ice cream is served at a window and eaten at tables out by the parking lot. After making our decisions, Lego Lover and I placed our orders and we waited. What I didn’t notice very well was the anticipation of both my mom and grandma. When the ice cream cones came out, we nearly fell down in shock as they were enormous. I think I ordered a double scoop and it honestly looked like three or four scoops. Lego Lover was similarly amazed and impressed. Both Mom and Grandma were rolling with laughter. It was quite a sight to see. As there was no place to sit at this point, we got back into the car and started to leave. But I had the misfortune to lose the top scoop from my cone which fell off and went rolling down my blouse and leaving streaks of some chocolatey ice cream in its place. This was a brand new top that I don’t think I’d ever worn before. And it was a bit stained after that although it eventually did come out. Despite my mishap, this was my fondest memory of my stay last year.
When we weren’t driving around the area, we were hanging out at Grandma’s apartment and talking and watching tv. Â Eventually we got to what had always been my favorite part of visits: photo albums. I particularly liked the older photos and the stories about the people in them. Mostly the people were family from before my time along with some close friends and even a couple old boyfriends of my grandmother. Grandma would sleep in her recliner chair as she didn’t sleep well in her bed. It was a big, fancy chair that quite possibly was as comfortable or more so than many beds. Most nights she fell asleep while watching tv. Most of the time this happened while watching four episodes of Golden Girls late each night.
There was a lot more to that short visit but I won’t go into that now except to say that much of it was quite memorable for many different reasons. At the end of the visit, it was with a heavy heart that we parted to travel back to Texas. The only regret is that despite taking heaps of photos there, I didn’t get one of me with my grandma.
Earlier this year, my grandmother’s health began to decline rapidly and she had to be moved into a nursing home a few months ago. At the end of last month, she celebrated her 90th birthday with a small family gathering at the nursing home. Mom managed to scrape enough money to be there for the special occasion. Soon after the doctor discovered a severe foot infection which couldn’t be cured with medication. The only option was amputation but Grandma wouldn’t have made it through surgery. So the last few weeks have been a waiting game. This afternoon, I got a message from my mom that the wait was over.
Grandma’s life wasn’t any kind of life to live at the end, with others having to meet most of her basic needs. So I am relieved the end has finally come. Obviously that doesn’t take away the sadness of the loss and there is still a bit of the shock of it really being the end. And there’s also the unreality of it for me, being so removed from family. I think I might spend part of tomorrow getting back to work on all the photos I took during last years visit and finally finish that off.
-
Interesting coincidences and a bit of a walk down memory lane
Back in the early 1970s, probably around 1973, I saw Gone With the Wind at the cinema. I remember the cinema well as it was the only one in our city and it was part of the Jerry Lewis cinema chain. I don’t know of any others in the chain but there must have been. I think that was the last year it was shown in the cinema and before I knew it, the movie was screening on network tv every once in a while. It is quite possible that most cinemas had stopped screening it years earlier. But I lived in Forest Park, Georgia, which was very close to the approximate location of the fictional Tara Plantation just south of Atlanta. It was probably more like a cult favorite in the area well past the time when it was shown in other parts of the country.
My family had a copy of the book on our bookshelves but I never though to read it. I was a bit young for it when I saw the film and it never really occurred to me to attempt to read that thick volume when I got older. Besides, in my mind, many of those older books were quite boring. This was ignoring the fact the book is one of the most read in the English-speaking world. It was a bit like my preconceived notion of Pride and Prejudice as one of those old stuffy books of old…only to discover in the past ten years that it’s an amazingly funny book.
I recently acquired an iPad 2 which I’ve found even better for reading ebooks than the iPod Touch I got a couple years ago. I was browsing through the books available there and discovered Gone with the Wind was one of their collection. They had a sample of the book available for download and and tried it out and really enjoyed it. Now I’ve gotten the full book so I can continue the saga without lugging a bit book around. What I’ve found incredibly interesting are the references to towns located near Forest Park. Towns like Jonesboro were part of my growing up years.
Forest Park won’t rate a mention in the book because it didn’t exist at that time. While reading the book, I wondered what the origins of my childhood home were. I must admit I didn’t find much information but apparently it was originally a stop on the railway line to and from Atlanta and called Forest Station. What particularly attracted my attention was the fact it had once had the nickname of Stumptown.
In December 1976 we moved from Forest Park in Georgia to Matthews, North Carolina, just outside Charlotte. The city has an annual festival called Stumptown Festival, which celebrates the original name of Matthews, NC. So last night I discovered that the two places I lived during my childhood both had been called Stumptown, either officially or unofficially, at one time. I think it’s a pretty cool coincidence.
And while doing my online searches on this topic, I came across a blog called Stumptown, which relates to Forest Park, and relates some details of the area over the years. I have known for many years that the demographic of our old neighorhood is totally different to the white, middle class one where I grew up. I think there was a drastic shift that occurred within fifteen to twenty years or so and now it’s mostly low-income “minority” groups in the area. Family and friends have told me it’s very run down in the area now. The blog I mention often blames the encroachment of the Atlanta airport and with it so near, I suppose that could be a significant factor.
I went looking at our old house on Google maps and it looked rather different to how I remembered it. Some of the trees block the view of the house and it’s been painted a different color. But when I shifted the view to the other houses around it, they didn’t look so different to me. Lots of memories flooded back of the people who once lived on the street with us. In some ways, it didn’t look so different to the way I remember it. There were still lots of beautiful trees in bloom in front of many of the homes. I’ve been told it’s quite run down in that area now but I wonder if maybe this little area might be in better shape than some if these images are anything to go by. I found out the house hasn’t been sold since 1998, which I also found interesting.
Still I don’t know if I’d want to go back and see it now as I’ve wished to do for so long. I think it might just make me sad to see the area in such bad shape. And it’s likely that I’d have pretty limited recognition of any landmarks at this point. One of the main reasons I had wanted to revisit was to see the old woods near our house. It was full of trails created by local kids and there were some large boulders that many of us have climbed over the years. I have some really fond memories of riding my bicycle there and meeting up with friends. And I also have a memory of being sent to buy something for my mom and getting lost in there once. I was last there when I was eleven and it seemed such a massive maze of trails but I wanted to see if it was really as big as I remember. A few years ago I discovered the woods were finally knocked down and now there are residential streets in its place. It wasn’t that surprising but still weird to think that was gone now.
I did see that the library there still stands and found photos showing it’s much as I remember it. Funnily enough, it’s not a place we had been that many times but I had some distinct memories of it for being a two story building which I thought was kind of neat. Seems it was only opened in 1969, so it must have been fairly shiny and new at the time we visited.
All sorts of memories have emerged from the closed vaults of my brain. I really must start writing this down as it’s getting harder and harder to recall things over time and I like the idea of creating a personal history for my records…maybe even have something to share with my kids should they ever show any interest.
-
Waffles
I don’t think I ever posted about the road trip we took while in the US last year. My mom, Lego Lover and I went from Fort Worth, TX to Western Pennsylvania over the course of two days. Originally the plan was to drive straight through, taking a day and a half. It became clear by the time we reached Tennessee that this plan wasn’t feasible and we needed to stay overnight somewhere. We stopped at what I think might have been a Super 8 or something of that ilk. The desk clerk’s English left something to be desired and the facilities weren’t great. But it was a place to sleep and that’s what we did for about six or seven hours. We even took time to have quick showers before heading out again later in the morning. On our return trip, we did a bit more planning and found more suitable accommodation at a place that I think was called Country Suites. We found a coupon in a travel booklet and for less than the price of the previous room, we had a room and breakfast. And it was a much nicer facility.
The highlight of that stay was the lovely breakfast offered the next morning. Available was cereal, toast, eggs, country biscuits with gravy and I can’t remember what else. And then there were the waffles. They had a couple Belgian waffle irons set up with cups of batter so we could make our own. Lego Lover absolutely loved this and Mom and I liked it too.
When we got back from our trip, a waffle iron was something that was highly desired. We particularly wanted a Belgian waffle maker. At that time, however, nobody seemed to have any in stock. I did eventually find a waffle maker in Myer, one of the more upmarket department stores. But it wasn’t the right type and was kind of expensive. Plus the reviews I read weren’t particularly favorable. Online research turned up some alternatives but they didn’t seem to be available in the usual stores. A couple months down the road, I was looking at the frequent flyer points catalog online and discovered a Sunbeam Belgian waffle maker just like we wanted. I ordered it right away and a week or so later it arrived at our house.
I’ve made waffles several times since then and it’s always a treat. Only one batch came out badly and that was due to my alterations of some ingredients. On the weekend, Lego Lover told me he was craving waffles, which was his round about way of asking me to make them. I said I’d see what i could do. Meanwhile, Game Fanatic asked if I could make some chocolate chip ones too. We had some chocolate left over from a cooking venture of some sort so I also told him I’d see what I could do. I’ve never made anything but plain waffles before so wasn’t sure how this would work out. On Sunday, I made one batch of plain and for the second batch added in chocolate chips and Milo malted milk powder. They turned out rather well although it left a lot of mess to clean up in an appliance that can’t be immersed. The boys and the Scientist seemed to enjoy all they had. I was lucky to get one of the last chocolate chip ones and it was pretty good.
Lego Lover ate the most, which was pretty amazing considering he’s the smallest of the family. It’s obvious he’s well into puberty and adolescence because he’s now eating very much like a typical teenager. I don’t know where he keeps all that food because he’s become tall and lanky over the better part of the past year. He hasn’t surpassed me in height just yet but it surely won’t be long when he’s growing as fast as he is.
-
The good and not so good news
I managed to catch up with my mom twice in as many days recently, which was pretty unusual. Even though we’d exchanged much family information on the first night, there was more big news on the second one.
The good news:
My cousin, who is about ten years younger than me, has recently announced she is pregnant. She and her husband had been trying to have a baby for a long time and had pretty much given up on the idea. So it’s pretty happy news for the couple.
And the not so good:
My grandmother is 89 years old and suffers from a number of health issues, including diabetes, heart problems and eye problems. In the past couple of years, her mobility has decreased considerably but she was still able to live independently. Fortunately, her mental faculties have continued to be quite sharp, in contrast to a much younger sister who suffer Alzheimer’s disease. Her vision loss is what has upset her the most as she is no longer able to read books or do her crossword puzzles. She has recently been in hospital and then rehab on several occasions for one problem after another. The latest ailment has been terrible back pain. The doctors are saying it’s arthritis even though she has never suffered this before. And apparently it cannot be treated. The upshot of all this is she is going to have to move into a home and lose much of her independence.
With all the health issues, I think it’s quite possible she won’t be around all that much longer. I certainly hate to think of her suffering such terrible pain on a daily basis. But it’s hard to think of the not-so-distant future without her in it. I’ve been pretty lucky to have her around for so much of my life. And since I most probably won’t see her again, I’m glad I was able to visit her this time last year when she still had some mobility and was living independently. For now, I just hope that she doesn’t have to spend the last of her life in pain and discomfort.
