A really nice thing today was a phone call from my mother and father-in-law. They had been traveling and were on their way home and said that they were going to be driving right past our town and wanted to know if we wanted to meet up for dinner at the little diner at the edge of town. We got to see all of their pictures and hear about the adventures they had. It was just a nice relaxing evening visiting with them.
Not that we don't see them often, we do, they live only an hour away and we get together all of the time when they are home, but they both just retired a few months ago and have been taking time to travel and enjoy themselves and that means that recently we haven't seen them so often. That is part of why seeing them tonight was so nice.
My new good thing for today is that Pokemon GO just came out yesterday. That means that today, my house was silent. The kid's boyfriend came over and they went and walked all over town (okay, admittedly that only takes about 15 minutes or so) hunting for Pokemon to catch and finding all of the various locations to pick up gems and items and whatnot. I don't know a whole lot about the game, but apparently it is a game you download on your phone and then you wander around and it directs you to things to catch and collect in random spots all over town.
Our town is so small that I didn't expect there to be a lot of locations for the game, but there are enough people playing in town (according to the kids) that there are quite a handful of locations for them to get stuff. So, they walked and wandered and I had the house to myself while the kid was conned into getting outside and getting exercise by her new game. Win/Win!
The family is still loving the pokemon game. They went out walking a handful of times today and while we were out walking last night we had a minivan pass us with a dad driving and 4 or 5 kids all piled in the back. The girl in the front seat leaned out of the window and said "Pokemon! What team?" (There are three teams - red, yellow, and blue) and we went over and the girls talked and found out that they are on the same color team and have been helping each other out throughout the day today. The girl is about Quin's age,, maybe a year or so older, but Quin is excited that she made a new friend.
My good thing for today is that we got to go to the renaissance faire. It is my "home faire", the one I went to for the first time as a teenager and then spent a handful of summers working at in my early 20's. A friend who still works there hooked us up with tickets and it was wonderful.
The best part of the day was wandering into a random jewelry shop and finding "my" ring. Back, the very first season we worked there was just a couple of months before Russ and I got married. One of the actors played the Archbishop and he came by our shop while we happened to be talking about some wedding plans and he then ran out and gathered a whole big group of the cast and plotted up a "wedding" for us that evening before closing. It was literally 3 days before we were picking up our wedding rings set from having them sized and when the Archbishop (I forget the actor's name) asked Russ if he had a ring for me Russ said "not yet" and the guy told Russ to go out and get me one. Russ went to the jewelry shop and got a pretty little chevron shaped band with tiny delicate scroll work that was a beautiful sterling silver (I prefer silver jewelry to gold and Russ remembered that). That evening, before closing festivities, a HUGE group of cast members, ranging from street performers to the Queen's Court, showed up outside our shop and the Archbishop "married" us.
So, we were "faire married" and Russ gave me the pretty little ring during the "ceremony". I wore it for about 10 years with my wedding set before it wore thin and the bottom of the band got a tiny hairline crack in it and I had to stop wearing it. I still have it tucked away in a jewelry box, but for the next 10 years we have been searching - every summer - in all of the jewelry shops because Russ couldn't remember the name of the shop he got the ring at, but we wanted to replace it. We never had any luck and never saw that particular ring again. Then today, some shiny little something or other caught my eye and I wandered into the shop and there it was - my ring! Russ told the lady at the shop why I was so excited and she said that it was one of their very first designs and that they usually don't have it, but they had some for some reason this year just by chance.
They had just one that was close to my size, but still the smallest one they had. I won't be able to wear it with my wedding set, but it fits perfectly on a couple other fingers and I am so excited that this was absolutely the highlight of my day.
Russ came home the other day with a new fruit. Fresh fruit is my go-to snacky food most of the time and Russ tends to keep me well stocked with various fresh fruits. He knows that I like plums and he said he saw this box of tiny little plums and they were different looking so he decided to see what they were. The box said "A new kind of fruit. Verry Cherry Plum!" They are a cross between a cherry and a plum. I was skeptical, but tried one and they are amazing. This is a new favorite at our house.
They have a website at: Verry Cherry Plum that tells more about them. My worry now is that they are some kind of limited time item and might not be a permanent regular thing.
Glencairn,Sounds like you need to order a Very Cherry Plum tree for your yard! I fell in love with Asian Pear Apples, at at nearly $3.00 each pear-apple, I decided to buy the tree.
Some years i get a lot of fruit, other years just a few. This year I will be making a LOT of pear-apple sauce and butter!
Pear apples sound really good. I love both, so that is another thing that I should see if I can find. I don't know if you can buy the verry cherry plum trees or not, but that is a great idea. I will definitely be looking into that. I think the weirdest fruit mix that I have ever come across was not technically a mix, but it is called a grapple (pronounced Grape-el) and it is an apple that is infused with grape flavoring. We tried those once and it is good, but not necessarily something that I would eat on a regular basis. They have a web site that explains how they make the apples have the grape flavoring Grapple Fruits.
Russ came home with more of the cherry plums and regular plums and grapes and cherries, so I am set for the next few days with snacks.
You are not going to believe this! A few years ago I bought an ornamental plum tree that has the most beautiful red leaves, and the prettiest pink flowers in spring.
I was under the impression that it wasn't supposed to bear fruit, yet every year it has more and more plums on it. I just looked up Vesuvious Plum tree and found that the fruit is indeed edible- and called 'cherry plum'.
When I told my husband, he said he's been eating them for a long time!
That is beautiful! I would love to have that just for the way it looks, beyond that, the fruit would just be a happy bonus.
Today for dinner we had chicken with a new marinade/sauce and it was amazing. It was a garlic chipotle lime BBQ sauce. We stopped to see our favorite garlic seasoning shop at the renaissance faire and saw this sauce that we hadn't tried before and decided to get a bottle. I am so glad we did and so happy that they have a website (Garlic Festival) so that I can order some more. We have gotten some of their other dry seasonings for years, in fact we buy them in the BIG containers now, and use the regular garli-garni and/or lemon-garni in just about everything. They had a fire roasted garlic oil that we were considering buying and ended up going with the sauce instead, but I think that the next time we order from them, I will be trying the oil, too.
I just wanted to share how happy I was with the way dinner turned out with the new sauce. I love the marinade sauces that we usually use, but desperately wanted something different today. Now I just have to get more and this will likely become a regular for us.
Russ stoped at a cupcake bakery on his way home from work today and picked up a handful of cupcakes for us. They sent a menu with him and everything they sell sounds wonderful. The best part: they sell dog safe/healthy cupcakes. Russ got one that was carrot cake for our dog, Wicket, and it had frosting that was okay for him to eat with a little dog bone on the top. It was about half the size of the regular cup cakes and that was perfect. Wicket was so excited that he got to have his very own dessert that looked just like the one his baby (Quin) was eating. I don't remember the name of the place, though. It was just neat to find a bakery that sold treats for pets, too.
A bit of good news of sorts. I had another appointment with the doctor today and another blood draw for another white blood cell test. The good news is that the doctor said that if the results of this one come back and my white blood cell count is down where it should be that I won't have to go see the hematologist. This is good because just yesterday I got my new patient paperwork to fill out and it came in a big white envelope with the logo and "Illinois Cancer Care" in big letters on the front and it kind of hit me how real it is that this might not be just a random infection, but something serious. So, I am crossing my fingers and hoping that the counts are down and I don't have to go see this specialist. Doc said he would be calling tomorrow sometime with the results, so hopefully it won't be too long of a wait.
He also ordered a HIDA scan to be done. This is a pain (literally) because they inject something that causes the gallbladder to contract so they can determine how it is working. I am not looking forward to this. Unfortunately, this has to be done because the drug that causes that gallbladder to contract didn't start taking effect until a bit after the test was done and we were on the way home the first time I had the scan done. That means that they might not have an accurate picture of the situation if the test didn't happen correctly. So, doctor wants a new one done.
It won't be fun, but it might be at least one more thing that is determined or ruled out.
Glencairn,Hmmm....if your gallblader didn't start contracting until much later than expected, I would think it's operating a little on the slugish side.....
It sounds like you've finally found someone in healthcare that isn't so dismissive! Here's hoping they find the root cause and that it's easily treatable!
GRRRRR!!!! Just got off the phone with the Doctor's nurse with my blood test results and she said that my white blood cell count is still really high and doctor said that I do need to keep the appointment with the hematologist to figure out why the WBC count won't come down. So, scary appointment at the cancer center is still a go. On the plus side, I guess, is that the hospital called to set up my appointment for the HIDA scan and it is going to be in a week, so at least it isn't a long wait to get that done. That one is also only a 4 hour fast before the test and much easier for me to do since I don't tend to eat breakfast often and the test is in the morning...so no eating while I am asleep, basically.