Sunday Dinner, July 19, 2009 & Update On Lamar's Eye

Another week has flown by and it's time once again for my Sunday Dinner post. And once again, I feel like a fraud because I'm not cooking again this week.

My church is having breakfast before Sunday School in the morning and I have to cook something for that. I'm thinking I'll take the stuff to make cream gravy and make it after I get there. I can't stand cold, gloppy gravy and the only way to keep it hot would be to put it into the crockpot. And I'm not so sure that it wouldn't be icky from setting in the crockpot and sticking to the sides, so I'm just not going to go there.

Anyway, since most of my crew will be eating breakfast at church, I'm not sure how many of us will be all that hungry for lunch anyway, so I'm not cooking. If we're hungry after church we can go out to eat somewhere and everyone can choose their own menu according to how hungry they are by then.

So, what are your plans for Sunday Dinner? Just leave a comment sharing your plans or menu if you'd like.I chose that corn graphic for my Sunday Dinner button this week because we've been blessed with lots of fresh garden produce lately, including fresh sweet corn. So far we've been given sweet corn, tomatoes, green beans, onions, okra, green bell peppers, yellow summer squash, cucumbers, and I'm sure I'm forgetting something else.

One of my very favorite things to do with fresh sweet corn is to make this delicious CORN SALAD. A friend shared her recipe with me several years ago and I've adapted it to my own tastes. It's quick, easy, delicious and refreshing, especially on a hot Summer's day.

I made a huge bowl of corn relish on Tuesday night using fresh sweet corn, tomatoes and green bell peppers, all given to us by friends and family. If I do say so myself, it was yummy! And that huge bowl of corn relish is now history, because I finished off the last of it about 11:30 pm Friday night as a snack. Yum!I can't type this post without making mention of the wonderful, unseasonably cool weather we've been enjoying for the last several days. After some thunderstorms and desperately needed rain during the middle of the week, a cold front has descended upon us and cooled us down considerably.

After several weeks of 100F+ temps and near 100% humidity with no rainfall, we're now enjoying low humidity and highs in the low 80'sF, and near record nightly lows. Our low here today was 61F, and the record is 58F, so tonight we may break that record. Today's high was 80F and it almost felt like a Fall day. Can't ask for much better than that for July in Arkansas.

Thank you, Lord, for your blessings!Now, for the update on Lamar's eye.

We saw the retina specialist from Memphis yesterday at the Jonesboro office. He told us that Lamar's eye is looking much better from the overall health standpoint. The swelling is gone and the optic nerve is completely back to normal, and the inflammation is all gone.

Dr. Meyer talked to the infectious disease specialist himself and got all the particulars from the bloodwork that was done to test for various infections. They found no sign of any kind of infection in Lamar's blood so that's good, and now we know for sure that the infection that attacked his eye to begin with has run its course and is no longer a threat to him.

However, we'll probably never know what caused the infection.

Lamar is still taking prednisone by mouth but is being gradually weaned off it, and is now only using prednisone drops in his eye to help with residual blood in his eye from the original hemhorrage. At this time it looks like the blood in his eye is what's clouding his vision, and if it eventually resorbs into the tissue of his eye he should get most if not all his vision back in that eye.

It's just too early to tell and time is what's needed now to see if the blood will resorb on its own. We go back to Dr. Meyer in 3 weeks so he can assess Lamar's eye again. According to how much the blood is resorbing or not, Dr. Meyer may do a procedure with a needle to try to draw some of the old blood from the eye to try to restore Lamar's vision.

So now we watch and wait some more, but we're very thankful that the worst seems to be over and that Lamar may eventually have some if not all the sight restored in that eye.

Many, many thanks to all who've prayed for Lamar during this time. You'll never know how much we appreciate your prayers, love and friendship, and I pray you're blessed a thousand times over for your kindness toward us.Potty training is progressing with Miss Emmy, some days with more success than others. I have her with me Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from around 10 am to 6:30 pm. Some days she never has an accident at all, and some days it's a little harder for her to make it to the potty in time. We've only been seriously trying to potty train her for a couple of weeks, so I know she'll improve with practice. Wish us luck and success!There's a possibility MY SISTER DONNA and I may go camping soon, but it's not a done deal yet. We didn't get to go to GUNNER POOL at all last year and we're both champing at the bit to get away for a while. Since I only have Emmy Wed.-Friday that leaves us Sat.-Tues. to get there, set up, camp and get back home. Too bad we couldn't have gone this weekend while it's so unseasonably cool, but maybe we can go soon. Stay tuned for further developments on that front.And now I'm gonna get this posted and see about our Saturday supper. I think we're having fried egg sandwiches, and I also have some garden ripe tomatoes, so I think one of my sandwiches will be sliced tomato with mayo on toast. My egg sandwich will be on toast too, but Lamar won't eat a sandwich with toast, the cretin. ;o)Y'all have a great weekend. May God richly bless you by meeting all your needs, and may you have enough to share.