Sunday Dinner, March 7, 2010

It's been a long day and it's not over yet, my friends. However, for once I already have my Sunday Dinner menu decided upon and as soon as I get this post published I'll commence to cooking feverishly to make it happen.

Part of my long day involved doing my monthly grocery run to Wal*mart on Saturday morning. I picked up a beef chuck roast to cut up into stew meat. It's big enough that I think I can get 2 meals from it, so I'll probably cook only half of it for this meal.

I'm going to make beef stroganoff with the stew meat. I'll also cook a big pot of wide curly egg noodles to serve with the stroganoff, and I'm going to cook some baby green lima beans. I have a pot of leftover green beans cooked with ham and potatoes that I may warm up to add to the meal if anybody shows any interest in them.

So, homemade beef stroganoff, curly wide egg noodles, baby green lima beans and possibly green beans cooked with ham and potatoes.

Oh, and I'm making 2 HONEYBUN CAKES (scroll down to second recipe) for a bake sale that my church ladies' group is sponsoring, so I'm going to buy one of them and keep it for dessert, so we can add a honeybun cake to the menu.

What's on the menu for Sunday Dinner at your place? Are you going to Grandma's or a fancy restaurant? Share your plans/menu in the comments if you'd like to participate this week.As I mentioned earlier, I did my monthly grocery shopping this morning. I spent nearly $140 (remember, that's for a month's worth of groceries) and almost every item I bought was food. The only exceptions were some coffee filters and some eye drops and a $3 prescription copay.

After spending nearly $140 I could almost carry every single grocery bag in both hands. If you discount the 10 lb. sack of potatoes I got, I think I could carry everything in one trip from the car. *Sigh......*

We made a quick stop at Kentucky*Fried*Chicken to eat from their lunch buffet before we headed home. I put up all my groceries and then crashed here in my recliner with my laptop to do a little Facebooking and then napped a bit.

I think I feel worse than I did before I napped though. Hmm...And I still have to cook the stroganoff and lima beans and bake those cakes. I'm going to do my best to get my cooking done and study my Sunday School lesson as soon as possible so I can (hopefully!) get to bed at a decent hour. I think I just need some sleep and I'm hoping I'm not getting sick.

Lamar's eye surgery went fine on Tuesday and so did his follow up visit on Wednesday. Lamar says he can't tell any difference in his vision although the doctor seemed to think the surgery improved his vision a bit. Lamar still has no vision in half of his left eye, and the half that does still have vision is 20/70.

Before all the trouble with his eye Lamar had better than 20/20 vision in both eyes, so this has been a real struggle for him to adjust to this diminished vision. Lamar has no hope that he'll recover any sight in his damaged eye and is ready to move on now. He says he won't be having any more surgeries or treatments unless the doctors can promise a big improvement in his sight.

It's been 10 months since the initial virus attacked Lamar's eye and none of the treatments, medications or surgeries have restored any of Lamar's sight or improved the vision he has left in that eye. We figure if there was going to be any improvement it would have already happened after all the procedures and medications he's tried.

At this point we're just grateful that Lamar still has excellent vision in his right eye and that the virus didn't do any other damage to that eye or attack another part of his body. Viruses can do some strange things, that's for sure.

I finally got my inside utility room/pantry cleaned, decluttered and reorganized to suit me. Other than magically having more room in there I've done all I can do to best utilize the space I have. I bought some clear Rubber*maid plastic containers with screw on lids to use as canisters and it's made all the difference in world. I can see everything without having to open the canisters first and the square containers fit closely together with no wasted space, unlike the round canisters I was using before.

I still have a lot to do here in my living room and that's next on my to-do list, whenever I get around to it.

To report on the flannel sheets I mentioned a few weeks ago, I can just say, "eh." They'll be okay when it's really cold, but the rest of the year they're going to be too warm for me. I also don't really care for the fact that the nap on the flannel clings to you as you're trying to scoot or turn over in the bed. I still much prefer my 100% cotton sheets, thank you very much.

There are signs of Spring all around now. My daffodils are loaded with plump buds and my flowering quince is as well, both ready to explode into bloom any day now. After a colder and snowier than average Winter for our area, we're finally beginning to warm up here in Northeast Arkansas.

Our temps have still been below average for this time of year, but slowly the grass is greening up and all the trees are showing those feathery signs of budding out. The last several days have been sunny and gorgeous with highs near 60F, though it's still dipping below freezing at night.

I still prefer Winter but Spring romances me with its luscious greens and joyful flowers and crystal clear days. If we could just skip those miserable Summer days when it tops 100F and you can wring the humidity out of the air, that would be just grand with me. But nobody asked me, now did they? So I'll continue to take each day as it comes and be thankful for every day that God allows me to open my eyes to a new day.

I think I've probably bored you all enough and I should get busy in the kitchen if I don't want to be up half the night cooking and baking.

Y'all have a blessed Lord's Day. May God meet all your needs and may you have enough to share, dear family and friends.