Thu., Apr. 10 - Fri., Apr. 11

Something funny happened today. I want to blog about it.

But first, yesterday was Thursday. I did some laundry, but all of my spare minutes were spent on the phone and on the computer learning more about home loans. Not terribly exciting to write about. Elaine's flight to TX for Friday morning (today) on AA was cancelled, so she spent the evening after she got off work at the airport; thankfully they were able to get her on a flight out a couple hours later than the original flight, and ... she got to fly first class!! However, that meant we had to come up with an alternate child care plan; we were scheduled to have an adults only dinner with Roderick, Magdalena, Raphael, and Crimelda that evening at Daisy Mae's Steakhouse. (Their treat! What a wonderful parting gift it was ... not even so much the food, but the hours of spiritually-beneficial time in such good company.) Dick and Shirley ended up keeping N & J for us. They ate McDonald's together and played Cornhole 'til it got dark, then watched "How It's Made" on TV. :) We picked them up at 8:30 p.m. 'cause Shirley said if it was after 8 p.m. she'd charge us double. (hee hee. Jeremy: "Okay, Shirley, what's double of 'free'??) We got a good report on the entire evening. Yay!

Friday. I have a significant one-hour financial phone call I really wanted to make today, but it got crowded out because of a combination of not watching time carefully enough and trying to get too much done in one day. GR. Tonight was the night of our final meal to be shared with Dick and Shirley. (heavy sigh) I made Lemon Greek Chicken, a recipe I definitely need to post here. Y.U.M. She brought rice and a dessert! For breakfast I made French Toast using a wonderful, quick, simple recipe I invented years ago by combining the best things of a number of French Toast recipes I'd tried. I'll post it below, since you ask me to post recipes when I can. After lunch the children and I enjoyed another bike ride, except this time we biked our entire neighborhood for the first time; have I expressed how much satisfaction is mine gliding along watching our two children glide along in front of me?? This has been a LONG TIME in coming, and I thrill that both children learned to ride at the same time!! I was super-proud of Natasha on this bike ride today. A dog was escaping from his yard, a dog who doesn't like bicycles, his young female owner told us. The dog was clearly untrained, and it was large, a breed I'd never heard before: Belgian Malinois http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.bigpawsonly.com/dog-images/belgian-malinois-picture.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.bigpawsonly.com/Belgian-Malinois-breed.htm&h=244&w=300&sz=26&hl=en&start=9&um=1&tbnid=-aTRx6_cFcWTeM:&tbnh=94&tbnw=116&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbelgian%2Bdog%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1T4GZHZ_enUS230US230%26sa%3DN. It did not obey the Come command any of the times the owner called it. She did let us know immediately that the dog was nice, it just doesn't like bikes, so I instructed the children to just stop, and a few minutes later called the dog over to me, just to be friendly. It came RIGHT to me; I petted it some, and it went away again. Then Justus decided he would rather be away from the dog, so he rode his bike over closer to me. The dog got all flustered again, and the owner continued calling it, to no avail. She actually said, "Why don't you call him again? He came to you!" So I did, and he did, and this time I grabbed his collar. She dragged him back to their back yard. (sigh) What I'm so proud of Natasha about is that even though it was surprising and a little frightening to be chased after by a big dog, she held herself together perfectly and never even faltered on her bicycle. Actually, neither did Justus, but it was Natasha who the dog started chasing first.

Today I did get a touch of house cleaning done, which was good since I've done zero of that in the past three weeks. It's also good that I cleaned a little because of the company we're scheduled to enjoy tomorrow evening, Saturday: the Blounts and Balderramas! I'm making homemade, build-it-yourself pizzas. Tommy & Shavon are in town this weekend having brought Chris to the Mountain Avenue Youth Rally. Awesome timing, eh??

Dick and Shirley were just wrapping up their time with us this evening when the phone rang. It was Shavon. We knew they were planning to sleep at Jim & Lillian's, but ... their house is really small, and with all our space, I offered to have them sleep here instead. It turned out that's what happened!!!! Talk about last-minute! LOL [This is the thing that happened today that I referred to as 'funny'. It just tickles my funny bone when unexpected, pleasant things like this pop up, and we all just go along with the flow, as though it's perfectly normal!! LOL!!] Tommy & Shavon are, at this moment, downstairs on the hide-a-bed mattress - on the floor - since the mattress isn't good enough on the frame (gr). Zane is down there with them. Teah is on an air mattress in N's room: Her first 'sleepover', so to speak; they are 'perfect little ladies' together ... just read their respective "two chapters", and silently turned out the light and went to sleep. G-r-e-a-t. We are ssso thankful to have a little bit of time with their family before we depart. Oh! And they brought The Hulk, of course, their Min-Pin (Miniature Pinscher) who's exactly Jabba's age, so it's a dog free-for-all, VERY funny to watch. What a(nother) day! :)


French Toast

4 eggs
1/2 c. milk
1/8 t. salt
1/8 t. fresh ground pepper
1/2 t. vanilla
1/8 t. nutmeg
Beat together in a flat-bottom dish, as you would for scrambled eggs. Heat a frying pan to 350 or 375 degrees, then spray it with oil.

8 slices bread
Dip one slice into the egg mixture, coating both sides. Cook in skillet approx. 3-4 minutes per side. Continue with additional slices as space allows.

Optional toppings:
butter
syrup (maple, etc.)
honey
jam
powdered sugar

[This could also be made into French Toast Sticks, by slicing each piece of bread into thirds before dipping.]