Sunday Dinner, November 15, 2009

Whew! What a week this has been! For that matter, what a day it's been.

Jessica has worked 12 hour shifts every day this week except Tuesday and Thursday, from 7 am to 7 pm, which means that I've had Emmy from 8:30 am until 6:30 pm each of those days. Jason works 9 am-6 pm, so on the days Jessica works 12 hour shifts he drops off Emmy and picks her up as well.

I'm more than ready for Jessica to go back to her usual 3-11 pm shifts next week. Not nearly as ready as she is though, I'm sure.

Saturday was supposed to be Jessica's day off, which meant that I wasn't supposed to keep Emmy today. However, another tech called in sick, so they called Jessica to work, which meant that I've had Emmy from 12-6:00 pm today. Jason got off a little early today, but not much.

In addition to watching Emmy today I've been cooking most of the afternoon and evening. My church is having our Thanksgiving dinner after Sunday morning services and we're all taking food, pot luck style.

I've been planning all week to do all my cooking for the Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday afternoon so I had to do that in addition to cooking Saturday night's supper and watching Emmy.

If I'd known that I'd have Emmy today I could have done some of my cooking ahead of time, but to be honest I probably wouldn't have even if I'd known. I tend to leave things till the last minute and then charge to the finish line with my hair on fire.

I prefer to think of that bad character trait as "working better with a deadline,", but whatever. To-may-toes, to-mah-toes.

Anyway, after all that foot dragging, here's my Saturday Supper/Sunday Dinner/Thanksgiving Dinner menu.

I made a huge dishpan full of homemade Southern Sage Cornbread dressing. Not "stuffing", dressing. And not from a recipe either, but from watching my Mama make it from scratch from the time I was big enough to stand in a kitchen chair and ask too many questions and just generally get in the way a lot.

I boiled about 5 lbs of chicken until the broth was rich, flavorful and concentrated. I also made 2 cast iron skillets of HOMEMADE BUTTERMILK CORNBREAD to use in the dressing. I diced a huge onion into my big dishpan and then crumbled the warm cornbread on top of the onion.

I also tore up about a half a loaf of really stale bread and added to the dishpan, then seasoned it all with black pepper and sage, then poured the broth over all and started mixing it with a potato masher. My Mama always used a potato masher and it just works, okay?

I smell the dressing and add more pepper and sage if needed, add more broth if I think it's a little too dry, then bake the dressing at 375* until brown and bubbly.

And that's the only recipe I have. I never measure anything and I don't think I could write down an accurate recipe if I tried. I learned from watching my Mama and helping her, and then from experience as I've made my dressing over the years.

If you want to make homemade dressing and this sounds a little too complicated for you, you might want to check out my recipe for CROCKPOT DRESSING. It's not the same as my Mama's dressing, but it's really good and I like both kinds of dressing. I might even go so far as to say I like the CROCKPOT DRESSING better than my Mama's version. *Shhhhhhh......*

I cooked a small pan of the dressing for Saturday night's supper for me, Lamar and Emmy, and put the rest in my 6 quart crockpot. I put the crock in the oven to bake and it's now cooling to go into the fridge for the night.

I'll set the alarm to get up early and put the crock of dressing into the crockpot base, then turn it on to heat. By the time I'm ready to leave for church on Sunday morning it should be heated through, and when I get to church with it I'll plug it in and turn it on warm to stay hot until time for our meal.

I also made a dozen and a half deviled eggs to take for the meal. I fully intended to make a HONEYBUN CAKE (scroll down past the Pumpkin Bread) but by the time I got the deviled eggs done I felt like I'd been pulled through a knot hole backwards, so dressing and deviled eggs it is.

For our Saturday Supper I cooked some butterpeas and fixed some sauerkraut and smoked sausage cooked together, we ate some of the chicken I boiled to make the broth for the dressing, and we also had that small pan of dressing I cooked for our supper.

Lamar's eye is still the same. It looks better overall and his eye specialist says that the inside of his eye is better too, so much so that Lamar isn't supposed to go back to the specialist until December 11, barring anymore crises. Praise the Lord for that! Lamar is still on all those medications, though........

And now it's almost 10:30 pm and Diane is one TARD girl tonight. I still need to study my Sunday School lesson and do a few other tasks and then I'll be going to bed before too much longer. This week has worn me out, so I can only imagine how exhausted Jessica must be.

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving week. May God bless you with all you need, and may you have enough to share, dear family and friends.

Another Update On Lamar's Eye

It's just after 8 pm my time as I'm typing this. Jessica drove Lamar's Mom's car and they rode in the front while Lamar and I rode in the back seat. We left our apartment at 11 am and made good time, arriving at Lamar's eye specialist's office about 12:15 pm.

Lamar's appointment wasn't until 1 pm but we wanted to have some extra time to allow for heavy traffic or other delays. As it happened, we didn't actually see the doctor until 3:30, but isn't that the way it usually goes?

As we hoped, Lamar's eye looks much better, according to the tests they performed in the office and what the doctor saw when he examined Lamar's eye. The pressure in his bad eye was down to 5 and 10 in his good eye, which are excellent numbers.

That's the good news.

The bad news? They still have no idea what is wrong with Lamar's eye, how long this may last or if it will later affect another part of his body. Lamar's taking an antiviral and they're assuming that since his eye is getting better that it must be some form of virus, but at this point they're not even certain of that.

Lamar has to call the virologist that he saw back in the Summer when this all started with his eye, and we may be making another trip to Memphis soon to see the virologist. We're assuming that she may want to draw blood for more tests, but we won't know about that until later.

Also, there's a possibility that Lamar may have to have surgery on his eye again, but that's still to be determined. The eye specialist is the one pushing for the surgery, but the eye surgeon is hesitant and we're a little hesitant about another surgery as well.

For one thing, Lamar couldn't tell much difference in his vision after the other surgery, and every surgery has risks of infection and other complications.

Also, if this is going to keep happening to Lamar's eye, why go through this every few months? Eventually the scarring from the surgeries will harm more than it helps.

As you can imagine, we are still dealing with more questions than answers. So much uncertainty and it's weighing on us every day, especially Lamar.

Another thing is the medicines that Lamar is taking every day. He is taking prednisone by mouth along with the antiviral and two more forms of prednisone eye drops, as well as a drop that keeps his eye dilated to ease the pressure in his eye.

Lamar has been on prednisone constantly since May and this can't continue indefinitely. Pred has many side effects with long term use, and one is suppression of the immune system, which is definitely something that Lamar doesn't need at this time.

One of the main reasons for seeing the virologist is to see if she can prescribe an anti-inflammatory that has the same benefits of prednisone without the side effects. Lamar will call her office in Memphis on Wednesday to try to set up an appointment with the virologist, if she thinks it's necessary.

Lamar will see the eye specialist again on Friday at the Jonesboro office, so we may get more news then, but we're not holding our breath. We hope to get answers, but it's so frustrating to still be without any real answers after all this time.

Lamar's problems with his eye began on May 13th and we're no closer to having a diagnosis and treatment plan now, almost 6 months later to the day, than we were back in May. And that's after countless tests, visits to eye doctors and specialists, virologists and eye surgeons, one surgery and a pharmacy full of drugs!

But, we know that God is in control, and the Great Physician will work all this out according to His will, not ours.

Please keep praying and thinking those good thoughts for us. You'll never know how much we appreciate those who are lifting us up in prayer daily before God's throne. I pray God's richest blessings on all of you, dear family and friends.

That's about all I can share right now, but if we learn anything new I'll post another update as soon as I can.

I hope everyone is having a great week.

Sunday Dinner, November 8, 2009 & Assorted Blatherings

This has been an eventful week in some ways, and just a common, ordinary week in others.

Is that wishy washy enough for you? Then you'll be delighted to know that the rest of this post will be chock full of even more of the stuff.

Let's deal with Sunday Dinner first, shall we?

I gave my usual Sunday Dinner guests a choice of going out to eat at Cracker Barrel or having white beans, cornbread and spaghetti chicken from my freezer stash, and the general consensus favored eating out at Cracker Barrel.

Works for me and I can use one of my gift cards for Cracker Barrel that a dear friend gave me for my birthday. I really like the part where someone else cooks the food, serves it to me and cleans up afterward too.

What's for Sunday Dinner at your place? Share your plans/menu in the comments if you'd like.Lamar's eye is looking and feeling much better, praise the Lord! Thank you all so much for your prayers and keeping him in your thoughts. Of course that's just what we can see on the surface, so we have no idea what's actually happening inside the eye.

Lamar goes back to Memphis on Tuesday to see the specialist and I'll try to post an update with any news as soon as we hear anything.

We still have so many unanswered questions regarding the cause of Lamar's eye condition, any further treatment, if it can be cured or if it will be a recurring thing and so many more questions. We hope to have at least some of these questions answered on Tuesday, God willing.This first full week of November has graced us with some of the most glorious Fall weather that Arkansas can offer. These sunny and warm but not too hot days and chilly clear nights have been very welcome after the seemingly eternally soggy October we endured!

Our trees and foliage have finally put on some decent color, though not as brilliant as we've experienced in some years. A lot of the leaves have just fallen off the trees without changing to bright colors and now piles of dull brown leaves are drifting everywhere.

I took advantage of our sunny, breezy Wednesday afternoon here and stripped my bed, then washed my handmade quilt and some of Emmy's bedding and hung them outside on the clothesline.

I used my beloved original Gain detergent and just a touch of bleach, and then used Gain original fabric softener in the rinse before I hung them outside in the fresh air and sunshine.

I don't think there's anything that smells better than freshly laundered bedding that's been dried outside on the line. My freshly made bed sure did smell wonderful Wednesday night! Still does, as a matter of fact. :-)And on a related note, Lamar and I went with Jessica, Emmy, and my sisters Cecil, Ducky and Sue to a movie this afternoon. More on that in a bit.

I took one of Emmy's handmade baby quilts with me that I'd line dried, just in case she got sleepy or cold at the movie. Emmy didn't use the quilt, but my arms got chilled so I threw her quilt across my front, and that wonderful fragrance of clean laundry dried in the fresh air and sunshine wafted up to my nose.

I love the convenience of my electric dryer, but nothing can replicate the smell of clean laundry dried outside in the sunshine and fresh air. I really should try to hang more of my linens and such outside.

However, I do have to say that I'm not fond of blue jeans and towels that are so stiff you can stand them up in the corner, so anytime I dry them outside I usually tumble them in the dryer for a bit to fluff up the towels and soften the denim.Now, the movie we went to see was the new 3-D animated version of "A Christmas Carol" with Jim Carey's voice, among others. The special effects were out of this world! Emmy even kept her 3-D glasses on for almost the entire movie, and for the most part she was really quiet and watched the movie.

A few times when the action slowed down a bit Emmy got a little restless, but I was pleasantly surprised at how attentive and good she was for the movie.I'm beginning to get a little hungry and I still have to study my Sunday School lesson, so I think I'll get this posted and go find a snack. I have a Gala apple here on my desk that's really calling to me.

I hope you all have a blessed Sunday and a great new week. My prayer for each of you is that God will richly bless you by meeting all your needs, and that you'll have enough to share.

Happy Birthday, Jessica, Sue & Ducky! & A Prayer Request

Wishing a very happy 22nd birthday to my beautiful daughter, JESSICA! Mama loves you more than I can ever express, Babe. It doesn't seem possible that it's been 22 years since you were born..........















............And 5 months later you experienced your first Easter, pictured here with your Great Grandpa, Horner Davis.












Here you are at 8 months on June 28, 1988, enjoying frosting from your Grandma Lue's birthday cake. Cake's not really good unless you get it all over you. In your opinion, anyway. ;-)

This is one of my all time favorite baby pictures of you. I wish it had scanned a little sharper and brighter.

Can you see Emmy in your face? Because I see a lot of you in her and vice versa, especially as Emmy gets bigger.



I can really see hints of Emmy in these two pics taken when you were 2 years and 10 months old. Emmy is almost 2 years and 6 months, so not much difference in your age in these pics and Emmy's age at the present time.

Lots of resemblance between Jessica and Emmy here, I think.







Fast forward a few years, and here you are with your cousin Devin at almost 4 years old.

My, how the time flies!












I blinked it seems, and here you are with your cousin Jon at around 12 years old, I think.














Another blink and you were graduating high school.













And just a little while later, on December 9, 2006, you became a beautiful bride and made me a mother in law to a handsome son in law. :-)











A short time after that you became a Mama, and the cycle of mother and daughter started all over again.











You bring me joy every day and I'm blessed and proud to call you Daughter. I love you so much, Jessica Rose Jennings.

I pray you enjoy a long, full, healthy and happy life, filled with God's love, joy, and blessings on your life.







I also want to wish my sisters Sue (left)................













and Ducky (right) a very Happy Birthday today!

Yes, that's right ---- Jessica, Sue and Ducky all share the same birthday. Sue and Ducky were born on November 3rd, 2 years apart, and then Jessica came along some years later on November 3, 1987.

Happy birthday to my beloved sisters and daughter. :o)




And on a more serious note, if you're a praying person, please remember Lamar when you pray. If you don't pray, positive thoughts are most welcome as well. Lamar's eye is inflamed again and it's just as bad as it was when this all started with him back in June of this year.

Jessica had to rush him to his eye specialist in Memphis this morning, and the pressure in that eye is sky high again. We still don't know what caused the problem with his eye to begin with back in June, and they still don't have a diagnosis or any real treatment plan for him now.

At first they were going to do emergency surgery, but they decided against that. Then they discussed giving Lamar shots in that eye, but eventually they changed their minds about that too.

After doing some tests on Lamar they sent him home with 3 prescriptions for various eye drops and 2 for pills. One pill is an antiviral and the other is an oral form of prednisone. If he doesn't get worse before Tuesday of next week, he has to go back to Memphis to see the eye specialist again.

We are so weary of this illness, and especially all the doctor visits, medications and still having no diagnosis or real answers as to what's happening to cause this problem with his eye. Lamar already has permanent vision loss in that eye and this whole roller coaster ride seems never ending.

Please pray for guidance and wisdom as the doctors treat Lamar and for a correct diagnosis and treatment plan as soon as possible.

Thank you all for your prayers, dear family and friends. I know many of you will answer our plea for prayers for Lamar, and we appreciate them more than we can ever express.

If anything new develops I'll post an update to keep everyone informed, whether it be bad news, God forbid, or good news, please let it be, Lord.I pray you all have a blessed week full of love and joy and that God will rain down His blessings upon you all.