We had a fabulous time yesterday at our friends house. We have missed each other as life has been busy for all, but we set aside some time to come together, and catch up and of course EAT!

Here is the Seafood Board, technically can’t call it a Charcuterie, as the definition of that is a “collection of cooked meats”. I gave George a good size board made from the Acacia wood which was suggested as the best wood. George uses a food grade charcuterie oil to oil the board down with and keep it pretty.

So you know, George is the Master Cook of the family and he enjoys pulling a meal together and also when we decide on a “theme” or “food idea or project” – he is all over it.

My part in this “board idea” was to have salmon, cream cheese, jelly on crackers and to have pistachios, and candied pecans, and some marinated shrimp, cheeses and crackers. He had wanted us to pick a board (or get ideas from) our board recipe books, but I suggested we build our own. (The video above is just a 30 second time lapse of building it and then us eating on it. I stopped it after everyone filled their plate once, but we grazed for a while.)

So he took the ingredients I suggested and added figs, Java beans, crab salad, horseradish sauce, three cheeses, trout, capers, onion, and dates.

Before you create a board, just know that sometimes they can be expensive. This one was over $100 to create – I mean if you consider each item and add it up – it adds up. But when you significantly want to contribute to a special event, or do something special for dear friends you only get to see 2 to 3 times a year, it’s very nice. As you can imagine, this provided lunch for 5 people. Honestly it could have served more as we had leftovers. Most everyone went for seconds and we still had lots of leftovers.

After the world we’ve lived in since 2020, to come together over a board is quite nice. Of course we each had our own plate.

The rest of the day we watched football and floated in the pool and talked and listened to music by the pool, which included Santana and also the new Bruce Springsteen album, very laid back.

Don and Lisa had a fabulous dinner. Let me share some pics below. Lisa’s table decor is always so pretty. I love her style.

One of the things we like to do is try new drinks. Don fixed us a fall drink that had gin, vermouth, and a few other things in it – I can’t remember. It was a smokey drink smoked with wood chips. Take a peak.

With dessert we also had another fall drink. I think it might have been some kind of whiskey with lemon peel – it had more things in it but it tasted orange to me and it tasted like fall. It was really good. This are sipper type drinks, not inhaled but enjoyed in very small amounts. It was great!

My Little To Do List Problem

So I figured out how to handle my busy quarter (or should I say busy half year) to do list where looking at the daily one simply is not enough. In yesterday’s post I tried to decide which to use, the Eisenhower four quadrant method or the iPhone’s Reminder method. And bottom line decision was to USE BOTH. lol

I really needed to be able to see ALL the projects so I’ll use the four quadrant one to break down into 1) This Week 2) Next Week 3) This Month and 4) Some future time but parked here not to be forgotten.

And I’ll use the iPhone’s reminder system to add things for the current week so that each day I can use the daily one and then each weekend I can go to the four quadrant one and plan the next week and reshuffle (pick and select) what to work on.

So doing this will “ease the pain” of the intensity of time for me. And that way all the important to do’s will get done and everything else will sit “in waiting” and only the important things will pull forward.

Otherwise I end up with a daily stack a mile long I never get to that I had planned and it keeps moving forward from day to day, getting bigger and bigger like a snow ball, along with my frustrations. So yeah, I’m happy with that.

I had not deleted my “FOCUS” app, so I got it back out and it seemed to be working better and they have done some updates. It can be slow on the Mac though but tolerable – it just takes a minute to catch up with what you are typing in. I am grandfathered it seems to my original purchase and not having to pay for the service ongoing as most apps are doing now. So that is good. Otherwise I was just going to create something on the Mac spreadsheet and save to my documents so it would be there for viewing on all apple devices, but the FOCUS app will do the same since I was grandfathered. So hopefully I can work on this, this afternoon.

I do have a lot we have to do today. We are going to church, probably take Mom to eat, then to the store with Mom for her groceries as well as our own, and then we will come home and I have laundry, kitchen clean, vacuuming up hallway and the house where Dexter has torn up pee pads while we were gone. I have to change our sheets, do some ironing, pick my clothes for the week, refill my vitamin/med case, and do some Amazon orders. As you can see there is no time for any relaxation today but at least we had fun yesterday.

Big Wins

My birth certificate arrived in the mail yesterday. I’m so glad to see that I actually EXIST! And now I have to find the marriage certificate – which George should have in his documents – locked up to show how I got my last name. Then I can reschedule my appointment to get my license where I can fly once the deadline hits.

Picking my Christmas Gifts from George

Well, I’ve been trying to decide on new dishes. I’ve wanted them for a while. Ours has a lot of marks and scuffs and I’m ready for something different. I was thinking something in a tan color or black color but then I spotted these. I’d like to have some kind of stoneware. I’m going to suggest we go to Target and look first but also Wayfair had some nice things.

I will get a place setting for 8 unless George wants us to go with 12 for back ups or a large party. I think 8 is fine and we rarely break them so if we needed more we’d just buy more dishes as they are not too pricey.

I’m not sure if I would like the black after considering the type of decor I like. I mean imagine eating off black plates at Easter or July 4th. But the lighter white plates transition so easy so I may stick with the old faithful in color but I’m ready for a different look, and less markings on the plates where we have just worn them down.

My other gift is picking out a lighter weight comforter for the bed in my “beach bedroom”. I am thinking something like this. But there is also a seafood green bedspread I saw on there that also would look good mixed in with the light blues. This might be too much blue. I am not finished looking but at least yesterday was encouraging. I have been so tired recently that the thought of picking out my own gift seemed overwhelming – and when should that ever happen? But yesterday I looked on the way to Don and Lisa’s while we were in the car, after we went over our Christmas lists for everyone, and checked the upcoming meals coming from Hello Fresh. Yes even CAR TIME is vital for getting things done!

I don’t really want microfiber though, but I DO want something along these lines of a thinner and washable quilt. I will use a blanket when cold. I just need something I can wash easily with the dog being on the bed a lot. I will have to buy a plastic thing to put the big comforter in. I still love that comforter but I just will have to store it for a while. I wasn’t enjoying sleeping under it though. The quilt feels better to me anyway. I just have to find “the one”. So George can buy it and wrap them up for me. I think it’ll need to be cotton though and I’ll likely get a King Size for my Queen Bed, lol in case it shrinks. I don’t know for sure. I haven’t decided yet.

Next Few Videos

Ok so the next video is already coming along nicely. I’m almost finished with it. Yesterday morning I worked on it some while the house was quiet, doing voiceovers and adding music and editing the photos etc. This video includes the Music City Brew Hop trolley day, and also Easter and a few other tidbits. I think I have the Hermitage one after that, along with my Colonoscopy video which I video’d (obviously not all of it, but some of it) just to help others that might have to go through it that hasn’t done it yet. Then we get to meet Dexter after those two are done. So I have to be working on my next intro and I’m thinking after that I will really be catching up because I have not video’d much since we got Dexter.

Then I can do more weekly vlogging and specialty vlogging with projects that are less time sensitive, more helpful, and that will make me feel better about not being so far behind real life.