What Heart Disease Took From Me

heart disease

• Word Origin

noun

1.

any condition of the heart that impairs its functioning.

I took this definition from dictionary.com.  It's a pretty general definition.

If you have been reading my blog for any length of time or you are my friend on Facebook you know that I promote heart health.  

February is National Heart Month.  February 5th is Wear Red for Women's Heart Health.  I am so passionate about this cause.  I encourage all my family and friends to wear red the first Friday of every February to promote women's heart health.  

I have done blogs in the past giving all kinds of statistics regarding heart health, etc.  

Heart disease has no criteria. It can affect anyone at any time, from babies to adults. It is often called the silent killer. 

I'm going to share what heart disease has taken from my family and I.  

Nineteen years old I get a call that my mother had died. No warning. My youngest brother was a Junior in High School at the time.  Mom sat down on the sofa and never got back up. 

Gone

No warning - no time to say good-bye.

Six years and three children later another call.  This time it's my dad. He's in the hospital, He has had a heart attack and they have him stabilized.  

I flew home.  What a lonely scary flight.  

Two weeks I sat with my dad in the hospital. I saw him receive shock treatments. He was in critcal care. Visitors were limited to 10 minutes an hour. As long as no one else was there they let me stay in the room with him all the time. They thought he might make it. I made plans to fly home. Went back to the hospital to say good-bye and am told you need to get all your family here - he won't make it through the day.

They were right. 

Six years - two parents.  

My children grew up without grandparents.  

My brothers and I no longer had a 'home' to go home to.  My house became my brothers 'go-to' place when I moved back to Missouri. We lost 'home' again when I moved to Oklahoma. 

There was no one for me to call when I had a question about child-rearing. 

No one to take a call when I wanted to say 'What do you think, Dad?'

No one to enjoy my children being grandchildren.

No one to 'spoil' them as a grandparent would. 

No one there when I needed someone to talk to.

No one

Can I say sometimes you just miss your mom and dad.  No matter how long it has been some days are just hard.  

I'm jealous of people who complain about the 'problems' with their parents. Yes, there are some who feel their parents are a 'burden' to them.  Yes, I have been known to tell them how lucky they are that they have parents who need to be taken to a doctor appointment or to the grocery store. (Let me say that not all my friends or acquaintances complain about this. I don't want to give the impression that I have insensitive friends. But there are a few people who do complain). 

So let me do what I do best -- PROMOTE HEART HEALTH -- for ALL.  Wear your RED on February 5th. Get checkups and most of all

                                                        cherish what you have.  

Some Cast Iron Cooking

Here's a meal we had a couple of weeks ago on New Food Night.  We were trying to choose a theme and Rick said  he was hungry for Italian. Now this just happens to be mine and Miss Annette's FAVORITE food so we perked up at this suggestion.

It also brought to mind a post I recently shared to Gary's Facebook page. When I see something I think looks good I share it on his page hoping he will make it for me.  Works for me.

Now what I happened to share was a link on what you can make in a cast iron skillet.

So here you have some cast iron cooking from Gary that goes with our Italian theme.

Mr. Rick was to bring Antipasto. This means 'before the meal'.

I think he hit the mark on this one, don't you? I swear i could live on cheese, salami, pepperoni, and crackers. I love stuff like this.

Miss Annette brought a Caprese Salad. Another favorite of mine.

What's not to like about this dish?  Mozzarella pearls, tomatoes (wish I could remember the name of the tomatoes she used as they were new to all of us), black olives. Good good stuff right there.



One of the items you can make in a cast iron skillet is Spinach Artichoke Dip.

How good does that look?  Let me tell you it tasted better!  I'm not sure what all was put in this but know there was spinach and cream cheese. Probably some other type of cheese as well.  I love  this stuff.

We had some toasted bread to go along with it. The original recipe for the Spinach Cream Cheese dip had it cooked in the skillet with it but we forgot to get the rolls out to thaw in time and didn't have enough yeast on hand to make our own. We also want to thank our friend Diana for letting us borrow her big skillet - we only had one. We may have to invite her and Rod to a New Food Night for letting us use their skillet.

Michael  went with an Italian Sausage Sandwich.

Oh My Gosh! I don't have his recipe but he browned the sausages up, then had some kind of oil mixture with seasonings that he poured over the sandwiches. Top with cheese and pop in over to melt the cheese!  I love lots of melty cheese.

Now this next dish is the one that caught my eye and caused me to share the article with Gary.

Now you know why I shared this to Gary's Facebook page. Meatballs and lots of melllttyyy cheese!  Yummm  

He made meatballs up and baked them in the oven. He then cooked up some spaghetti and made some sauce. He mixed the spaghetti and sauce together, put in the cast iron skillet. Top this with lots of cheese then the meatballs. Pop in oven until the cheese is melted. Good stuff right there.

With food like this I think you can see why Miss Annette and I love Italian food. What's your favorite type of food? We are always looking for some type of 'theme' and are open to suggestions.