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.

A Little Christmas Potluck

New Food Night.  Do you guys just sit at your computer waiting for notification from me that we have eaten again?  I know you anticipate our meals.

This week we did a Christmas Potluck. Just because it's almost Christmas.  Now, what do you bring to a Christmas Potluck?

Well, Mr. Rick Googled Christmas Potluck and came up with this:

Doesn't it look good?  It was.  We called it Chicken Stuff.  Not sure what the real name was but it had chicken, potatoes, cream cheese, cream soup of some sort, other cheese, rosemary, olive oil.  Do I need to go on?  Man it was good.

I need to apologize to his co-workers. He typically has his food cooking in the crock pot at work all day before he comes over to our house. I know they all hope to have some leftovers the next day. This was really good. Sorry for the co-workers I don't think we left to much for them.

Now Gary Googled Wienie Wreath because I had told  him what I thought we should make.I wanted to be sure we had some real food to eat because when I think Christmas food my mind goes to cookies, candies, etc.  I Googled what to take to a Christmas Potluck.

What do you think? Little smokies wrapped in crescent roll dough.  We just cut strips of the crescent roll dough and wrapped around the smokies. Arranged them in a circle on our baking stone. the wreath at the top is a red bell pepper. He brushed the smokies with some melted butter, garlic salt and I think parsley before baking. Don't put bow on the wreath until after it bakes.

Rick said those were some of the cutest little wienies he had ever seen.

The dish of sauce behind the stone is a bar-b-q sauce, grape jelly and some Asian garlic Chili paste. Had a little kick to it for our little wienies.

Miss Annette brought over a corn salad.  She said it's Christmas because it has red and green in it. We didn't argue because we wanted to eat it.  LOL

This was canned corn, onions, red and green peppers and crushed up corn chips.  This was good stuff, Maynard!

K.C. made a gingerbread cream cheese dip and served it with graham crackers.

Man was this good! She took cream cheese, ginger, molasses, cool whip. This is like some kind of crack that you could addicted to!

Now Gary wanted a fruit cake. He knew that as soon as the theme for this week was decided.

I couldn't find my mom's fruit cake recipe (need to really dig through all my cook books and recipes  so I can find it).  So I went to Pinterest.  I made my first ever fruit cake. Rare praise from
 K. C. on this one, she said it wasn't as bad as she thought it was going to be.  She doesn't like fruit cake.

I had a wreath shaped bundt pan that we bought many, many years ago when we lived in Bethany. Glad we made that purchase - this is like the third time we have used it. In fact, I wasn't even sure I had it after my painting renovation this past summer. Thought it might have been one of the items K.C.convinced me I didn't need to hoard.

The batter is eggs, sugar, butter, lemon juice and flour. I think the batter by itself would be a great cake. Add in lots of candied cherries both red and green, candied pineapple, pecans and walnuts. And I do  mean LOTS!  The cake has to bake for 1 1/2 - 2 hours. It tasted good!  Now fruit cake is not something very many people like. I happen to like fruit cake. Keep in mind if you ever want to make one - it makes a lot!  I cut the recipe in half and we still had a lot of fruit cake.

There you have it - our Christmas Potluck!  Sorry you don't have smell-a-rama so you could smell how good all this was or even take-a-taste-a-rama as it would tempt your taste buds.  We are taking a short break over Christmas but I have a couple of meals I haven't told you about yet so stay tuned, I will try to fill in with missed meals.

In the meantime, is there anything you might want to challenge us with? Or maybe you have something you have thought about trying but just didn't have the courage to do? Let me know, we are open for suggestions for our New Food Night.

{Note to myself: keep notebook handy at New Food Night - right by my plate. Take note of all ingredients used in each dish}

Some Elfen Fun

Last year Gary and I were adopted by a little Elf on the Shelf all the way from the North Pole.  Our little guy's name is Frederick Frankenheimer.  He was quite ornery last year and kept us surprised and on our toes all Christmas season.

Well, he's back again this year! He showed up on Thanksgiving evening just like last year.  He and his friends are known to get into mischief. A couple of his special friends are Doug Douglaschmootz and MMagic Fallos-Craglow.  Doug lives fairly close to us so I am sure they get together frequently.

Let me tell you what our little elf has been up to this year.  We woke up the day after Thanksgiving to find him hanging onto my chalkboard where he had written a note saying "I'm Back!"  Indeed he was.
He migrated from there to the kitchen, a particular favorite place of his.  We found him hanging out ready to dive into some cooking fun.

While we were at church that first Sunday morning Frederick got into the leftover pumpkin pie and the syrup and went into a diabetic coma I think.  We found him passed out next to the pumpkin pie and with the syrup bottle laying on it's side.  We left him alone - figured he got himself into that mess he could just suffer the consequences.

The first room I decorated this year was the dining room. This obviously made Frederick happy as he just hung out in the tree full of smiles.

From there he decided to go visit the snow scene. Hope he wasn't thinking he would enter the frigid temperatures he was used to.

And since he didn't find those cold temperatures with his snowmen friend he decided more drastic measures needed to be taken. He proceeded to help himself to my eggnog in the fridge!

We went to Branson over the weekend and since we forgot to advise him of our plans, he consoled himself with one of his favorite foods -- chocolate!

To bad for him there was not as many chocolate chips in the container as he thought there might be. He must have forgotten that one of Gary's favorite foods is also chocolate.

Well, we came back from Branson to find that he had decided to visit my Christmas village.

Things weren't to exciting there for him BUT -- I had started decorating the rest of the house!   Obviously I don't work fast enough for Frederick. He thought I took to long to just put the tree up so he decided to help me out with some decorating while I slept.

As  you can see, he couldn't find the hangers but was able to find the duct tape. Way to improvise, Frederick!

He was so happy to see all the tree decorations that he kept decorating. He choose his favorite ornament and decided to hang out with it for a while. It was from Alaska.

I think he just saw Alaska and thought it might be cold.

From there he moved to the stockings. He was checking to see if there was anything in them.

He should know that Santa won't fill them until Christmas Eve! Not to mention he chose 8- Balls stocking. Stupid cat is always in trouble so you probably won't find anything in there.

Now he decided to really make himself at home and watch my favorite Christmas movie!

Gary said the TV was pretty loud when he woke up. He had to turn the sound down. I was pretty upset that he didn't wake me up to watch the movie with him. You notice he has a bowl of sugary cereal to eat while he watches the movie.

Today I woke up to find him surveying the kitchen.

Who knows what he is planning for tonight!

I know that he's supposed to report to Santa on whether or not you have been good or bad. I'm guessing that Frederick hangs around my house to report on Remington and Lily and even Katy Rose when she comes over to visit.

Now, if you have been lucky enough to be adopted by an elf what kind of mischief does he get into?

Post-Thanksgiving Feast

Thanksgiving - thoughts of all the food we prepare to celebrate. Thoughts of all the leftovers.

By the time New Food Night rolled around this week we thought we would all be tired of turkey with the trimmings so we planned on another soup night.  Turned out to be a good  choice as the weather had turned off colder.

Gary chose to make a taco soup.

Looks good, huh?  Tasted good too.  I don't know how you could make a small batch of this. Well, I guess if you used small cans of the veggies you could.  He took a pound of hamburger and browned plus some taco meat we had leftover from tacos. Some diced tomatoes, canned black beans, canned corn -- simmer (probably more stuff too but I don't know).  Good stuff!

Miss Annette made up a gumbo.

This was very well received. Some chicken chunks, smoked sausage, Zataran dirty rice, seasonings. .  This was very good.  We all thought it would be good with the taco soup ladled on top. I don't know that any of us tried it, though.

Mr. Rick brought a pot of ham and beans that had been cooking in the crock pot all day.

I LOVE ham and beans!  We don't have them very often as they are not a favorite of  Gary's.  I remember I was so excited when we moved to Tulsa and went to church for Wednesday night meal and they were going to have ham and beans.  My mouth watered all day thinking of them.  I found out that here in Tulsa ham and beans consists of pinto beans!  What a disappointment for me!  They were good but not what I grew up with.

Northern or Navy beans with ham and cornbread!  Take the cornbread and put in the bottom of your bowl.  Butter the cornbread then add chopped onions then add a lot of ham and beans!  That is good stuff.  And the ham and beans Mr. Rick made were yummers!  We didn't have the cornbread but that was okay.  My Granny Lake called them dry beans.  One time she told me she was going to make dry beans and I had no clue what she meant -- she had to explain to me.  Makes sense as they are dry until they are cooed.

Kind of a side note here (nothing to do with this New Food Night) but I always think of cornbread and milk.  We would take cornbread, add butter and onions then pour milk over it.  Oh my gosh!  I love cornbread and milk!

So there we have three very hearty soups and they were all good.  I could not decide what I would have seconds of.

But WAIT!  We are not done.  We have a dessert soup.

K.C. made a Scandanavian Blueberry Soup.

It could be served warm or cold so we just opted for room temperature.  Blueberries, lemon juice, syrup, cardamon.  Serve with a dollop of Greek yogurt.  Good stuff.

Now I had made some Fall Leaf Sugar Cookies but forgot to take a picture of them.  Just used a plain sugar cookie recipe. Divided the dough into 3 balls and used food coloring to color it red, yellow, and orange. Mixed some of each color and rolled out then cut into fall leaf shapes and baked.  Very pretty and I do love a good sugar cookie.

There you have it - our tired of turkey meal.  Now just wait until you read about next week's meal!  I will give you a hint - we haven't had Italian for a while and it happens to be a favorite of Miss Annette and myself.  My mouth is watering right now thinking of the dish I convinced Gary to make.

First Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is only a couple of days away.  Are you as excited as we are at our house?  We LOVE Thanksgiving.  As my daughter K.C. says, it's her favorite holiday because the only thing expected of you is to eat!.  And who doesn't love to eat?

Now let's combine Thanksgiving with New Food Night because - well just because that's what we do. This year we decided to go with the theme of the original Thanksgiving.  We did some research on line about what the first Thanksgiving food was.  We learned that most likely shellfish was on the menu along with a lot of root vegetables and fruit and ...... wait for it...... PORRIDGE.

Man, was Remington every excited to hear that!  He quickly said that he wanted to make porridge. So let me share our new food night from last week with you.

 Of course we had turkey.  Because what it Thanksgiving without turkey?  Now this wasn't a wild turkey - we didn't go out 'fowling' to get our bird. We just went to the local Walmart Neighborhood Market.  I love turkey.

Now Miss Annette was going to bring some root vegetables but a dear friend had a fall and she felt it was more important to spend time with her.  We agree - nothing more important than helping friends. We compromised on this and had a dish of cheesy potatoes instead. Very good last minute substitution. Hash brown potatoes, cream of chicken soup, diced onions, Velveeta cheese.

And here you have it.  My Bud making his porridge.

Gotta admit - I wasn't real positive about this dish but it was very good.  Made from cornmeal and the addition of sweetened condensed milk and I'm not sure what else but it was yummy.

Mr. Rick took care of the shellfish portion.  He made a  crab boil kind of dish.  Shrimp, some catfish chunks, beans, potatoes, and corn on the cob. Man this was good.

And we made a quick substitution for our dessert as well.  Miss Annette had a fruit compote she was going to make and we were going to serve it over baked pumpkin.  Instead we had ginger snap cookies. This was from a mix I just happened to have in the cabinet. My thought was - surely there was ginger laying around at the first Thanksgiving and they must have used it somehow.

There you have it - our version of the first Thanksgiving.


We are ready for our Thanksgiving this year. K.C. is making our turkey for the first time and Gary is going to make a new vegetable plus all our 'favorites'.  We do love our food.


How about it - what do you have for Thanksgiving?  Anything unusual? Or maybe you are trying something new this year as well. If so, what is it?


HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Holidays

Oh man am I ever getting excited for the holidays!

I just can't help myself. All these feeds show up on my Facebook account. All my friends post things on my timeline.

If you know me very well you know I LOVE Christmas!

I admit it - I love everything about the season -- the lights - the music - the decorations.  I wish it lasted longer.

Now, however much I love Christmas and I plan all year long in my head where I will put my trees and how I will set up the decorations and just where everything should go, and how often I can watch my favorite movie.

I love Thanksgiving just as much!

I love the family being together.

I love the traditions we have.

I love the food we have.

I love planning the food we have (well okay, Gary really loves this part more than I do).

And for me the Holidays include Thanksgiving.  So now matter how much I love having my Christmas decorations out - we never decorate until  after we have celebrated Thanksgiving.

So here is wishing all my friends a very Happy Thanksgiving!