Good Morning Saturday, December 27, 2014

Hello World,

Woke up this morning with a lot buzzing in my head.  First of all Merry Christmas to my family in Weston:

Merry Christmas 2014

This is a great picture.  Their kitchen is in a “remodeling” state so they went to Coral Gables for the holiday.  Stayed in the “Biltmore” I think.  Let me go check on that…….yes, that’s right.  Anyway, I spoke with Jon on the phone for a while on Christmas.  They are going to the Ritz Carlton for New Years Eve.  He invited me over to join them and said he would pay for my room.  I declined – I’m staying home.  He is enjoying his retirement.  Lucky him.

Next thing on my mind was that my friend Craig Davis lost his wife yesterday to Alzheimer’s.  I’ve known Craig in the program since I walked in the doors of the Brown Bag over 12 years ago.  I believe his wife Jeanne has been ill that entire time.  At first she was at their home and he had to go through the agonizing decision to put her in a nursing home.  For the longest time he would take her to an adult day care and stop into the Central Office for a break.  The most awesome thing came of that decision to have her live away from him……..The Blu Tones!  He started entertaining the residents where she was living and from there the group evolved into The Blu Tones.  Now I think I have that right – at least that is what I believe happened.  He plays the keyboard and sings.  Their type of music is rock and roll and they have entertained at Orchid Terrace a couple of times.  He always calls me “money bags” because I was the treasurer of the Brown Bag for a number of years.  Here they are:

The Blu Tones

Craig is in the middle.  I always remember him at the Brown Bag and his smile is contagious!  His sharing is always heartfelt and personal with a dose of humor.  He usually ends with “too much coffee today so I’ll shut up!”  He’ll celebrate 40 years in the program on January 2, 2015!  God bless him during this time of sorrow.

Next thing on my mind is:

Meet Rose!

Yesterday I was driving Rose and she “jumped” a little while I was driving and there was a grinding sound and the dreaded “light” went on.  This has happened 3 times now and I’ve been avoiding getting her fixed.  I was convincing myself that it didn’t really matter and that I could go along and not fix her.  But I’ve decided that I should fix her and made arrangements to get the part in ($895,00) and then go ahead and fix her.  So there it is.  Time to dip into my savings (what else is it for?) and pay for the repair.  Hey, it’s cheaper than a new car and I really do love that little car.  She is part of my life and I’m happy with this decision (sort of).  I still can’t believe a little Yaw Sensor can be so much money!  But it is what it is.  I also decided to do it at the dealership because I think I can trust them to do it right.  Only time will tell.  I still can’t believe my extended warranty won’t cover this.  Urrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!

So yesterday I decided my day would include a “Baking project”.  I had 3 bananas that were getting smelly and stunk up my kitchen so I pulled out the muffin recipe that Cathy sent me that is part of this “no wheat” thing I’m learning to do.  Of course, I had no baking products, no sifter, no muffin tin, no flour no eggs no vanilla, no honey – you get the picture.  So I went to Publix to buy all of the “stuff” I needed.  This is what happened:

No equipment for baking!

$100 and counting and I still didn’t have one of the flours – Almond flour.  So I brought the stuff home and went out to see Bill S at the new, improved Intergroup Office – it is BEAUTIFUL and he is so happy with the results it’s amazing.  Here is my friend Bill S.

Bill S on a cruise.

Bill and I go “WAY” back.  He worked for us when we had our catering company “Cuisine Management”.  After a while he left us and opened his own catering business “Rainbow” catering and did work in “Port Royal” here in Naples.  I worked a couple of events with him.  He was great and super to work with.  We were not “in the program” then.  So in January 2002 he came in and 6 months later, I came in.  So we have a lot in common and have a wonderful friendship.  We both “get” each other and have lots of laughs together.  His wife Sheila is “not in the program” and is a nurse.  She is so smart.  She went back to nursing school late in life and graduated first in her class.  She is still working part time at the hospital.  He likes to say she works so “we can go on our cruises”.  They love to cruise and their family (which is huge) usually tags along.  I’ve celebrated many holidays at their house.  Bill still loves to cook and I love it that he does!

So anyway, I wanted to take him to lunch and pick up my final bag of flour for the muffins so we went to “Food and Thought”.  He had never been there so I was glad about showing him this super little health food emporium.  (Bill and Cathy – note to self – got to go there next time you are in town).  Of course they had the flour and I wasn’t sure how much flour the recipe called for, so I bought 2 bags “just in case”.  Yikes – $37.00!  So the muffins are now really made of gold…….

Holy Cow what a mess!

What no “Muffin Tops?”

So I Skyped B & C last night to complain that the muffins didn’t have any “muffin tops” and Cathy calmly explained to me that the coconut flour and almond flour don’t work like wheat flour and so they don’t “puff” up like other muffins.  I know there is an “art” to baking.  Sometimes if you over “beat” something it doesn’t turn out right.  I’ll always remember once when we had The Chef’s Garden, Tony was making souffles and one of the dishwashers opened up the oven by mistake and the souffles dropped, his comment was “oh man, I just broke the boss man’s cakes”.   So ever since then, I’ve had a great respect for the baking industry.  Cathy said I can get the stuff I need from Amazon for a LOT cheaper but for my first try, I’m glad I’ve done it and I have enough “stuff” to make at least 10 more batches before I need to do any on line purchases.

So my muffins turned out to be “perfect” and they are really delicious.  It made the house smell amazing so I may go through the whole thing again next week when I’ve got 3 more over ripe bananas!

Time to get rolling.  This is a pretty long post due to skipping yesterday.  Thanks for your patience and thanks for visiting.