still winter-y
marching in like a lion!
nearby mountain weather is supposed to be "white out conditions" this first weekend of the month! our chief of staff confided that he and his family had cancelled their plans to go to Tahoe, knowing how completely unsafe it would be. I'm grateful all we have to look forward to is bands of cold and rain coming through. oh, and some hail! Craig of course complained that it was ruining any potential golf opportunities. ah well, time to hunker down and get some home work done.
last month I had taken my serger in to the sewing repair man to have him give it a tune-up, since it has been years since I sewed with it. I found a pattern to make chef coats, aprons and toques, so I promised Janet I would make her some for her cooking adventures as well. I find it hilarious - but so right - that we shopped independently without discussing our preferences, and yet our fabrics are so similarly themed! great minds do think alike!
I made the simpler garment first, to get the feel of the fabric and get back in the swing of sewing a garment from beginning to end again. (I only made alterations to the costumes for P&P, so minimal machine sewing involved.) I'll make her chef jacket next after this (modelled after her own best-fit jacket hanging behind).
this month's cooking adventure was Spanish
Paella, one of my favorite international foods. I actually had paella in Spain (!!) that was served with rabbit. this was my first attempt to make it at home. I decided to get a proper paella pan in hopes that I would get it closer to correct than not.
for Craig's birthday dinner we went to our favorite lobster house, where he enjoyed his favorite cioppino, and I had delicious lobster raviolis. we both even had dessert - Craig got NY cheesecake and I had banana cream pie, our bartender/server's favorite. after all, it is also pi day! (I had a procedure earlier in the afternoon so wasn't in any condition to cook.)
I was a lucky winner of a spot in the lunchtime paint & sip activity at work, where our subject was titled "bee kind" and was for the Kindness month of March.
one Saturday morning I saw a recipe in the NY Times Cooking article, and so made a pan of Shakshuka, my first in this kitchen.
the following Sunday matinee I went to another new venue for me to catch a production of Cotton Patch Gospel, a delightful retelling of the Easter resurrection story set in Georgia in the 60s, and Jesus is a black man. it is a small venue, so the small cast of actors could see their audience - and I was in the second row. when I walked out to the sidewalk where the actors received us after the show, Jesus said to me, "you have the most wonderful smile!" I couldn't help but hug him back.
March 7 to 27 - an epic whirlwind journey
at my annual women's health visit we decided to take next steps on a lump I had discovered. (it ended up being 3cm in size, between a boulder and a jumbo in marble sizes). five days later I was getting a mammogram and ultra-sound; two days after that I went in for the biopsy. in five more days I was meeting with a surgeon to discuss next steps, and less than three weeks after my first office visit, I was having mastectomy surgery.
the "hope" rock below was in the conference room where I met my surgeon; I knew I wanted one last "before" photo, and this is the night before surgery; and in our garden, one of my plants has naturally grown into a pink heart shape, for breast cancer.
