Beautiful Days and ER Visits

The weather has been absolutely perfect here lately. Blue skies, puffy white clouds, highs in the 70's and low humidity. D, LG and I went to this 'new' park I found to feed the geese. (Note the huge swan too in the one picture) The park is not really new, but it's new to us! I saw it on the map and went hunting for it one day. It is a beautiful lake surrounded by lush green trees and grass. It even has a sand volleyball court and a covered eating area. You can even fish there, just can't go out on the water. It's accessed off a minor road and surrounded by trees. If you weren't looking for it you would drive right by and never know it was there. Therefore, it is deserted most of the time and it looks like the transients haven't discovered it yet!! Yippee!!

In other news, we made a trip to the emergency room last night. Hubby has been working really hard lately and has been stressed. His company is splitting into two separate companies and it is apparently a nightmare. Hubby's job is secure but his work load has doubled for the time being. He is trying to handle the logistics of the split and make sure that both companies will have working computers, databases etc. So, he has been a little stressed.

Anyhoo... we went to my in-laws for dinner and got home around 9. He mentioned he hadn't been feeling well, and when I took his BP he said it was low for him. When he laid down for bed at 11 or so he said his chest was feeling tight, he couldn't take deep breaths and started feeling dizzy. He said felt like he was going to pass out so we decided to go to ER. I was thinking it was anxiety or stress related, and that would probably explain the shortness of breath, dizzy, feeling faint etc, but the tightness in the chest was a little disturbing. We spent the night in a noisy ER, listening to angry people yell at the receptionist about the wait and how they weren't being seen because they weren't white, yada yada yada. The staff was very kind and considerate in spite of being abused. It was very odd to sit back and watch, to feel so powerless - to be on the 'other side' of the equation for once. They ran an EKG, took chest x-rays and did some blood work.

Bottom line, his heart is in great shape. The doctor thought that it might have been his reflux that caused the tightness in the chest/stomach area. He is supposed to follow up with his regular doctor, get a complete physical and go to a stomach specialist. He had a bleeding ulcer a few years ago, and it seems like stress may have aggravated an already weak spot. We finally got home at 5:30 this morning. Long night, tense at times, but we made it through. Thank the Lord that Hubby is going to be ok. Today was a beautiful day too. Drove with the sunroof open.

Got curtains?

I finally have living room curtains! Gone are the plastic vertical blinds. It took a week or two to find the right color combination. I would buy them all over town, bring them home and pin them to the wall so Hubby could see what I was 'seeing in my head'. Then back to the store they would go if he didn't like them. Finally I think we found a winner. It looks so much more 'home-y' now!

The Perfect Fitting Jeans

I was reading Diagonally Parked's blog and checked out the website that she found called zafu.com. It is a fantastic site for all of us who are not built exactly like the models they fashion clothes for. I would love to take a good look at the woman they supposedly create size 10 clothes for. Anyway, you can find jeans, pants and BRAS!! You put in your measurements, and problem areas and they search for the best fitting product for your body type, and tell you where you can find it. Wahoo! Thanks Rebekah!

Expansion issues

Good news, my black molly fry are growing like weeds. Still very cute, but I think we're down to about 4 I think. This evening, Hubby noticed a little pale object that looked suspiciously like a baby fish. Oh brother. Yep, that's what it was! We had noticed that one of the yellow mollys was really fat this past week. I thought she was just pigging out at feeding time. Yes, I have apologized. Upon closer inspection, she is down to normal size, and there are tiny yellow fry popping there heads out of the rocks. What am I going to do with these fish?! It's not like I can catch the little buggers. I guess I'll wait to see if they survive, then deal with I then.

On another note, we have Amish Friendship Bread being passed around here. As any of you that have been a part of it know, once you get tagged you have bread starter coming out your ears. And you have a hard time giving it all away! So, I've been trying to find a way to make regular bread with the starter instead of the sugary yummy bread it's supposed to make. I tried to make rolls substituting the starter for the yeast/milk starter recipes call for, but the rolls didn't rise. Hockey pucks to be exact. Following the Amish bread instructions, once you mix the ingredients you put it right in the oven, without having to knead it, or let it rise. So the fermenting process is different from when you use yeast, but I'm not sure if that necessarily means that the normal bread ingredients have to change. Can't I just substitute starter for starter? Today I used the starter from Day 6 of the 10 day cycle. I'm going to wait til Day 10 to try it again. The only problem is that if you follow the Amish bread instructions, you end up with about 5 cups of starter. Grrrr. I suppose there is plenty of it... I'll just go by trial and error. Unless someone has some suggestions...

Rock On Baby

This is my best friend's daughter. The look on her face is classic. What a cutie! and I love the shirt!