REALITY SETS IN

Being fifty and all Daisy decided that if she was ever going to stop the effects of the inevitable aging process the time was now. 
She had a definite fear of getting old and fifty had almost gotten to her. No matter how hard she tried to deny it she was still a grandmother and no matter how often she would sneak by the mirror averting her eyes as she went by so that she could pretend not to notice she continued to age. 
So deciding not to go lightly into that dark night known as old age she knew that she must do the unthinkable. She had to diet and exercise. 
The mere thought of it gave her pause. What would life be like trying to force herself to do those things she found so repulsive. Still this evil was not as bad as the evil of old age so gathering all her strength Daisy decided to go for it. 

At the bottom of this post is a link for comments, please feel free to share with me some of your thoughts on what you just read.  

BACK TO MY LIFE

The Florida grandkids left yesterday. The past week has been pretty unusual in terms of my life. After much anxiety about how it would go I am happy to report that it went good. 
The four, yes four little girls and five with the one here kept us very busy. We ice-skated, twice, rodeod (is that right?), shopped, went to the West End World Aquarium, visited relatives, shopped, and ate constantly. I never cooked the whole time they were here. 
Little girls are very sweet, but they do have lots of energy and I am glad today to get back to my life of quiet and solitude with just me and my hubby and dogs. The dogs are glad too, no more long long hours in the box. 
My back hurts! 

At the bottom of this post is a link for comments, please feel free to share with me some of your thoughts on what you just read.  

FEEL GOOD AGAIN

Finally, the headache is finally gone. Had to go to the doctor and get one of those good old antibiotics. He said I probably had a sinus infection. Feeling much better now.. 
I spent the last few days reformatting one of my computers. What a pain in the ass!!!!!!! I know if I wouldn''t screw around with it so much that it wouldn't get so messed up, but I don't know I just have a compulsive need to keep adding stuff and eventually it gets it's little brains scrambled and needs to be reborn. The worst part is the back up. Does everybody but me keep their backups done on a regular basis, if they do they are better than I am. 
Wait, I have to go fix my dog's pillow. She's trying to sit in her spot and look out the window, but the pillows aren't right, so she is pretty much sitting on top of the couch. There that's better. 
Anyway, after a little time of panic over the fact that the backup didn't seem to be going to work, I figured out that it needed to be in the CD writer instead of the CD player and then everything was okay. Thank God, 4 gigabytes of documents. Hooray, it worked and the computer is working great. Great day! 

At the bottom of this post is a link for comments, please feel free to share with me some of your thoughts on what you just read.  

MY HEAD HURTS

Got up this morning with a headache. Actually went to bed last night with a headache. I took everything in the house but with this particular pain nothing seems to help. Best I can tell it comes from drinking California wine. Strange most other wine making regions don't seem to give me a headache. But we have found a California wine that is really good, it's the Columbia Crest Cabernet, in fact it's on sale today and I am supposed to go and buy a case for my husband. Does that mean a case of headaches? 
Also started back on my workout yesterday so on top of the headache I have a bodyache, total bodyache. Why is it that this exercise thing that is supposed to be so healthy and good for you always make me feel worse? It makes it difficult to "get with the program" as Oprah says. Still I am convinced that I should do it so I plan to continue, at least for now. Today I will hobble through the routine again and maybe by tomorrow I will have to go shopping for a wheelchair since I am quite sure I won't even be able to get out of bed by then. 

*At the bottom of this post is a link for comments, please feel free to share with me some of your thoughts on what you just read.  

MAKE A CHEESECAKE

 made the best cheesecake for the Fourth of July gathering I had. It was a New York style cheesecake, very tall, and creamy but still quite substantial, cakey not custardy like so many recipes are. Actually I made two, the first one ended up in the trash. Seems my oven has brain damage and was much hotter than it should have been. But, the second one was excellent (used an oven thermometer this time) and the "Cherry Confit" sauce I made from fresh cherries was excellent also. If I do say so myself. I do. 

I also learned that you can not push cherry pits out of the cherry with a straw. That is just a vicious rumor. Try it sometime, you will see what I mean. There is no way that has ever worked for anyone. 

Anyway, I thought the cheesecake was so good I decided to post the recipe, so here it is: 

New York–Style Cheesecake 
makes one 9-inch cheesecake, serving 12 to 16 
For the crust, chocolate wafers Nabisco Famous can be substituted for graham crackers; you will need about 14 wafers. The flavor and texture of the cheesecake is best if the cake is allowed to stand at room temperature for 30 minutes before serving. When cutting the cake, have a pitcher of hot tap water nearby; dipping the blade of the knife into the water and wiping it clean with a kitchen towel after each cut helps make neat slices. 

graham cracker crust 
1 cup (4 ounces) graham cracker crumbs 
(8 whole crackers, broken into rough pieces 
and processed in food processor until 
uniformly fine) 
1 tablespoon sugar 
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, plus additional 1 tablespoon melted butter for greasing pan 

cheesecake filling 
21/2 pounds cream cheese, cut into rough 1-inch chunks and left to stand at room temperature for 30 to 45 minutes 
1/8 teaspoon salt 
11/2 cups (101/2 ounces) sugar 
1/3 cup (21/2 ounces) sour cream 
2 teaspoons juice from 1 lemon 
2 teaspoons vanilla extract 
2 large egg yolks plus 6 large whole eggs 

1. For the crust: Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 325 degrees. Combine graham cracker crumbs and sugar in medium bowl; add 5 tablespoons melted butter and toss with fork until evenly moistened. Brush bottom and sides of 9-inch springform pan with most of remaining melted butter, making sure to leave enough butter to brush pan in step 3. Empty crumbs into springform pan and press evenly into pan bottom . Bake until fragrant and beginning to brown around edges, about 13 minutes. Cool on wire rack while making filling. 

2. For the cheesecake filling: Increase oven temperature to 500 degrees. In standing mixer fitted with paddle attachment, beat cream cheese at medium-low speed to break up and soften slightly, about 1 minute. Scrape beater and bottom and sides of bowl well with rubber spatula; add salt and about half of sugar and beat at medium-low speed until combined, about 1 minute. Scrape bowl; beat in remaining sugar until combined, about 1 minute. Scrape bowl; add sour cream, lemon juice, and vanilla, and beat at low speed until combined, about 1 minute. Scrape bowl; add yolks and beat at medium-low speed until thoroughly combined, about 1 minute. Scrape bowl; add whole eggs two at a time, beating until thoroughly combined, about 1 minute, and scraping bowl between additions. 

3. Brush sides of springform pan with remaining melted butter. Set springform pan on rimmed baking sheet (to catch any spills if springform pan leaks). Pour filling into cooled crust and bake 10 minutes; without opening oven door, reduce oven temperature to 200 degrees and continue to bake until instant-read thermometer inserted into center of cheesecake registers about 150 degrees, about 11/2 hours. Transfer cake to wire rack and run paring knife between cake and side of springform pan. Cool until barely warm, 21/2 to 3 hours. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate until cold, at least 3 hours. (Cake can be refrigerated up to 4 days.) 

4. To unmold cheesecake, remove sides of pan. Slide thin metal spatula between crust and pan bottom to loosen, then slide cake onto serving plate. Let cheesecake stand at room temperature about 30 minutes, then cut into wedges and serve. 

Happy Cheesecake! 

At the bottom of this post is a link for comments, please feel free to share with me some of your thoughts on what you just read.  

FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS

I knew this would happen when I started this blogging. I was afraid that I wouldn't have anything to say, nothing to write about, my life is not all that interesting. 
I have been thinking a lot lately about "following your dreams", or my dreams as it were. Seems that isn't exactly what I did. Seems like I got by on my looks for a long time. Then I married (quite well I might add) and then got by on that. Now, as I get older I think I kind of have that regret thing. The thing is when I mention it to anyone the very first thing I hear is "It's never too late, you can still do anything you want to." Well, it is definately too late for some things. Guess I couldn't be a stripper at this point. No one would pay to see me stripping, not at this age. But that's ok because THAT'S NOT MY DREAM. By the way, I'm not "that" old and I actually look pretty good still, just you know I'm a little past the point of getting paid to take stuff off. 
When is it time to give up your dreams, and how do you know if it's time or if you are just procrastinating.............still? 

At the bottom of this post is a link for comments, please feel free to share with me some of your thoughts on what you just read.  

NEDLEY'S SPORTS GRILL

Nedley's-I like Nedley's. It's a really casual Sports Bar and Restaurant. We go there at least once a week. The food is good. They have pretty much the typical "SportsBar" fare, but it is really good. 
One of my favorite items is the Fried Artichoke Hearts, can't tell you how many hearts I have eaten over the years. Their pizza is also one of my favorites. Heck, I didn't even eat pizza for years, but really have gotten to where we order it a lot. Our usual is the Super Deluxe, we split it. The best part is the crust. It is so so so thin that it is probably the crunchiest around. Always hot and lots of toppings with a crunchy crust. What more could you ask? 
So far as the entrees. Well, they have a very good selection of the usual like steaks, fish (some cooked on planks), gives it a smokey taste, etc. Lots of different sandwiches, soups, salads, Mexican food, and all. Never had anything I didn't like and would order all of them again. 
Ok, so you get the idea. It's a good restaurant, the atmosphere is casual and you need to hurry on over. 
Oh by the way, don't sit in the round booth on the right, that's my spot. 
Oh yeah, I am not a Restaurant Critic by trade, just by nature (I don't even play one on TV). I live in a city with more great restaurants than you can "shake a stick at", and I eat out at least eight to ten times a week so I've been in a lot of them and know what I like. It's just my opinion, OK? 
*
At the bottom of this post is a link for comments, please feel free to share with me some of your thoughts on what you just read.  

SLEEPY

Sleepy, just been up for about half an hour. Don't have an awful lot to do today, just have to go meet the Termite man or person, I don't know it could be a woman, at the rent house. It's weird, when I go back over there I realize how lucky I am to have moved. It really feels like a run down area and sometimes even a little scary. I probably am not really as lucky as I am a snob. My husband says sometimes I can be a little bit of a snob. Could he be right? Nah, I'm just lucky. 
*
At the bottom of this post is a link for comments, please feel free to share with me some of your thoughts on what you just read. 

BLUE MESA GRILL

Blue Mesa Grill 

Blue Mesa Grill - ate there last night. Somehow it just wasn't what I had expected. The decor is one of those that screams minimalism or maybe it just scream we didn't really want to spend very much on decorating so we went with the very least we could and called it North Dallas chic. The impression I got was like they pay more attention to trendiness than the quality of the food they serve. I mean what's up with those weird chips they bring to start with? More like-okay we have these left over potatoes and veggies so lets just "overfry-up" everything that we should be getting rid of, put it on the table and they'll eat it. Give it to Mikie, he'll eat anything!
We had the Sampler Platter on the Appetizer menu. Actually, it was very good. Included was Chicken Nachos, Carmelized Onion Quesadillas, and Chicken Taquitos, all three surrounded by an assortment of the usual condiments, ie. guacamole, sour cream, and an average and pretty bland pico.
By the way, they do have a pretty impressive menu of weird Margueritas. Most of which appear to be things concocted simply to appear again "trendy". The "House Special" Blue Marquerita that my husband had was blue but not particularly impressive. Drinkable, but not memorable.
But, the entree which we decided to split was the Bacon Wrapped Grilled Shrimp. It was served with refried black beans, rice and a pretty good mango salsa. The Shrimp was hot and cold. By that I mean some were very nicely hot, and some were almost stone cold. The rice was average and just warm. The steamed or grilled or whatever that was vegetables were limp and barely warm and the beans the same, just warm.
Service was good though and the prices were very reasonable. All in all Blue Mesa is to my mind a just average Southwestern Restaurant serving just average food, well maybe not quite average considering it sits in the middle of a city that is absolutely over-run with restaurants that are not average but outstanding.
We both agreed upon leaving that we would not go to the trouble of driving across town to eat there again, but if someone suggested it as a place to eat, we would not refuse to eat there.
My impression on this restaurant is three out of five Moonbeams.
Oh yeah, I am not a Restaurant Critic by trade, just by nature (I don't even play one on TV). I live in a city with more great restaurants than you can "shake a stick at", and I eat out at least eight to ten times a week so I've been in a lot of them and know what I like. It's just my opinion, OK?

*At the bottom of this post is a link for comments, please feel free to share with me some of your thoughts on what you just read. 

LAZY SUNDAY

Lazy Sunday afternoon. Sort of rainy, sort of hot, sort of fattening. I mean what else is there to do on this kind of day except make that really excellent guacamole, have a nice cocktail and listen to Bonnie Raitt on the TV while molding on the sofa. Nothing here but me, hubby and two dog lumps. Really my sort of day.
At the bottom of this post is a link for comments, please feel free to share with me some of your thoughts on what you just read.