ahhhhhhhhh

11:02PM, and the kitchen is CLOSED. Finally.

I ran around like an idiot all morning doing errands, didn't get home until past 1PM, then can't even imagine what happened to the time between then and pick-up for DS1... finally started making lasagna-fixings in the early evening. Can't remember the last time I made a good meat sauce, and it just smelled soooo good. I had quite a few tastes. But you have to, you know? If the sauce is not good, the lasagna will not be good, either! Hee!

The In-laws' flight was delayed so that kind of screwed up things for DH as well. He ended up getting home with them around 4PM and then went back to the office until 6:30, so I picked up the barbecue from Joe's and we all ate at about 7. I had made a double-batch of bread and made half into rolls for tonight, tomorrow night we'll have the other half with Italian seasonings in it with the lasagna and salad...DS1 was very psyched when I told him that was the plan. He loves my fresh bread, which is basically pizza dough. It is a snap to make in the KitchenAid. I am coming to love that mixer. I never would've predicted that, but just moving it out to a more accessible cupboard has changed my entire relationship with that appliance. I find myself using it once a week or more. Cool.

After the kids and the ILs were off to bed, I pre-processed the squash and the cauliflower, because in their raw state they were taking up too much space in the fridge, and I need to put the lasagna in there overnight. This is a MONSTER lasagna -- two boxes of noodles, quarts and quarts of meat sauce (2.5 lbs of ground beef), 2+lbs of Italian sausage, 2 containers ricotta, and copious amounts of parmesan and mozzarella and I hope it tastes as good as it smells!!! The Beast is outside cooling down for a while more before I try to wedge it into the refrigerator, hee!

So, I cooked the squash and the cauliflower and the turnip (which we decided we're not having Thursday, I just bought it because we often do have it... apparently I was on 'turnip auto-pilot'...). So the squash is cooked. The cauli is cooked and semi-pureed. I realized that it is essential to cook the cauli with a tablespoon or two of white vinegar. It helps it keep its nice white color, but it also changes the taste more than I realized. I always thought that tang I like in my pureed cauli came from the sour cream, and I'm sure some of it does, but some of it also comes from the white vinegar that goes into the steaming water. It's not much, but it does make a difference. The color is just lovely, too.
Last and for now definitely least, the turnip is cooked and packed up and in the freezer. That leaves:
- cranberry sauce
- bread and veggies for the stuffing
- green beans
- cleaning the turkey
- apple pie
- pumpkin pie
- lemon whatever it is I'm doing with those lemons
as work for tomorrow to prepare for Thursday, in addition to putting together the salad and baking the bread for tomorrow's dinner. MIL was feeling guilty about not helping out tonight, which is just silly. Their flight was delayed for so long, and that's so stressful -- even if there had been no delays, it's a long, long day flying to AZ from CT. Plus, it was wonderful that they spent so much time with the kids, which freed me completely to do what I needed to do.

I promised her I'd leave a list of things they could work on while I was gone, because I will be out from about 8:40 until about 3. Maybe I'll get in a little earlier, but I'm not counting on it. I'm taking DS2 up to school, and then heading up to Phoenix -- my appointment with my surgeon is at 10:15, and then my scan is scheduled for 11, but they'll do it basically whenever I get there.

Today went very well probably because I ate well, rested when I could, and paced myself, more or less. I had some pukey-feeling kind of moments, and my throat "bed" was a bit achey again today -- that just kind of comes and goes, I expect it goes with the territory. I'll review it with the docs tomorrow.

Speaking of reviewing with the docs -- I am so happy I remembered to pick up the u/s films from TCM today. I almost forgot, but as soon as I drove by Alma School Rd, I remembered, and was able to make a u-turn at the next curb cut and zip up there and get them, it only took like 5 minutes. I've put them in the car already, so there's no question about forgetting them at home! I don't want to take any chances with that, not that I think they'll shed any great light on anything, but who knows?

I'm wondering if I'm in the midst of a mini-flare, too. This morning when I woke up, my hands, left hip, and lower back (all the way down to my tail bone) were pegging in at about 5-6 on the 1-10 pain scale, which is, to put it bluntly, way worse than usual. OTOH, I did a boatload of running around yesterday, too, including a lot of lifting of DS2 and DD in and out of shopping carts. Lots of time on my feet, and I have been bad, bad, bad about staying in my pelvic tilt and keeping my weight balanced the way I should to help keep the sciatica at bay.

It has been so long since I exercised that I have no real musculature to help keep my skeletal system in proper alignment... I have to get back to that routine. Every night when I pop my hips back in, it's really a distressingly loud series of "pop-pop-pop". When I was exercising consistently, there would often be only the faintest little "pop", telling me that I was only a little bit "out"... now I'm really "out", practically all the time. Of course, 2 days before Thanksgiving is not a great time to try and get into a new routine. But hopefully shortly afterward. It's just a question of finding the best time in the day where I can do it consistently.

Today was a good day. I didn't have time to think about having cancer much at all today. I spent good time with the two little ones, but DS1 got short-shrift, but I think Nana and Papa helped make up that deficit for me.

Ahhh... DH just put on Vince Giraldi's "Charlie Brown Christmas". He's fiddling with the stereo to set the different modes on the speakers for movies, tv, and music, so he has been bouncing between Spider-Man (my favorite superhero until I came upon ElastiGirl in The Incredibles) and some wretched television programs. Now we're up to music, and I just adore this album.

I bought the new Harry Potter DVD today. I'm looking forward to seeing it about million times. I loved how richly textured it was, and was so resentful of the peewees when they kept distracting me at the movie theater. Didn't tell them that, of course, especially since I knew we'd purchase the DVD asap. Got it for a most excellent price at Target, too. And I'm not saving it for Christmas, because I am completely and totally spoiled: "Hey, I have cancer, and if I want to buy myself a DVD, I will, damn it!" Hee!