Share Four Somethings & Friday Photos

Linking up with Jennifer for Share Four Somethings for May

Things loved or disliked, accomplished, improved upon or needs improvement and noticed

Things loved: Abby finished up her semester at school and arrived home in May. I loved having her come home and I love that she had a great school year. Her first year of college, all the students had to be in masks everywhere except in their own dorm rooms. That kept those who didn’t feel comfortable, literally, and/or figuratively- with the health risks associated with wearing a mask, inside their dorm rooms. Abby decided to change her major beginning with her second year of college but that was not without some stress and doubting of the decision. At the end of her second year, she volunteered to take on a leadership role, for the following school year, of a campus Christian organization that she was active in. This past school year, her third year, she did really well academically (President’s List both semesters), finally got to Paris, and due in large part to her position within the organization that she took a leadership role in, she met the sweetest guy (after having kissed a couple of proverbial frogs). They are now dating and are just the cutest couple. 

(Apologies (sort of!) for the bragfest!!)

Though Abby has met  students at her college from around the country, how neat is it that her boyfriend grew up ten miles from us? The two went to different high schools and never crossed paths until college.  They have a lot in common, in a small part due to both growing up in the same geographic area. 

Bittersweet for sure, but I loved seeing Alyssa graduate high school. Her high school years were not without their challenges- again due partially to Covid and partially because the teen years are nothing if but hard. However, Alyssa has proven throughout these years to be resilient, willing to work hard, be an incredible and loyal friend and a joy (with obvious exceptions in the way that no one is a joy to be around 100% of the time. I like to talk positively about the kids but also be realistic...) to spend time with. Alyssa was my little sidekick when the other kids started school and then when Jacob and Abby were both in college, she was our only kid at home for three years. We will miss her like crazy when she moves away for college but feel so fortunate for the 18+ years we will have had with her under our roof. 

My sweet daughters (/drivers) on grad day last weekend

Accomplished (sort of?): It’s not quite done but I parsed through literally thousands of pictures of Alyssa and put together a slideshow that condenses said thousands of pictures into 1200. I cannot stop working on it, though. I know, intellectually, that I have plenty of photos for it but it pains me to not have all of the pictures that I want in it. 

Improved upon/ needs improvement- Needs improvement- patience. I have not driven a car since March 28. My doctor says that I will not be able to drive immediately after the boot comes of in late June. So I am looking at not being able to drive until July.  I am trying to be positive and certainly there are positives vis a vis the very much not positive condition of not being able to drive. I don’t work (I had sub jobs lines up in April and May but canceled those- thankfully the tiny amount I earned subbing contributed just a tiny amount to the household income so not having that is not impacting us financially), the girls are both home and done with school and are super sweet and willing to take me anywhere when they are around, and lastly, I am generally a homebody and being forced to be at home unless someone is available to take me out, has not been that bad. Notwithstanding all of that, I am ready to drive. More than ready. Impatient if you will. 

Noticed- In going through my digital photos, I combed through the archives for the eighteen years of Alyssa’s life for the slideshow I’m working on. I noticed a SIX MONTH gap where I have no digital files of any photos. WHAT? I think I know what happened; it’s a long story how and why (which I know doesn’t always stop me from writing about it but today it is). I tried not to panic about the gap and then realized that I had all my SD cards that would have the files on them. So of course I went through my cards and found a couple of gaps and of course part of the six months for which I don’t have files, I also can’t find the time frame for on an SD card. I have many pictures printed from that six month period (and so many of them are good which is why I really want the JPEG files!!) so it isn’t as if those six months are gone pictorially from the kids' childhoods, but I would really like to use some of the pictures for Alyssa’s slideshow (this is one of the reasons that the slide show is not done). I can take pictures of the pictures and use those in the slideshow but there is a quality degradation when I take pictures from pictures. I may resort to that. Here are a few pictures of pictures to show how cute so many of the pictures are from this time period. Can you blame me for being upset about not having the files??

Pics from Alyssa’s preschool Thanksgiving feast

Adorable matching dresses with sis for The Nutcracker

 

Adorable preschool class Christmas party

Fun trip to a holiday light show complete with rickety rides that we let our beloveds ride!

Another adorable matching outfit with sis + pics with Bub in them.

See how great it would be to have the digital files of these pictures to use in the slide show??

Friday photos:

Not a super exciting week but a good one, nonetheless

Abby started her internship for the summer and so far so good. She sent me this photo. Abby’s internship is not forty hours a week and I am good with that. Mama needs a driver!!

My foot is on an incline within my boot. Last week, at the doctor’s office, my doctor removed one of the wedges inside the boot. This week, I was able to remove one. Next week, I will remove the last one. I will be in the boot for three weeks with no wedge (so almost five more weeks total). Having my foot more flat doesn’t make a huge difference but it does seem to make walking a bit more normal.

I was able to move into a shorter heeled “house shoe.” I have to wear a shoe on my good foot or else I walk lopsided.

Ebony and Ivory working together to make walking harmony!

Anniversary 25 came and went without any fanfare. That is OK! We will hopefully do something celebratory in the fall. The girls and I were out running a couple of errands. Alyssa wanted to get pictures printed for her own grad project- a tri fold poster with pictures of her from high school. We uploaded the prints she wanted to Walmart’s website and then went to pick up the pictures. (Oh, to not have to worry about an SD card, uploading, etc. when you use your camera phone as almost all the youngins do.)

I saw these cookies in Walmart’s bakery and thought that buying a cookie called “Wedding Cookies” on our anniversary seemed appropriate somehow (or maybe cookies just sounded good?).

I had always heard of these cookies as Mexican wedding cookies though “Mexican” was missing from this label. The cookies were good and tasted like the Mexican wedding cookies of my memory. I had to consult Dr. Google. I found many recipes for Mexican wedding cookies so my memory of the name was not incorrect. Not sure why Walmart doesn’t call them Mexican wedding cookies. Maybe it is afraid that someone would be offended by that and cause a raucous and create some TikTok tirade outlining the evils of Walmart for misappropriating the word Mexican? Who knows? Maybe there’s an innocuous reason! 

Well, one thing is for sure, after looking at recipes for Mexican wedding cookies online, I really want to make some homemade. They have the usual suspect of cookie ingredients but also contain crushed almonds. The cookies are not soft (how I typically like cookies) thanks to the addition of the nuts. I found an easy looking recipe for the cookie at Allrecipes.

Speaking of Mexican and food (though can I even say Mexican to describe any food that is not purchased in or consumed in the country of Mexico? I’m quivering in fear of being canceled!!), I prepared Mexican (ersatz, to be sure!) for dinner this week when we had two guests. Abby’s boyfriend ate with us and one of my brothers was in town for a quick visit. You betcha I busted out our Taco Tuesday kit in which to present toppings. I also made homemade Spanish/Mexican rice. Sometimes I use a box mix (Alyssa prefers the La Preferida brand to homemade :() if I have one but I didn’t so I made some. I always use this recipe when I make homemade (with tweaks) and everyone except for Alyssa really likes it. I also heated up our favorite spicy corn from Trader Joe’s. Everyone liked the meal and bonus, I prepared so much meat (seasoned chicken breasts cooked in the crock pot and then shredded) that we had leftovers. Taco Tuesday turned Taco Thursday and Friday was a winner!!

I didn’t take any pictures of the corn package that I bought so I lifted this from the internet. 

I started physical therapy on Friday. It went fine. The office where my PT occurs is right next to a YMCA. So while many people got to go to the building where their non maimed/ non injured limbs, tendons and the like allowed them to enjoy exercise equipment and weights, a few us of hobbled next door where our fate would be a little different than those inside the Y. Aside from feeling bad that I was in the land of the injured and not the spritely exercisers, PT went pretty well. My physical therapist said that I should stop doing my foot movements when I felt pain. What? I’m supposed to avoid pain? OK! I though pain would be part and parcel of the healing process but I am on board with a pain free recovery :).