Can I wear a purple jumpsuit after I’m 60?

 

That’s me up there, in my purple body suit, and red nightcap.  Yep.  Today is the day I turn the big Six-Oh. 

I don’t feel any older though.  But then I never do on my birthdays.  Does anybody?

The other day, after suffering lately from what has been excruciating sciatic pain going down my left leg for about two or three weeks now, I said to Paul that one day I am going to wake up and this sciatica will just be GONE! 

He said, “Yeah, right!” 

I don’t want to jinx myself here and now, but after going through one of the worst nights I have EVER gone thru the night before last with the sciatic pain, and thinking that my life as I knew it up until now was surely and definitely over, and after taking great care yesterday, my last day of being 59, to not strain my lower back at all, and making Paul do all the running up and down stairs all day long, somehow, just as I was turning 60 years old, I woke up today with almost NO sciatic pain.  I say “almost” because in truth, I can actually feel a leeeeetle bit of it still hiding there in the back of my left leg and lower lumbar spine, but really, it’s so much better than it has been, that I am just going to say it’s gone and try to believe myself!

Today I plan to celebrate -  not turning 60 years old - but saying goodbye (hopefully) to the sciatic pain that has been the bane of my existence lately.

Goodbye Pain!  Good Riddance!

There.  I hope it won’t come back here again (but in reality, it probably will).

As for any other type of celebrating, not much is in the works.  Paul is on another of his yearly low-iodine diets because he will be undergoing his annual thryoid uptake scan soon (after undergoing a complete thyroidectomy 2 years ago) and he can’t eat anything with iodine in it.  So that means I can’t either because I eat what he eats for the most part here.  You’d be surprised at how many things contain iodine! 

After his testing is over and he has another clean bill of health from his endocrinologist, we are planning to go out and celebrate me turning 60 with his parents by chowing down with some serious fried whole-belly Ipswich clams (at least they will be on MY plate) at one of our favourite seafood joints near here.  I’ve been waiting a whole year for those clams so another couple of weeks won’t matter too much.  I’ve lost about 6 pounds, too, lately  on a semi-diet, and I figure I’ll gain all of that plus some after the clam dinner.  But there isn’t anything I love more in the world than fried clams!

 

Cheers,

Bex-The-Geezer

My New Chair

 

 

The other day I made an entry here, but it’s been so long since I’ve written anything, Word Press went and changed everything on me, and now I don’t know how to run things in my blog!  I thought by clicking on “publish” it would, well, publish my page.  But instead, it totally disappeared into nether-space. 

Anyway, to recap… i bought a new chair (pictured above).  Come to find out, I hate it.  If anyone would like it, and wants to drive here (east coast of Mass.,USA) and pick it up, it’s yours.  I didn’t realize that these ergonomic chairs are only good if you have an already perfect body. 

Which I have not.  Balancing my body on my knees (remember, I have “end-stage osteoarthritis” in them) is not a good thing. 

Anyway, it’s sitting over by the bed now, and P. sits on it when he comes in to talk to me in my office area, but for the most part, it is just collecting dog furs.  Of course it came in black.  And we have gazillions of white dog furs flying around at any given moment here.

Well, I am going to click on “Save” this time, and not “Publish.”  I don’t know where that will get me but here goes.  Maybe I should do a “copy” of this entry first in case I lose it again.  Being almost 60, I really don’t like change a whole heckuva lot.  I liked Word Press the way they had it before.  I don’t have lots of free time to fiddle around in here and now I don’t know how to do anything!  Nuts. 

Cheers,

Bex

Happy Birthday to my boy!

Happy Birthday, to you!

Happy Birthday, to you!

Happy Birthday, dear Kippie,

Happy Birthday, to you!

 

Today my boy turns ONE.  I’ve told him that starting today, he is not a puppy any longer.  He’s a big boy now, all grown up.

But of course, in my heart he’ll always be my little boy puppy.

Cheers,

Bex

Have you a sweet tooth?

We have — sweet teeth, that is.  And my dearest friend Sandy mentioned the other day that she’d just made a Pineapple Cake, and oh, my oh my, that sounded well and truly delicious to me, so I asked her how she made it and it turned out to be so simple, and I happened to have all the ingredients here, that I made one for us and just felt like sharing it with you.  So consider that this recipe does not originate from the annals of Crow Cottage, but rather comes from way out in the midwest part of this country, from a woman I am proud to call the bestest of friends, Sandy F.  (Thanks sweetie!)

Sandy’s (and now my) Pineapple Cake

 

(click to enlarge)

Ingredients:

2 cups white flour

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla extract

1 tsp. baking soda

1 large can crushed pineapple including the juice.

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl.  Pour into your pan of choice (I used a non-stick bundt pan which made for a beautiful and easily-cut cake in the end, but Sandy says she uses a 9×13 cake pan).

(Note:  Since there is no oil or fat in this recipe, you might want to spray the pan.  I didn’t, but my bundt pan was fairly new and had all the non-stick coating intact, and I had no problem plopping it out at the end).

Cook at 350 degrees F. for about 40 mins (if using a bundt pan) but maybe a little less time if using a regular cake pan.

Sandy says she sometimes frosts it with cream cheese frosting, but usually not, and I didn’t use any frosting.  It is, indeed, sweet enough all by itself without any frosting, and I have to say, this has become one of my favourite cakes of all time! 

I’ll bet you could even use canned fruit of other varieties in this cake…like how about canned cherry pie filling?  or blueberry pie filling?  I will have to try one of those and I will report back to you how they work. 

For now, we have a rare sweet in the house for afters this week.  We’ve been watching some Ruth Rendell mysteries that I got on DVD and are enjoying those each evening after supper, with our pineapple cake.  It’s really too sinful to be enjoying this kind of luxury every night of the week, but just this once I don’t think will hurt too much.  Besides, it’s January — in New England — and we need some comfort food now and then!

Cheers

Bex