Don't Wake Me

Zzzzzzzzz..... Oh! I'm sorry! I guess I dozed off there for a moment. I have had a whirlwind of activity the last few days and I am really dragging! Today I plan on sticking close to home and just resting!

Friday, I rode along with Diane as she took her friend, Kathy, who had been visiting from North Carolina, to Atchison, KS to hook up with her friend, Cindy, who she was going to visit for a few days. We shopped at Nell Hills, a really adorable 'home emporium' filled with beautiful items. It was a quick trip - shop, lunch and then headed home.

The reason we didn't spend more time in Atchinson is because Mark and I had a wedding reception to attend that evening - for a business associate's child. I have to say, I think it was the nicest reception I had ever attended. There were 300 guests at the Scoular building. The tables had BEAUTIFUL arrangements on them - from the tall vases with the sprays on top to modern candelabras with sprays on the bottom as well as smaller arrangements. I am a real flower lover, so I really appreciated these lovely arrangements.

There was a jazz duo playing during the hor'dourves portion of the reception (which were very tasty and were being served by constantly circling wait staff) and a lovely buffet meal was provided complete with pasta (it was an Italian wedding), baked chicken, jumbo cold shrimp and beef tenderloin roast. For dessert there was the normal wedding cake, but there was also a huge table with a chocolate fountain and just about anything you could think of to dip in it, and another table laden with cannoli. Once dinner was over, a 10 piece band - the Confidentials - played for the dance. It was quite the 'doings'.

Yesterday, we spent the entire day getting ready for our Shrimp Boil party we hosted last night. We first experienced a shrimp boil in Ames, IA. Matt's friend, Ben's, dad promised Ben a boil if he would study hard the month before his LSAT test and not party. We tagged on to the celebration and brought appetisers and desserts. Ben's dad had perfected the recipe and process so shared it with us. Their boil consisted of shrimp, crawdads, sausage, potatoes & corn. You cook this in a huge turkey fryer pot with onions, lemons and many, many spices. It was yummy and fun! For our wedding anniversary this year I gave Mark a turkey fryer kit. It was inevitable that the shrimp boil would follow!

We tweaked the recipe a bit by substituting crab legs for the crawdads. As far as we mid-westerners are concerned the only good crawdad is in your bait bucket. Preparing for and cooking the boil was quite the process - but well worth the effort! Needless to say, we spent the day shopping, cooking and cleaning. Mark took the outside chores and Matt and Greg helped me inside. It is so nice to have such capable young men to help - I know I couldn't have done it without them! My camera went on the fritz, but our friends Courtney and Mike had theirs, so I will post pics as soon as they send them to me. If you are interested in the boil recipe - let me know!

Matt's fiance, Courtney, is here for the weekend. She will be heading back to DesMoines sometime this afternoon. The advertising firm she works for used her for a model for an Iowa State ad campaign that is to appear in the US Weekly News and World Report magazine. So if you see an IA State ad with a pretty dark haired girl standing in front of the Parthenon, that is Courtney!

Jaime, Greg's girlfriend, is getting ready for a trip to Korea. She is going to an adoption convention for people who were adopted out of Korea. She is flying by herself, but will meet up with other people she has met at similar conventions that have been held in the US. She is nervous, but really looking forward to it. It will be her first time to visit her 'land of origin'. We are excited for her and will enjoy hearing about her adventure.

Tomorrow is my next chemo treatment and I am really not looking forward to it. The neuropathy in my feet and legs has gotten worse and I am feeling more tired with each treatment. I know that the treatments are cumulative, and that I should expect the side effects to worsen - but that doesn't mean I have to like it! Dr. Silverberg will be back (yea!) so it will be nice to run all my concerns past him. Your prayers are appreciated.