Weekend ++ in Review

 Mark was out of town on Wednesday night and I worked late. He was doing this:

This is a 10# fish - look at it
compared to his boot!!

After work, I ran by the house and look what I found!! We have walls and ceilings!! Oh my goodness. It is starting to feel like a house again . . .not a home, yet, but a house! Our house!

Imagine my surprise when I looked in one of the bedrooms and found this. We had planned to reuse our bathroom cabinets and were updating them with new paint. I texted this picture to our builder and designer and said, "something bad happened to this." They aren't sure what happened but will be replacing the cabinet.

Thursday morning was rainy. I hit the road to drive an hour north to pick up my oldest sister. She is on dialysis three times a week and has a port. She had to have a surgical procedure done on the port. Normally, her daughter (my niece) would take her to these type of appointments since we don't live in the same area but my niece just had a bilateral mastectomy for breast cancer and can't drive. 

You might not know this about me but I HATE hospitals, anesthesia, medical smells, etc. I actually had an appointment with my counselor/therapist on Wednesday and she talked me through the day. It ended up being an ok day. The counselor told me to leave room for good surprises. I did and the day was much better than I anticipated. My sister's procedure went well and it had almost stopped raining by the time we had to get in and out of the doctor's office.

The doctor's office was lovely and still required masks. I had a book on my phone to read and scrolled through social media and answered emails while I waited.

My niece had texted for an update and I sent this picture to her. Procedure was over and my sister was drinking her sprite and eating crackers. She was still starving so we stopped for a late lunch before I took her home and started the drive back to Birmingham.

Thursday night we had a reunion of our fellow travelers (pilgrims) from our February trip to Israel. We met at Eli's Jerusalem Grill. That is not pronounced E (long E) li's. It is pronounced E (short E) - like Ellie. I had Falafel and Israeli cous cous and red (purple) cabbage. I also had a great cider.

There were 30 of us on the trip and about 23 of us were able to get together. We had so much fun.

We were loud and took up about half of the restaurant but hopefully we boosted their bottom line for the day.

Friday night was supper club and all ten of us were able to be together. I was in charge of appetizers so I made bacon wrapped stuffed dates. These dates came all of the way from Jericho back in February. I love the dates from Jericho. I used a sturdy straw to push out the seeds/pits/stones (all three seem to be correct according to google). I stuffed half of the dates with goat cheese and the other half with two almonds. I then wrapped each one with half a strip of bacon and secured with a toothpick. I baked at 375 for 10 minutes and then turned them over and baked 11 minutes. They were delicious. If I do it again, I will do all of them with goat cheese. I also took carrots and hummus. It, too, was yummy!

On the recommendation of many, I started reading Remarkably Bright Creatures on Saturday while Mark was at the hospital with his brother. I haven't read much yet but am finding it interesting so far. It is definitely not my normal genre of book. 

Just in case you didn't catch this . . .Yes, both of us have siblings with major health concerns. 

As usual, I worked the Welcome Center on Sunday morning and we had lunch with Mark's family.  At church today, our kid's choirs presented a musical, "What's Up, Zac?" and it was so well done. 

That's a wrap on our weekend + a couple of days!

On to the month of May - wow! I can't believe it is May!! We've been out of our house almost 10 months.