FLOWERS, FOOTBALL, FAMILY DAY AND CHILI FIXIN'

Frank surprised me with these lovely flowers. We've been enjoying them all week.

I cannot begin to tell you how wonderful my precious Frank has been to me during this ordeal with my back. I'm so blessed to have such a kind and gentle man as my husband and soul mate. God truly smiled on me when he put him in my life and I will be forever thankful.

So many things have been going on the past week or so, but I think I will begin with my health report. I went to the hospital and had my injection yesterday. While I was waiting to have the procedure, I looked up and saw this really suave looking guy dressed all in black with an apron on with print on it like a Jackson Pollock painting, standing outside my cubical. When he turned around, it was my Doctor! You don't often get excellent medical treatment from someone this good looking in designer scrubs and dimples. Makes the pain much easier to take :-)

I guess I'm behind the times. I didn't know that they made black scrubs. Who says that the Good Guys have to wear White!
The procedure that I had is called Lumbar epidural steroid injection or(LESI). They put me to sleep, administered a dye in order to see exactly where they needed to inject me and they, before I knew it, I was back in the recovery room. It was literally painless and so far, after having taken Tylenol every 3 hours since, I'm relatively paint free!
Now I'll backtrack a little. We have a new family member as of a few days ago. Her name is Siena Catherine and she weighed in at 8 lbs and was 21 inches long.

Our Beth is the proud aunt of this precious bundle. She is her sister and her husband's first child and she's beautiful.
On Friday we went to Central Market in Fort Worth.

The green chilies from Hatch, NM have arrived so we ordered a bushel and a half of them and had them roasted there since it's easier than roasting them yourself. Our chili supply in the freezer was getting low.

Now the fun begins. We put them in the trunk in this large box and the aroma was like heaven. I felt like I was in Santa Fe. However, it did make your eyes water a little since it was just off the roasted and was still hot. We use a lot of it in the Green Chili Stew that I make and we love.

Next came the hard part. You have to peel the chilies before you bag and freeze them. We put on rubber gloves and masks and even that didn't really keep us from coughing and sneezing while we performed our task. Papa looks like a bandit out of a Western getting ready to hold up a train, but he's really just trying to breathe without coughing even though his eyes are watering a lot!

Once we finally finished, we had 22 bags of peeled, roasted fresh green chili from Hatch, New Mexico ready to go into the freezer and to use whenever we need it. Hopefully, that should last us for the year.

Here is the recipe for the stew if you are interested. It's really delicious.

GREEN CHILE STEW

1 - 1 1/2 lbs tenderized stew meat (get the butcher to run it through the tenderizer twice)
4 large potatoes, peeled
2 cloves garlic (chopped finely)
6-8 green Hatch chilies, peeled and chopped
(It's important that you use Hatch chili as that's what gives it the authentic flavor)
Dredge the meat in flour. Put enough olive oil in the stock pot to cook the meat until it's done but not browned. You have to stir the meat while it’s cooking so it won’t stick. Add garlic after you have started cooking the meat.
Once the meat is cooked, add salt to taste, the green chilies and enough water to barely cover the meat. Simmer for an hour over a low heat. In the meantime, peel and dice the potatoes (the chunks should be about the size of the meat pieces) and cover them with water in a bowl. Don't throw the water away as it will contain the potato starch and will thicken the stew.
After you have simmered the meat, add the potatoes and totally cover them with the water that they have been soaking in. Cook this mixture until the potatoes are done (it doesn't take long). You want a lot of pot liquor as the juice is some of the best part.
Bon Appetito!!!

That night, we went to the first pre-season Cowboy game at the new stadium. Even though we had been there for the tour a few weeks go, it was nothing like being there for the actual game. There were 70,000+ people there and it was wonderful. As I saw in an article about that night, the Ghost of Tom Landry was everywhere.

I never missed a game back then when he was the coach. He was a fine gentleman, an excellent coach and the one responsible for making the Cowboy's "America's Team". Wish he could have been here to see this wonderful structure that we now have in our city. He would be very proud.
I was able to have a wheelchair available to transport me from the car to my seat, compliments of the stadium. That made it very easy for me. We have excellent seats, but since the stadium is so large, there is still a lot of walking involved.

At this point the stadium was starting to fill up and the excitement was beginning to accelerate. Most people were wearing their Cowboy memorabilia and there was a huge amount of energy in the air.

We won the game against the Titans so all the Cowboy fans were happy campers.
Our ride had not arrived yet when we left the game, so we waited in front and had a very pleasant surprise. We were right by the Valet Parking stand and I noticed a beautiful car that I had never seen before. I asked one of the attendants about it and he said that it was a Maybach and it cost a little over $600,000. Can you imagine! I drooled as it drove away.

It was beautiful and of course, if you can afford the car, you can afford a driver :-) I'd love to be THAT Miss Daisy!
Saturday was Family Day. We usually meet on Sundays, but since school was starting next week, we decided to gather on Saturday instead.
I mentioned that we had a new family member at the beginning of this blog. Well .... I overlooked that we have a new member in our immediate family. His name is Dozer and he belongs to Nicholas and Dayna.

She was given that name since Dayna rescued her from a dump site in Dallas and she was hiding under a bulldozer. She's a sweet girl but will be HUGE when she gets through growing. She's part Lab and the other part is Great Pyrenees. She has 6 toes on each of her back feet and LOVES to swim!

Every time they would take her out of the pool ... back in she would jump. It was great fun watching her. Everyone enjoyed her antics with the exception of our other Grand dog, Harry. I think he was not only confused but a little jealous. He's used to being the center of attention and doesn't like to share the spotlight.
Most of the family stayed in the pool after we had lunch.

Even though we gathered at our house, Rachel was our hostess this time and we had a great last days of summer lunch with hamburgers, hot dogs and strawberry shortcake. What more could one ask for and you can't get more American that that unless you serve apple pie! Everyone was here except Rachel's husband, Matt, as he had to work. He was certainly missed! Here's our little group after a good day at the pool and full of good food. You'll notice that the grand dogs are at a good distance from one another, but Harry has his eyes on Dozer :-)

I'll close on a happy but scary note, or at least for me it is. Our great grandson, Ethan will start high school on Monday. That's so hard for us to believe. How can either of us be that old! Seems like only yesterday that he was a little bitty fellow.

We're so proud of him. He took his accuplacer test for admission into college and he scored 90. That's quite an accomplishment for this fine young man.
That's about it for now. I'll keep you posted about my back. I want to thank you for all the prayers, and I feel very positive about the decision to go ahead with pain management. I've suffered with this silly back most of my life and I will hopefully have some relief at long last. Have a great week. I plan to take it easy for the next few days and who knows, I just might be running a marathon soon!

XOXO, Pcasso