Hungry!!!!! in A New Beginning

Today Joe has gone waaaaaaay up north to a book study with his coven. The kids are coming over this evening to watch The Super Bowl, and he’ll be home by then too. I’m just making a hot dog smorgasbord; that seems suitable for watching football! I got three kinds of the hot dog-sized smoked sausages....cheddar, jalapeno cheddar, and New Orleans style. That, with fries, baked beans, cole slaw and deviled eggs will make us all happy. I even remembered to buy paper plates! Oh, and since my birthday (59th!) is Tuesday, I made me a birfday cake.... chocolate fudge with chocolate frosting. Might as well make it when we’re having the kids over, cuz Joe and I do not need an entire cake and wouldn’t eat nearly all of it!

Just to be getting together, I am meeting Sister Carol when she gets out of church and we are going to Hardees for lunch. I didn’t mention it to Sandy. I went out with Sandy, just-us-two, last weekend. I just feel weird saying to either of them, “I’m going out with our other Sis but I just want it to be one-on-one time this time.” But Sandy and Carol do things just-them-two throughout the week when I am at work! AND, tomorrow all three of us are going out to Olive Garden!

Gee, it does sound like food is a big part in my life, doesn’t it? Plus I work in food service!

Speaking of my job, I have tomorrow off. It’s a teacher in-service day. But I AM going to pop in at my school and decorate my serving line. Cashiers decorate the bulletin boards, etc., on their serving lines every month, but since I am only cashier a third or a fourth of the time, I never have done that, But I want to!! No way do I want MY serving line to be all bare while the other two lines are decorated! The other gals decorate theirs during the work day. But ya know what? I WORK during the work day! I have no spare time to decorate my serving line. And really, while they are TAKING time to decorate theirs, other people (LIKE ME) are doing the work that needs to be done. I called my boss Sophia and asked her if I could go in and decorate mine tomorrow and she said sure, if I want to. It will be fun, doing it without the hassle of everyone else being there.

One of my friends from OD just recently found me here! I’m glad, because I didn’t know she was blogging here either. She asked me if I’d ever written about how the school lunches have changed since Michelle Obama started her campaign about child obesity and nutrition. I haven’t done that here, so just to say a few things....well, at first the kids really missed having things like mashed potatoes and gravy every time we have chicken, or macaroni/cheese when we have fish, or one line that offered pizza and french fries every day. But by now they are used to it. Every day we offer at least two vegetables and anywhere from two to four fruit choices, and our kids are allowed to have up to FOUR side items along with their choice of entree. So really, they should be able to get plenty to eat. My only complaint is that some days the person who thinks up our menus (and that’s Don Jumper, our Director of Child Nutrition) puts crappy vegetables on the menu!! Like for example on Friday, we had chicken tenders or fish sandwich as our entrees, but the two veggies he put on the menu were spinach and stewed tomatoes! What the hell?? Most teenagers do NOT want that! So they eat me out of house and home with the fruit, but I make sure to put a ton of it out there, because they have to eat something!!!!!

I think, there are some vegetables that are very popular with the kids, and we ought to just stick to those. Green beans, broccoli, tossed salad, cauliflower, sweet potatoes. They also take raw carrot bites pretty well. And baked beans and corn and succotash. And any kind of “greens.” But two things we need to just stop serving are stewed tomatoes and pickled beets, because KIDS DO NOT WANT THEM!!!!!

So anyhow.....what else do I have to write about?? Oh, yesterday we went to the Walmart and got a three-inch-thick queen-sized memory foam mattress pad for our bed-which-SORELY-needed one. It cost $139!! But for once in our lives, we finally have enough money that I will buy something like that that I need without cringing too much! It is pretty comfy!

My soreness continues, and I reckon will continue until I get my injection on the 20th. It is not horrible, but of course I do not like it very much. I would say, on the scale of 0 to 10, my pain has gotten up to an 8 a couple times this past week. It hasn’t stayed there, but it’s gotten there. Normally it’s around a 3 or 4. I do still have some times each day when I feel pain-free and just sooooo comfortable that I don’t even want to MOVE, though, and that is GREAT!

Well, I guess I’ll post this and get ready to go to town and meet Sis for lunch. Happy Sunday! :o)