And the previous years!

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

For reference…
2010 post
2009 post
2008 post

http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/easy_shepherds_pie/

Easy Shepherd’s Pie Recipe
* Prep time: 10 minutes
* Cook time: 50 minutes

Ingredients

* 1 1/2 lbs ground round beef
* 1 onion chopped
* 1-2 cups vegetables – chopped carrots, corn, peas
* 1 1/2 – 2 lbs potatoes (3 big ones)
* 8 tablespoons butter (1 stick)
* 1/2 cup beef broth
* 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
* Salt, pepper, other seasonings of choice

Method

1 Peel and quarter potatoes, boil in salted water until tender (about 20 minutes).

2 While the potatoes are cooking, melt 4 Tablespoons butter (1/2 a stick) in large frying pan.

3 Sauté onions in butter until tender over medium heat (10 mins). If you are adding vegetables, add them according to cooking time. Put any carrots in with the onions. Add corn or peas either at the end of the cooking of the onions, or after the meat has initially cooked.

4 Add ground beef and sauté until no longer pink. Add salt and pepper. Add worcesterchire sauce. Add half a cup of beef broth and cook, uncovered, over low heat for 10 minutes, adding more beef broth as necessary to keep moist.

5 Mash potatoes in bowl with remainder of butter, season to taste.

6 Place beef and onions in baking dish. Distribute mashed potatoes on top. Rough up with a fork so that there are peaks that will brown nicely. You can use the fork to make some designs in the potatoes as well.

7 Cook in 400 degree oven until bubbling and brown (about 30 minutes). Broil for last few minutes if necessary to brown.

Yield: Serves four.

Things I do differently: I usually use Ground Turkey and Chicken or Veggie Broth. I also sometimes use leftover mashed potatoes, if I’ve made mashed potatoes recently. I also use Trader Joe’s Organic Foursome frozen veggie mix, but I add that to cut veggies. I also never have Worcestershire sauce so I don’t use that. Sometimes I’ll add a little soy sauce or something. And of course, I eat most everything with Crystal Hot Sauce, so I just add that for flavor at the end.

It turns out it isn’t my grandfather at all. I don’t recognize her voice, but this must be my mother. Joe thinks she sounds just like my sister Maria. What do you think?
Hershey Park Message
The envelope is not addressed, but is pre-printed: Don’t Write– Record it on the “Voice-O-Graph”.

We watched Darby O’Gill and the Little People the other night (Joe has been telling Lilia stories about “wee people”). I then looked up the Wikipedia entry for it, and read about the actors. According to Wikipedia, the lead actress, Janet Munro, died at age 38 (!), of “myocarditis.” The entry for myocarditis says “Myocarditis is most often due to infection by common viruses, such as parvovirus B19“! The Fifth Disease virus! Woah.

So, even if the arthritis symptoms last as long as nine years (“Chronic joint pain has been known to last up to nine years.“), at least the infection didn’t go to my heart. Geez.

Apparently, according to a survey, parents are worrying about the wrong things. They worry about:
1. Kidnapping
2. School snipers
3. Terrorists
4. Dangerous strangers
5. Drugs

But they should be worried about:
1. Car accidents
2. Homicide (usually committed by a person who knows the child, not a stranger)
3. Abuse
4. Suicide
5. Drowning

Now, what struck me about this article is that from the beginning of the article, it wasn’t clear what kind of worrying they meant. My parenting worries don’t generally involve bodily harm or death. I have other worries to keep me occupied from things I don’t have control over, like terrorists or school snipers. I came up with my own list of worries, and only two involve bodily harm:

1. Am I causing psychological damage by being a bad parent?
2. Will she be screwed up if she is an only child?
3. Getting hit by a car when she runs into the street because I didn’t teach her to listen to the word Stop or No.
4. Not finding a decent elementary school
5. Serious illness

And about the list of things we parents should be worried about… I had a car seat check just the other week because I was unsure I had reinstalled the car seat properly. I had. And I really don’t know what to say about the rest.

The other day, Lilia and I went to the Morris Arboretum, and we noticed the same squirrel tile in the Oak Allee.

And I was reminded that we were here when Lilia was a baby!

I spent the day checking facebook, having breakfast and lunch with Lilia (but not doing the dishes afterward), doing a little laundry, watching Lilia’s animals give a music concert, helping Lilia figure out how to make a Lego building that won’t wobble and reworking a turkey feather so Lilia could have her very own quill pen.

I actually wrote this post a few weeks ago when I got a pang of guilt about spending so much time at home this summer due to the various illnesses we’ve suffered. But you know what? That’s not a bad list of things to do in a day. It’s not super mom quality, but it’s alright. The dishes eventually got done too.

Butterflies
Butterflies start out as eggs.
They hatch and out comes a caterpillar.
They eat and eat.
More eating.
They eat lots of food. They crawl.
They are tired so they make a home on a branch.
Then out comes a butterfly.

Ladybugs
Ladybugs are so pretty people don’t think they are bugs.
They eat pest bugs. They stay in the grass so much. And
they have wings. And they can fly.

I want to whine whine whine. Sorry.

Edited to add: just realized it’s the one-month anniversary of my relationship with Fifth Disease. Yuck.

At that point, I took my temperature, and realized I had a low-grade fever (100.3 or so). I also developed gigantically swollen lymph nodes at the base of my skull (high on my neck). I spent the rest of the week feeling flu-like without the cold symptoms, and finally I made an appointment to see the doctor and went in on Friday, July 23rd. I’ve been going to a new doctor’s office for the past two years. My old practice was difficult to deal with. If you needed to be seen, you had to call, follow all the prompts, and wait for a call back– you couldn’t talk to a human. At my new practice, a human answers the phone. But, every time I go, I have to see a student first. It make my appointments about twice as long. But I figure it’s a trade-off. I wouldn’t even go to my old doctor’s office because it was so difficult to get through to them.

I sat in the office with the new student and we went over my symptoms. We both agreed it sounded viral. I usually don’t go to the doctor for a virus, but I was a little nervous that I could have lyme disease, since we do trek around the woods a bit. As I was sitting there, I noticed a red lacy rash on both my arms. I pointed it out to the student, and he proclaimed, “Contact dermatitis”. Now, I do get contact dermatitis from things like laundry detergent and lotions, but I am very careful about the products I use and haven’t had an outbreak in a while. When the doctor came in, we discussed how it was probably just a random virus that would run it’s course… and then I showed him my arms. He immediately said, “Oh FIFTH DISEASE!” I had heard of Fifth Disease as a childhood illness, but didn’t know more about it. After we determined that, I went home and researched it a little more. I discovered that because I had the visible rash, I was no longer contagious (and could feel better about going to work that weekend in a public library). And I also read some scary things on the Internet about terrible lingering joint pain and chronic fatigue symptoms.

By Sunday, July 25th, my joints were getting swollen. And when I say “joints” I don’t mean just some of them… I mean EVERY SINGLE JOINT IN MY BODY. Monday, I felt pretty incapacitated, but made it into my three hour shift at the library… hobbling like an 85 year old. I called my doctor’s office, because I wanted to make sure that if I was walking or trying to move, I wasn’t doing any more damage, and waited for a call-back. Tuesday, we were heading to the Poconos to meet Joe’s parents, and I was moving like I was 90 years old. My toes, my ankles, my knees, my hands (fingers, wrists), shoulders, etc were all swelling up. I even thought I was experience swelling in my forehead! My normally loose rings were stuck to my finger. I wished I had taken them off, but it is actually a useful gauge of how swollen I am. When we arrived in the Poconos, I shuffled to the bedroom and fell asleep. I am not normally a napper, but the fatigue and urge to nap is overwhelming.

Wednesday, July 28th, my joints felt a smidge better. What a relief! I also got the call-back from my doctor’s office. It was the young student calling. I asked him if Arnica, a homeopathic that my mother-in-law had, would help. He hadn’t heard of it. He said stick to Naproxen, and then he threw in this gem: “You’re kinda old to have Fifth Disease.” Thanks, kiddo! Should I have said, “You’re kinda young to be a doctor!”? Fifth Disease is most common in kids 5-15, but I just happen to be a lucky one who didn’t get it as a kid. I hope my mother-in-law is right– that I am helping that student be a better doctor, but I would have hoped he had looked it up before calling me and see that it does happen to adults and that the arthritis symptom is not uncommon. By the weekend, I felt probably 75% better. But now, over a week since I had the crippling arthritis, I am still at probably 75% better. I’d like to be 100% better. Yesterday, I was sore, but able to go out and do some errands and even went out letterboxing (although I did not walk much). Today, I have been pretty sore but overwhelmingly tired, and I took another short nap, which was not rejuvenating.

I’m a little down in the dumps, because I’ve read some things about this lingering not just for weeks, not just for months, but for YEARS. I am nervous. I wish there was something I could do to fight it. I am hoping to start an exercise regimen again soon, and I’m going to watch my diet. I’ve been taking naproxen, but I’d like to not have to take it– I wish there was something natural that helped the swelling. Maybe someone will read this and give me some advice?

Now I just typed so much that my hands are pretty sore. I would like to make some fun updates about our vacations, but I think that will have to wait for another day.

My hand on Wednesday, July 28th– my fingers are normally VERY skinny

My swollen toes and ankle on Wednesday, July 29th– again, my feet are super skinny