I Said I Wasn't Going to Do It

But I did -- cooked a bunch. I now have roasted radishes, chicken with Montreal seasoning, cooked Italian hot sausage, boneless pork ribs with buffalo sauce and homemade cream of mushroom soup.

I froze hamburger, chicken and sausage. Maybe I won't have to shop for a while! Dinner was ham with melted mozzarella on it and a side of broccoli. Anybody want a cook?

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Phabulous Phyllis had a birthday dinner for me at her house. Her house is stunning with her new furniture and arrangement of her art on the walls. Nine of us had a very lively conversation with wonderful food. Thank you, Phyllis!!

When I remarked that I had stopped at home to get into comfy clothes, Emily said, "That's because you wanted to match the drapes!"

The only one you don't get to see is Lisa who brought the caramel/salt chocolate birthday cake. I ate low carb chocolate macaroon cookies that I had made (in front of Emily in a bowl on the lower left). I'm pretty sure a good time was had by all.


***************************************************
This morning I met Nancy (the one in the dark green above) at the Library for the a capella singing. It was great! There were the Bluestockings (females) and the Zumbye (males) singers. They were really terrific. Both groups are from Amherst College -- at 10:30 a.m., it was early in the morning for them, lol.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

It's cold as a witch's broom. It's 13 F. which I know is not that bad, but it was in the 70's last week! Sheesh! And windy too. Even more than blustery -- freaking windy!

((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((
Yesterday (Sunday) we were greeted in church with some happy flowers on two of the window sills.

This is the sunny side.

This is the not sunny side -- I had to lighten it up a lot, so it's a bit washed out.

Just because I like it!

After church I zipped over to the knitting group at The Works which is a soup, salad, sandwich type of place. It was surprisingly full of hungry college students. 11 to 11:30 a.m. is usually early for them on a Sunday morning. 

We had a nice time knitting and chatting. I met a couple of new people including Zach who is a physicist with a new masters degree doing post doc work. Hmmm ... that sounds like his new degree is a doctorate. Anyway, he is making a large, very beautiful, blanket of many colors. The pattern looks like a half of a quilter's log cabin block. 

Log cabin quilt block. Zach's pattern looks like the right half of each of these blocks -- in other words, triangles. It's quite an achievement. 

After that, it was off to the Irish Club's lecture given by the Rabbi of the Jewish Community Center of Amherst. He had spent a graduate school year in Dublin (at Trinity College) studying five great Irish writers, including James Joyce. He had become passionate about Joyce's writing as an undergraduate.

He was there in the 90's which was a time of great social change and he told us about his experiences while living a "bifurcated life." His college friends were all goyim (non Jews) and when he went to Temple, he discovered a whole new community/extended family of very young and very old Jews. Apparently, any young Irish had to leave the country to find work.

It was a great talk and I learned a lot. The room was filled to capacity because many of his congregation were there to hear him speak.