It’s been a whole lot of Fridays since the last Friday Five and I’m sorry for that. I’m just going to cut right to the chase: On July 4th weekend, while we were painting the garden shed, Zach had a heart attack; a STEMI – the one the doctors call “the widowmaker”. We were incredibly fortunate to have an amazing emergency response team who got to the house in about 8 mins and had him at the hospital in less than an hour. Because of that, he’s making a good recovery and doing well.
Needless to say, however, the last few months have been busy and stressful and we’re only just now getting back to “normal” – or at least our new normal, given Covid restrictions that are still going on, heart attack lifestyle changes, and, well, everything. I’m hoping to get back to regular posts again soon.
In the meanwhile here are five things that are on my mind this week.
ONE
At the end of this month we’re headed off on our first real vacation since the Coronavirus struck in early 2020. I’ll be posting pictures from the road on Instagram and my personal FB page and maybe a few here as well. We’re road-tripping this year and the itinerary is as follows: Las Vegas to Grand Canyon to Lake Havasu to Joshua Tree to Los Angeles. I’m really excited and ready to go – Rt 66 here we come!
TWO
We’ve drastically cut back on eating out (or UberEats in, given Covid) since Zach’s heart attack, but the one thing he misses desperately is lamb biryani from our favorite Indian restaurant. So I decided to learn how to make it myself. Lamb is not always easy to find in the US but I found boneless leg of lamb at Costco for a reasonable price. I used the Serious Eats Lamb Biryani recipe and even made the raita that was linked. It was fabulous and I’ve made it 3 times since. Yes, it was that good! I highly recommend it.
THREE
We had an arborist crew over at the house last week to remove a dead tree that had fallen across the creek. I really enjoyed watching them do their stuff. They brought in a little Bobcat with a claw/hook thing on the front and just zipped around the back of the property like crazy. They not only removed the dead tree; they also cleared out all the deadfall and garbage piles the previous owners had left at the back of the property. It took them a little over 2 hours to do what would have taken us 2-3 days to accomplish! Now that the yard looks so open, it’s easy to see where the firepit deck will go and how the rest of the space will lay out. More dead tree removal pictures on Instagram.
FOUR
The squirrels have been visiting the bird feeder hanging outside my office window and the cats have united over the common enemy. It’s the closest that Phoebe will get to the kittens, but the lure of the squirrel activity is too strong to fight! 1 squirrel & 3 frustrated cats!
FIVE
I picked up a copy of Spark Joy: The Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up (a companion book to Marie Kondo’s original book) and for some reason it resonated with me more than the original book did. So I KonMari’d all my clothing a few weeks ago and committed to her folding and storage techniques even though I was skeptical. It turns out that just doing my clothing has made a huge difference. I donated 6 large bags of clothing to a local women’s shelter and have completely streamlined my closet and dresser. Now I can see everything I have at one glance and I’m actually enjoying folding laundry and putting it away! (Note: The Hooligans spark joy, so they stayed!)
That’s about it for this week. I’ll have a recipe up before we leave and probably one scheduled Friday post while we’re gone. Hope everyone is having a good weekend.