Home Happenings...Real Life!

I decided to take a short break from writing about our summer trip to Alberta Canada… We haven’t been sitting on our hands since coming home from the big Canadian adventure!  Here's what's been happening in our 'real life'...

As soon as we returned to East Tennessee, I went in for my second surgery this year.  It’s pretty bad, since this year was the first year that I’ve ever had any significant surgery!  This time, it was carpal tunnel surgery on my left hand.  It’s been a slow healing process so far.  I hope to be released by the doctor to start swinging a golf club by this coming weekend!

Of course, not to be outdone, Laurie went in for cataract surgery on her left eye!  This photo was taken right after we got home following her surgery.  It is amazing what they can do these days.  After a couple of weeks, she’ll go in for the same surgery on her right eye and a couple of weeks later, she should be able to see better than she has in years!

Health Care Financial Fact Learned: We learned that we’d actually save money on these surgeries if we didn’t use Laurie’s insurance with its $5K deductible. It would cost us at least $1,200.00 more out of pocket if we used her insurance than if we didn’t!  Don’t you just love our health care system?!!

On top of our surgeries, J.D., our pet rescue cat, is having some kind of health problems.  We haven’t figured it out yet, but we’ll be seeing the veterinarian again soon for a follow-up!  The vet thought it may be do to allergies...but it's been almost two weeks since we've seen him & now JD is staring to show more signs of some underlying problem.

So…all of this hasn’t stopped me from playing with my breakfast creations!  In this case, I had a couple of leftover pizza slices to work with.  I zapped them in the microwave and then I topped them with a couple of leftover grilled hotdogs that I’d heated in butter in the frying pan…

 

Then of course, I had to top the pizza slices and hotdogs with a couple of over-easy fried eggs!  For the sake of the photo, I waited until after Laurie took the photo before topping this creation with my usual Tabasco…

FYI…These all beef hot dogs are the absolute BEST!  We buy them from Benton’s in Madisonville Tennessee.  Benton’s is famous for their country hams, prosciutto and bacon…and they don’t make the hot dogs.  But, whoever they buy them from, really knows how to make a hot dog!  If you’re from East Tennessee, Benton’s also sells great steaks at prices below any supermarket chain.  Benton’s is located at 2603 US Hwy. 411 North near Madisonville Tennessee.  Phone: 423-442-5003.  Website: http://bentonscountryhams2.com/.

My latest breakfast ‘creation’ doesn’t show up very well in this photo…and I also missed a key ingredient in this breakfast’s assembly.  These over-easy eggs are resting on slices of leftover Kentucky Fried Chicken that I’d heated in butter in the frying pan.  The bread is from the Delano Farmer’s Market…a high order Mennonite enterprise…near Delano Tennessee.  Great toast!!

In any case, I meant to place a slice or two of pepper jack cheese on the re-fried chicken before I added the eggs.  While it was still an OK breakfast, I think that it would have ‘popped’ if I’d remembered the cheese.

With my hand partially healed, I decided to head on over to Big Dude’s party dock to do a little fishing… (http://bigdudesramblings.blogspot.com) I didn’t catch much, just a couple of small catfish and a brim…plus this 13+ inch fish.  I think that it’s a Shad, but I’m not positive.  He was still flopping around when I took the photo.  I quickly returned him to the lake…

 

This is a warm fleece vest that Laurie used to wear to keep off the winter chill when we lived up North... It's getting a little too heavy to wear it now, except for show.  Almost wherever we go, we look for souvenir pins to add to her collection.  She now has over 90 pins on her vest.  They come from places such as Jasper Canada, the Farmer's Museum in Cooperstown NY, Shiloh in TN, the Atlanta GA Olympics, Fort Scott KS, and the Florida Panther sanctuary at the Cyprus National Preserve.  There are also a number of other pins that mean something to us or her...such as a Coke pin (Family), a cat pin (Pets), friendship pin (Nancy Hanck), a Nashville guitar pin and a teddy bear pin (one of Laurie's collections).

Well that’s about it for now.  If you’d like to enlarge any of the photos, just click on them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave