Checking In

Heya,

Not much to write about. The last few days have been a whirlwind of activity... family gatherings, visitations, the funeral, the burial... So much. So much to all take in. It's still very hard to believe that Charlotte is gone. For a 100 lb. woman with mobility problems, she had a very big presence in all our lives. Brad and one of his sisters did the eulogy yesterday and they both did a terrific job. Much better than I could ever have done under similar circumstances. It rained the day before and it's raining again today, but yesterday was sunny and nice.

Brad's dad and his sister and brother-in-law from Ontario are coming for dinner tomorrow night. I'm planning to start with some crackers and breads to go with some mango-peach chutney, my trusty tapenade with kalamata olives and dried tomatoes, some baba gannouj, and probably some smoked salmon. I'm then going to serve just a simple stir fry of scallops and shrimp with basmanti rice and and avocado/beet salad with a red miso dressing. I'll probably finish off each plate with a dollop of lentil/sun-dried tomato and feta salad. Homemade Boston cream pie is on the menu for dessert. It's been good to have today off - I spent most of the afternoon in the kitchen. Tomorrow I'll just have to make the custard and glaze for the Boston cream pie and do the rice and the stir fry. I have tomorrow off as well. I could take Thursday, too, but I will probably go back to work on Thursday as there is a meeting that I don't want to miss that day. I get five days bereavement leave for the death of a close family member.

In other news, we're getting a new fence along one of the sides of our backyard - the old was was falling down. And we also bought about a half cord of wood from our next-door neighbours - they had extra and we could only find sellers who wanted to deliver 3 cord and up. It worked out well - especially with the fence down between us - it made for an easy exchange.