I'm pleased to announce that it's officially a Rabbit Rabbit year.
    Mom and I both made it to midnight and well beyond. I kept an eye on the clock so we wouldn't miss saying "Rabbit, Rabbit". We spent the evening counting down to the new year with the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers TCM marathon, during which Mom and I decided we'd like to take tap lessons. I might actually do that, if I can find a convenient class up here.
    All Christmas recipes of note have been recorded here at the food section of these journals. Pay particular attention to the Family Date Bar Recipe. Although I may be wrong, I doubt you'll find this one anywhere else. Tomorrow's New Years Dinner will be ham and bean soup (the beans are soaking as I speak) with blueberry cornbread, frozen from our last bean soup foray when MCS&BIL were here the weekend before Thanksgiving.
    I also posted the results from Mom's latest CBC tonight, drawn on 12/19/07. We'll be going for the last of the once-every-two-week (give or take a day or a week) draws day after tomorrow. I'm curious to see how her hemoglobin is holding up, since this last draw showed a .5 drop from her immediately previous one. The results for this week will allow me to determine whether to spend a little longer drawing every two weeks, or revert back to the monthly draws, which I won't be wont to ignore for quite awhile. Still and all, she's holding her own. I think I'll include a BMP this time, too.
    She seems to be tolerating the high dose iron supplementation extremely well: No problems with her digestion and her bowel movements have become less troublesome than before, which is a pleasant surprise. Rarely do I have to fish huge, rock hard, iron laden turds out of the toilet, anymore. You'd think that doubling her iron would have also doubled the bathroom fun, but the opposite has happened. Good lesson for me to keep in mind: When Mom's getting the right amount of iron, her digestive tract operates better.
    There are other things to mention, but I'm running out of steam and it's almost four a.m. I love New Years. It means the holiday season is officially over. I guess many people suffer a let down right after New Years, but I rev up...for me it signals that it's time to put away an excruciating saddle and return to my usual bareback ride through the year.
    Here's to the refreshment implicit in the end of the holiday season!
    Ach! I just pulled a date bar search of the internet and the very first recipe on the list is very similar to ours! A few less dates, no spices, no butter, double the salt, but otherwise the same recipe. Without the butter it might bake up a little dry, though, although three eggs certainly provide a decent amount of fat. According to this review of "Date Bars and Squares Recipes", our family recipe is apparently not as uncommon as I thought. I wonder why I've never encountered any but the oat struesel ones outside of our kitchen? Could be that date desserts aren't all that common, at least here in the U.S. Oh well. If you like dates, try the recipe. It's rich and delicious.
    Later.
- posted by Gail Rae @ 03:43   email  this post