I have finished a very busy and exciting month and now am ready to settle back into my old routine. I love cooking again, today I am making spinach stuffed chicken breasts. I always have to cut the recipe way down as I don’t want to always be eating left over and we only eat one boneless chicken breast for dinner. We only eat 4 ounces of meat a day so I like to make it interesting and taste. This one you slice the breast as thin as you can, I get four slices from one breast. Then I add just little sage and salt and put them between plastic wrap and pound them out flat. Meanwhile I cooked a package of frozen spinach and drained it as dry as I could, chopped a garlic clove and sautéed it in a couple table spoons of butter, added the chopped spinach and half cup of Aisiao cheese, grated. And put that on the pounded chicken and roll it up as much as you can. Lay the rolls in a small oven proof dish top each roll with a thin slice of left over Easter ham or bacon if you don’t have ham and top with a slice of mild cheese. Baked it at 375 for 30 minutes, upped the temperature to 500 and baked for another 5 minutes to brown the top and served it. And oh, it was so good. I do all the cooking and Norman does all the clean up, dishes etc. Now you know why I like cooking so much. Anyone would like to cook if they never have to clean up the kitchen!!
Remember all those toys I made? Well Dyhana and Gina were here last week and had a very good time with them but there were so many they never even got to play with them all. They loved the dolls I made for them with all the outfits and Dyhana made room in her suit case to take hers home. Now I still have dozens so today I took the story book “The Three Little Pigs” and the three pigs and the wolf and the last of the finger puppets , put them all in a basket and took them down the street to the Riverside Learning Center and went in to talk to the director. Patty had told me about the center and thought they might like to have some of my toys so I took a chance. She was thrilled with them and so nice about it. I told her I had lots more and would love to donate them to the Center if they could use them. We had a wonderful talk, she was so nice and said the kids would love them and the teachers would make good use of them so I left those and told her I would bring more next week if that was alright. I am so glad to find a welcome home for all my toys, she has no idea how many I have for her. I hope she can use some of the toys as prizes for students that do a good job. When she see how many I have for her she may feel she can give some away but that is up to her, there are no strings on this gift. I am just happy she like them.
Now I am spending most of my time working on sweaters for the family for next Christmas. I have a pattern for a beautiful sweater for the females and Shirley sent me enough yarn to make one for everyone that wants one. Patty, Shanti, and Becca have already picked out theirs. Patty also brought me some yarn for the kids sweaters. Ihave found a very cute pattern for a sweater with an animal on the back with it’s head hanging over one shoulder and down onto the front. I have the rust that Patty gave me and I have some blue that Shirley gave me so I’ll make one of those for each of the small kids. I should have enough yarn to keep me busy all summer knitting for Christmas. Joe’s kids are older so instead of sweaters I will make hats, mittens and scarves and they are in cold enough weather to use the washable wool which Shirley gave me.
Nice to be back into my slow easy routine. Have a great day .
Oumapetts's Blog 
I always feel happy after I read your daily notes. Those children will be so happy, too, with all those toys. Your own will be happy with those new sweaters. You are a wonderful person!
Thank you, You are always so up lifting for me. You give me such a boost and show me all the work is worth while. I wish we lived closer together but at least we keep in touch. time to get knitting – I should finish one more sweater tonight as I watch TV. Then there is only one more lavender one to do for my grand daughter in law. Shirley had given me enough yarn to make three of these sweaters and they have been a big hit. Santi took one, Becca has spoken for this one and Roxanne will get the third for Christmas, she doesn’t know it yet. Then I have soft yarn to make at least one pink and one white. By then I should be sick of making this pattern but maybe not it is a beautiful sweater!! Thanks again and be happy.
Those little tykes will have fun with those cute animals Carol. Great idea to share them. I was wondering where poor Norman fit into your place with all those creatures. I suppose he is used to your ” obsessive ” hobbies. I have nothing to show for my time but guess that is my lazy nature. Time does fly though and life continues to be interesting. Spring is bursting out here and Easter Sunday was my 85th birthday!! Can you believe it? I am so grateful for all I have and walking around the center of Keene always entertains me.
Wishing you a healthy summer and say ” Hi ” to Shirley for me too.
Love you, Nancy
Good morning Nancy, I am finally getting to my reply to your comment. I have been hearing from people who have read my blog on either the Swartz family tree (that my dad’s side) or the Carver family tree. When I get those comments I have to go back to the research I have and see if I can connect their line to mine. The Carver I have had very good luck with and found some new information about the Carver line but the Swartz I still can not connect their line to mine even tho they are both from PA. All of the Swartz had very large families and not all of them kept good records so it is hard to make a connection back four or five generations.
It is almost time to make more jelly. I made a large batch of grape jelly before we left TN but that is now long gone and then here I made a big batch of strawberry jam. I still have about 6 – 8 0z jars of that left. I don’t eat it anymore as I can afford the calories but Norman loves it as do Patty’s family so they have eaten most of that. Now I have to make some more and the strawberries aren’t low enough in cost yet to use those. I don’t know if the lack of water has kept the price up or if it just isn’t a good year for strawberries. Either way I have been trying to think of what else I could use. I think maybe I will make some orange marmalade. I used to like that and I can get the navel oranges at the Easy Street Market at a good price. So when I go down Wed. I will get the oranges and try that. I’ll let you know how it comes out. I do love to cook even if I can’t eat much of it myself.
I would love to live near enough to the center of town to be able to walk around and see what is going on. Here we have a very nice community but there are no shops to visit. I could walk to the post office or Publics or the drug store but each of those are a mile in opposite directions and I don’t like walking that much. There is a nice condo complex in down town Fort Pierce, right on the water and in the heart of the market place. I’d love to live there but of course they are expensive so I’ll have to wait until I win the Loto. Here I can walk but I don’t see anything. Norman walks every morning, I water my blueberries and weed them and once in a while I walk around Larkwood Circle.
Love you, Carol