Chopping d'chop, chop...

Chopping was a big part of our last few days.

First when I drove SGS here for the weekend, did I tell you that I call him Liebchen? That is German for loved one, anyway, when we got here, Liebchen found a super bouncer ball that we were playing with in the driveway almost

4 years ago-SGS, SHusband and myself. At one point it bounced so high that it went up onto the garage roof-and then bounced into the really big evergreen next to the garage. It was up so high that we could barely find it, and then a huge wind storm came along, chasing us into the house. When it was over, we used some rakes and chopping motions to shake it down, but nothing, nada, zilch. Since then, no matter what wind we had, it stayed tucked into a crook of branches that were holding on tightly. A few days ago, we had another of those high winds they called Moria, and when SGS got out of the car, he found the ball!

It was much smaller, a little dirty, but he found it. I think the shrinking of size caused it to finally slip between the icy fronds of the evergreen branches. We washed it, found an inflating pin, and realized that it did not have a valve in it to add air, so it will not be able to be inflated-it does not bounce, just THUDS. But we have it back, like an old friend we have not seen for a time.

And, before he even took off his jacket, he needed to show his beloved Grampa his latest progress report from school. What must it be like to have a grandpa? How lucky SGS is.

This morning, SGS had his Karate class, and I enjoyed watching it, and believe me, unless you have been in a not so big room with sweating kids, you never knew what joy a ceiling fan could bring! For 90 minutes, he did various exercises, sparring with other classmates, and was evaluated on his coda (think dance routine with screaming periodically), and his karate chops were very strong-and accompanied by a loud shriek "ah YAH!" He was even hoarse on the ride home. He stayed after class to ask his sensai (teacher) about a few moves. When we got home-he was begged to take his shower immediately, and then later he became my sous chef-chopped all the veggies, it was a nice time together. He had never had Swiss chard, and I needed to use the last of it, so he started with that, and even was adventurous enough to eat a leaf and stem piece raw-he noticed the pepper taste that comes as an aftertaste with raw Swiss chard, and then when it was time to add the green tops and raw spinach to the sauteed peppers, onions and chard stalks, he ate about a cup of raw spinach-leafy green R US.

His next step was to taste the soup which I made. I had some leftover smashed potatoes and decided to make some cream of potato soup-some chicken stock warmed, leftover potatoes, cream of celery soup, a few tbsp of roasted red pepper salad dressing for some punch-simmer. He asked if it needed to be tasted- and was given the job-a little cracked pepper and it was pronounced perfect. But, I must say, before he got involved, I had the DIS-GUS-TING job of removing the potato skin pieces-note to self: never make leftover potatoes into soup if they are smashed. Oh puke. I would have been chopped from any cooking competition with these brown pieces floating in there.

After supper with the promise/bribe of dessert, we managed to talk SSon into playing dominoes with us-it was a good time-no hurry, but SHusband was relived to see us finish in time for his nightly news. Dessert was whipped sugar free raspberry gelatin, set for a few hours, that I used a stick blender to pulverize a can of drained Mandarin oranges into, then blend a little longer to add some air and make puffy. Top it with some chopped up pieces of graham crackers, they loved it, and they got some nice gelatin powered chemicals to keep up our quota of artificial foods. When I was in about 8th grade, they mentioned in some class that horse hoofs were used to make gelatin-I was really shocked and would not eat jello for some time. What class would teach you that? There was no class in recycling/repurposing in those days-was it "horse hooves 101" or something?

Next, instead of putting the dominoes away, SGS decided to build some Stonehenge structures, including sleeping quarters for families who lived there while building them. Then he built some super structures that he chopped down. He made his structures for over an hour-no battery or password needed-just using his mind.

Well, we just sprang the clocks that are not electronic forward an hour in prep for tonight.
Teeth are brushed and the Buffalo Sabres Hockey Team are winning-this may have been a choppy weekend-but it was a keeper.

I hope you are making the best of whatever you are doing, and finding peace.