Monday Miscellany aka Random Thoughts

I woke up with a bunch of thoughts rumbling through my head, and this seems a good place to which to put them. So this is pretty much a brain-dump post.

Firstly, and really the big one, I am sad, terribly, terribly sad, that a dear friend is struggling thru her fourth bout of cancer, this one located in her brain, and I am increasingly concerned that it is not going to end the way we all are fervently hoping it will. 

She and I met when we first moved here to the coast eight years ago, and I consider her one of my closest friends in spite of the relative newness of our friendship. She is not of the same outgoing ilk that I am, and has often joked over the years that were it not for my persistence is setting up walking dates, we would likely not be friends, as she is quite the introvert, with most of her friendships going all the way back to her elementary school years. LOL - you see, we extroverts can be quite persistent! So, I just kept asking and she kept saying 'Yes.'  🙂

During COVID she began her third battle with cancer, and we would FaceTime several days a week so she could talk through her treatments in detail, which seemed to help her continue to remain fighting strong. Once done with chemo, she/we had a nice long few years to just be non-cancer focused friends, during which our spouses became quite good friends as well.

About six months ago she began to struggle with her speech, which I noticed with alarm during one of our walking dates. She saw her doctor shortly thereafter, and was diagnosed with brain cancer. At this point she is not responding well to treatment, and I am slowly losing hope, though I sure as h#ll am not sharing that with her.

She is also a grandmother to a two year old little boy. That more than anything else is ripping my heart to pieces. 

Sometimes life is just hard, hard, hard.

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So, OK, to now drastically change channels, we had a really nice weekend, particularly on Saturday night when we enjoyed a fabulous guitarist that we've seen often. Often enough that she recognized us and playfully interacted with us thru-out her performance. Which was so, so much fun. 

And, nicely, I liked the way what I wore out this weekend is fitting after losing 13 pounds, with about 7 vanity pounds still left to lose.

I also used a portion of the Barnes & Noble credit I received last week to add a new one pot cookbook to my repertoire. And already I'm excited about making the two recipes below, both of which are squarely in my wheelhouse of lots of fresh ingredients for, hopefully, maximum taste.

And finally, before I head out into the sunshine for some light yardwork followed by a five mile walk around our local harbor with my husband, this is what I've been reading:

The two on the far right were excellent. The one on the left is a bookclub selection from a new group I just joined, and I'm not quite sure about it or the club just yet. My own, 20 year ongoing bookclub, which above Crying in H Mart was read for, is rather discerning at this point. So I'm pretty spoiled, and thus not yet confident The Frozen River is going to live up to standards. We'll see!

Please feel free to drop any Miscellany you are pondering or planning here as well. Happy or sad, either way.