4.15.2013

Great Weekend vs. Allergies

This weekend would have been truly awesome if I hadn't developed this sudden allergy to pollen. I spent the entire weekend sneezing, sniffling, coughing, and being stuffed up. Ugh. My regular allergy medicine is not helping at all, so I may have to up my game today. Or just pray the pollen goes away ASAP. For some reason, being outside in the pollen makes me feel great; when I'm outside, I can breathe just fine. Its a cruel joke, I tell you.

I've never had allergies quite like this, so I have no clue how to deal. My allergies consist of itching all over my body until I go mad from it. Or GI issues. Not the typical sneezing, runny nose stuff. Yuck.

Despite my defunct nose, this weekend was awesome. Friday after work, C had a play date (and luckily me and the other mama are good friends, too, haha), that turned into supper at a pizza restaurant. C was extremely well behaved at the restaurant, and I was so proud of her. She had a blast, too.

Saturday, I only did minimal cleaning around the house and spent the majority of the day just playing with C. After lunch, we went to the playground at my mama's church. We met up with a couple others there, and everyone had a great time. It was hot though! I slathered me and C in sunscreen, but I guess I was a little careless with mine; I got burned in a few places. I'm waiting on the allergic reaction to that to start...(yes, I have a weird sun allergy. I'm extremely sensitive to the sun, and if I get burned, I have a reaction that usually ends up with me at the doctor begging for prednisone. Its great. The itching has already started, but I'm trying my best to ignore it...)

After C's nap, we headed back outside to weed the flower gardens. I've been slowly working on the weeds over the past few weeks - there were a ton of them. One of my beds is eat up with fire ants, so I'm waiting for that holocaust to be over before I can get started in there. The plan was to plant some flowers Saturday evening, but DH decided to take us strawberry picking!

DH showed her once and she got the hang of it right away. Surprisingly, C didn't eat a single strawberry while we were in the field. That night, however, she had three bowls of them chopped...haha. We had strawberries for a snack yesterday, and we had them again on homemade waffles last night. And I brought some for lunch today. ( :

Yesterday was another relaxing day. I decided to start playing with the Manual mode on my DLSR camera. I've had that thing almost a whole year now and I always shoot in Auto mode, or one of the other preset modes. I figured it was high time I learned how to shoot in Manual. It is not easy!! I took a bajillion pictures that were completely white or completely black. I need a lot more practice, that's for sure. I did end up with a few gems, though...
 
 Oh, how I love frilly dresses for my girl! She actually wore dresses all weekend. I figure I'll keep her in dresses until she decides they're too girlie. ( :

I had a couple other successes this weekend. Cooking successes, actually! One, I finally made a batch of cookies that turned out absolutely perfect. This was huge for me. I've tried to make cookies so many times over the years, and they always turn out extremely flat and run together. Saturday I made some double chocolate chunk cookies and they were delicious AND looked perfect! I don't have the recipe with me right now, so I'll have to post on that later. If you like chocolate, though, these are the cookies for you. I may have ate the majority of the batch already...Hey, DH doesn't really dig chocolate like I do, I can't let them go to waste!!

My other kitchen success was cooking spinach. I love spinach, but I have never cooked it. DH doesn't care for it, so I've never tried. After we picked strawberries Saturday, the farm owner let us pick out some other things, including some fresh spinach. The farmer's wife told me how to cook it, and I couldn't believe it was so simple.

I didn't get a pic, but everyone knows that spinach looks like, right? ( :  After a good washing, I just combined the spinach with some olive oil, salt, and garlic powder (fresh garlic would probably be better), and placed it in a covered frying pan for just a couple of minutes, until the leaves were wilted. And it. was. DELICIOUS! C didn't like it, but she doesn't really go for greens, and DH wouldn't try it, but I couldn't get enough. I can't wait to cook the rest of the spinach later this week. Anyone have another really good (easy) way to cook spinach??

Hope everyone's weekend was as great as mine! Now on to another busy week....starting with the farrier coming tonight to trim the horses' feet. ( :

2 comments:

  1. Hope you are feeling better after the sun and pollen! For manual camera settings, read up on f stops and shutter speed. If you have those two basics down, the rest will fall into place :)

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  2. Yeah, I found a blog that broke all the terms down into "normal people speak," haha! It was really helpful, but when I'm out actually taking pictures, I can't remember everything. And it took me forever to figure out how to change the f stop on my camera. The main dial just changes the shutter speed. I'm hoping one day I won't ever use the Auto function again! For my birthday, I'm asking for a tripod and a zoomier lens (yeah that's a professional camera term, lol). (:

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