Sunday draws to a close...

Woke up Sunday morning, to a nice, slow, gentle rain. The kind of rain beloved by those who had planted shrubs the day before. Since working outside is denied me for now, it's time for...

Housecleaning! (Well, I did have a onion bagel with cream cheese and coffee first, you understand). Started at one end of the house and worked to the other. Somewhere in there Carla called and asked about playing cards later. I mentioned I was planning on chicken Parmesan for dinner and would she like to help me make it? She agreed and we settled on late afternoon to get together.

The rain stopped mid-morning. Went outside to fill the bird feeder and checked the rain gauge. Between yesterday and today, I got about 1/4 of an inch of rain. Good for the grass. Now, back to cleaning. Last thing I did was to wash all the floors and while they were drying, I went grocery shopping at Westborn and Farmer Jacks. Oh, I washed the car as well. Got back home, put everything away, changed clothes and headed out back...

Until yesterday, everything I had planted way in back was low to the ground and was very visible. But, after planting the 6 foot dogwood, I noticed that several tree branches between the kitchen window and the back wall obscured the view of the top of the dogwood. Is that important? Well, since I still want to put a flowering tree back there, yes!

So, got my trusty ladder and the Sawzall and went from tree to tree. Cut off about 6 small branches and two major ones. Then cut up the limbs for chiminea firewood. Jake and Carla came over near the end of this effort.

Put everything away and settled in to get my butt kicked at cards (I mean it!) After a couple of games, we started dinner. Carla worked on the sauce while I flattened and then fried the chicken. We combined our efforts, topped the chicken patties with the sauce, fresh mozzarella and basil and popped them into the oven. Served it with pasta and more sauce and crusty Italian bread.

The recipe called it the "ultimate" chicken Parmesan. We all decided it while it might not be the "ultimate" it was pretty damn good! After cleaning up, they left and I settled in to watch some TV. Dozed off, then woke up and decided to enter all this to the Blog. All in all, its been a very full and interesting weekend.

I'm going back to bed, now...