The To-Do List

After finally getting a decent night's sleep, I am prepared to make my to-do list today and actually tackle some of it. There is a lot to do, since I've let the house go this week (nothing unusual about this, I'm just trying to minimize to myself what a bad house cleaner I am). The Bird has ballet this morning and it is B's turn to host her friend group. We have tickets to go see a local production of High School Musical 2. The kids will arrive by 5:30, so I need to have my ducks in a row and know what we are having for dinner. My daughter B is intellectually disabled and twenty five years old. She went to school with the same kids her entire life, so we developed some good relationships with people with similar values. Even though they are grown, we (the parents) still have to organize their social lives. Our group formed after they started graduating from high school and did not have as much social contact as when they went to school each day. I should probably just order pizza, but am toying with the idea of making spaghetti. BRAINSTORM! I should do lasagna. I could stop by the market and get cheese, bread, bag salad on our way home from ballet and put it together at lunch time. We'll see. I'll add the dinner picture once I get it made. It will either be pizza boxes or a yummy lasagna.

Father's Day

We thought T-Bone was going out of town on Sunday, so had a nice Father's Day Saturday night. I made paella and a delicious watermelon salad. The Paella was from my Easy Summer food cookbook and we liked it, but I would definately make some changes. The recipe made a ton and we did not like the leftovers. It got mushy and seemed very bland the next day. If anyone has an easy fool proof paella recipe, I would love a copy. The Watermelon salad was so scrumptious! Don't let the mache scare you, just buy a bag of mixed baby greens or spring mix.
Watermelon, Mache, & Pecan Salad with
Pepper Jelly Vinaigrette
Recipe from Southern Living

Menu Planning

T-Bone went out of town for a couple of days and that leaves me with the girls. In some ways it is nice because we don't have to eat meat if he is not here. Last summer when he was gone and we had ripe tomatoes and tons of fresh basil in the garden, we ate grilled cheese, tomato, and basil sandwiches on thick slices of whole grain Italian bread with bread and butter pickles. My mouth is watering just thinking about them! I need to be outside coaxing our tomatoes to ripen. Anyway, my menu plans for the next few days could change on a whim and I've already changed tonight's menu from Honey Mustard Chicken Tenders and orzo salad to frozen Trader Joe's vegetable lasagna and a simple salad. Friday night is homemade pizza night and Saturday night I'm making Paella and a watermelon salad with nuts and cheese. Yum-oh!