5 things to start the week

1.  My mother is back in the hospital. The nursing/rehab facility called me Saturday night as I was standing in the aisle of a beach shop surrounding by sunscreened tourists and overpriced merchandise waiting for the rest of our group to catch up to me. It was not a call I was suspecting and so I got a bit panicked at the thought of having to make a decision on amputation because what else could send her to the hospital? Turned out her PICC line site was infected. She had a temperature over 103 degrees, was fatigued, and a bit loopy. It took three days to grow out the culture to figure out the infection and it's source, but now that she has been diagnosed and treated she is feeling more normal. The PICC line was removed and will be out for 48 hours. If her blood work comes back clean after that a new one will be put in and she will head back to the facility where they eagerly await her return.

2.  Our family left this afternoon and as always our house is very quiet. The dog is forlorn at the loss of his playmate, my niece who kept him entertained. He keeps peeking out the door in hopes that she is sunbathing out back with her mother, but alas, they are heading back to snow and will need their boots and coats instead of flip flips and bikinis. 

3.  My recipe idea and my first recipe choice has hit a snag. The ingredient that I was clueless about, lemon curd, turned out to be simple after I searched it online.  It can easily be made the night before or it can be purchased at the grocery in the jelly aisle. Frozen bread dough, on the other hand, has stumped me and two different grocers. I have everything I need but the main ingredient. Madison tells me it is quite easy to make by scratch, but jeez doesn't that mean another recipe?

4.  A few months ago I wrote about my oil changing experience with Jiffy Lube and the employee who tried to sell me $90 oil. Turns out my new van takes synthetic oil which does cost more. Our regular oil changing place charged us $52 and explained that all the new cars were going to synthetic oil. However,  you change it every five to six months. So I suppose I owe Jiffy Lube and the employee sort of a pass, but no apology as he never explained everything and his customer service and attitude sucked. 

5.  I've started working with an app that my daughters' principal told me about called Lose It. It is free and I log in all my daily foods and exercise. I have a set amount of daily calories I'm allowed to eat to reach my goal of losing two pounds a week. The app keeps track of how many steps I take in a day which I find fascinating, and it charts out my intake of fats, carbs, and protein. That in itself is eye opening when viewed in a pie chart. It also makes me wish I could eat pie, but....sigh.