Celebrating Gratitude

Well! It’s been a pretty interesting several days around here.

A muscle or group of muscles in my back began spasming very, very painfully overnight on Saturday night going into the wee hours of Sunday morning.

The pain was intense enough that eventually, I could barely move. I made it to my bed to try to get to my night meds, and couldn’t even reach for all of them, on the headboard shelf.

Ultimately texted my daughter first, then called my parents. We got my med situation straightened out and tried everything under the sun for pain relief. Finally, it was obvious I needed medical attention. Luckily, I was able to get into the car.

It’s an old injury from being curled around my phone in bed scrolling the ‘net during the shutdown of 2020. So far, I’ve made 2 visits to the ER, and one to my primary care physician.

I also need to locate a piece of my CPAP equipment that fell off the mask portion. So all in all, sleep has been ROUGH! Hence my being awake before 6 AM, making baked apple pudding (or trying to).

Nonetheless… in spite of its less-than-savory history, and my recent medical woes, I thought Thanksgiving was a great day to try and celebrate gratitude.

I’m thankful for my friends and family for their support, especially in times of crisis, and for the awesome medical care I received.

The ER doctor I saw the second time around was very willing to listen, and offered better and stronger medication than what I was first prescribed.

She also recommended a couple yoga poses, to help loosen the problem area. I’m a little leery about them since I’m not all that spry at this point, and I’d have to get down on the floor, etc. BUT, I also have some chair stretches and other things I can try.

The apple puddings are in the oven at the moment. I’ll be honest. There were rookie mistakes involved this morning. I added cold eggs to melted butter rather than bringing everything to room temperature first, and the butter started to congeal. But, after mixing in more of the warm ingredients, the batter seemed to even out.

I also managed to slosh a bit of the batter onto the bottom of the stove. No smoke detector going off at the moment. Hopefully, that won’t affect the taste of the desserts.

(I’m making two– one for Thanksgiving dinner, and one for a workplace potluck).

The internet seems conflicted as to whether or not baking two things at once increases the time needed to cook them through. After another look, the two puddings look a bit too jiggly on top. And the toothpick inserted into the middle is still coming out wet.

I did see that you’re supposed to space the things relatively far apart, to allow for better airflow within the oven. Trying that.

I really hope they turn out okay, though. I haven’t baked anything in a VERY very long time, and it would feel good to have done so successfully. Tempted to try a slice just to make sure they’re edible. We’ll see.

Getting there. Starting to just barely brown around the edges, near the crust. I bought graham cracker crusts this time. I think typically, we just used pie crust, or else baked it without a crust at all.

EDIT TO ADD: One of the baked puddings got a little too brown in one spot. But I can probably use that one for the family event, and just say that I will take the piece that’s slightly burnt. That should be okay, right? I guess I would rather the better-looking one come with me to work tomorrow.

Well, anyway, Happy Thanksgiving to anyone who celebrates it. And to anyone and everyone else, I hope you have many, many things for which to be thankful this season. Keep it cozy, my peeps!