We had a nice weekend. On Saturday we went to Ikea in Pittsburgh to buy accessories for our remodeled kitchen. We are doing a lot of stainless with a slightly modern look. Ikea is a great place for that style. It was very busy, and we spent 2 hours shopping. Between us and Phil, we filled the back of the Pilot with our goodies. We had dinner at Bahama Breeze. I had the jerk chicken breast and black bean soup.

At home, a finish carpenter laid the kitchen and dinette wood floors. They look so nice. The room is looking more like a kitchen again. We also found the perfect cabinet hardware at Lowes. It seems like every trip to a store ends up with us spending at least $200 for this project.

I am ready for surgery. I am watching my diet but not necessarily following the Optifast plan these last days. I maintained this weekend, even with our Pittsburgh trip. Only one more day of the diet and then a full day of nothing but water.By this time next week I fill be on full liquids which will be nicer than Optifast.

We have had so much rain this summer. My flowers and herbs are going crazy. I haven’t used much of the herbs because of my diet. I will probably start freezing some of them for the winter to use when fresh herbs are scarce. I am going to try a technique that I found on a food website to preserve some of the fresh flavor. You pulse the herbs in the food processor with some water. Pour the pulsed herbs in ice cube trays and freeze. Pop them out of the trays and seal in freezer bags. It sounds reasonable. I am sure the taste will be not quite as fresh but better than dried.