So there is one clear difference when Tony is not home and I am home by myself.  Mind you, that doesn’t happen very often.  Even with a household of two people, I think I can count on one hand how many times in recent months I’ve been home alone.  You see, Tony LOVES t.v.  He loves movies, sports, MMA – you name it.  From the moment he wakes up until the moment he falls asleep, the t.v. is always on.

Me?  I love music!  So when Tony left for Mayo on Sunday, within minutes I found myself blaring my Pandora station and loving it.  Our Nissan Rogue came with Sirius XM radio free for the first year.  I loved it!  No commercials, so many stations to choose from.  I love all kinds of music:  blue grass, gospel, Pop, 80’s, etc.  I love it all.  So when I got an email saying there was a Barbra Streisand station I nearly peed my pants.  I LOVE Barbra Streisand.  I’ve loved her since I heard her sing in A Star Is Born.  My Mom and Aunt had a lot of her albums.  But you want to know what my favorite Barbra Streisand movie is of all time?  Yentl!   When I heard her sing “Papa Can You Hear Me” I was hooked.  The story line, the music.  I love everything about it.

So when I was driving to my dr. appointment yesterday I was belting out all the songs in my car to this Yentl Medly!

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But my absolute favorite song that Barbra Streisand did was a duet she did with Judy Garland.  Totally aging myself here, but I don’t care.  Their version of Happy Days Are Here Again always puts me in a good mood!  Here’s the weird thing though.  That was on the Judy Garland Show in 1963 – Barbra Streisand was 21 years old and Judy Garland was . . . 41!!  So weird!

So back to the doctor appointment – I am skipping ahead because I know you guys are all waiting with baited breath to see what the hell is wrong with my knee.  Well, it is not a torn meniscus!! Hallelujah!  But it’s something called Plica Syndrome.   I guess the plica are remnants of tissue from the fetal stage of development, and while during the second trimester they usually diminish, mine didn’t.  I blame my twin sister.   My one foot is 1.5 sizes smaller than the other.  I blame her for sitting on the smaller foot.  I have arthritis now, I have diabetes, and now I have knee tissue that didn’t develop normally while we were “womb-mates.”  I think she got all the good nutrients from our Mom!

All kidding aside, it’s good news.  No surgery.  They ended up giving me a cortisone shot and I was back to work.  He said within a couple days it would feel a lot better, and then in a couple days I can resume working out, although nothing too strenuous to start: i.e. no running, stair climbing or Insanity.  But walking and swimming are just fine.  Whew! Crisis averted!

And if my good news wasn’t good news enough, Tony’s check up at Mayo went great.  His lab work looks good, and while tired after the quick two day turn around trip, it went well!   Thanks for all your extra prayers and virtual hugs! Open-mouthed smile

I was a busy beaver getting everything ready for birthday breakfast treats.  I made cinnamon chip scones, my homemade Nature Valley granola bars, and zucchini muffins.  I also made a strawberry sauce and brought Chobani for people to make breakfast parfaits.  Strawberries were ridiculously expensive last week – $4.99!  So I skipped to the freezer section and bought an 8 ounce bag of strawberries for .99 cents.  They were delicious!  I just cooked them down with 1 teaspoon of sugar.

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I’ll post the zucchini muffin recipe later this week – they turned out amazing – super moist.  I added raisins and coconut – yum!

I posted the picture of my grilled chicken on Instagram yesterday morning.  Not kidding, Sunny Anderson changed the way I cook chicken – I never thought to use scissors to cut out the back.  I linked to her in my comment and was so excited she responded back!  I love the hash tag #teamskin – (and hi Marie!)

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I brought a couple pieces of pizza for lunch but for the life of me couldn’t find it.  Turns out it was in between two grocery bags when I brought in the treats, and didn’t realize it until I was packing my stuff up at the end of the day.  So I got Jimmy John’s – I ended up only eating half of it though –  I forget how big the sandwiches are there.  Um, I may have had a few cherry peppers!

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Tony made it home from Mayo around 5:00.  It was so nice kissing his face when I got home!  I had leftover rotisserie chicken from when I made my Mexican pizza over the weekend.  I decided to make a super simple chicken and dumpling dish for dinner. [amd-zlrecipe-recipe:89]

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Super quick and easy weeknight dinner.  Tony said it reminded him of the inside of a pot pie!  All I know is I have leftovers for lunch today. #winning

Time to get this show on the road.  I slept in this morning and now I have 15 minutes before I have to leave the house and I haven’t taken a shower yet – no worries!  Make it a great day!