Party Pizza. . . Wednesday?

When we got to my cousins Memorial, since we were late, it basically started right away.  I sat down and suddenly saw Pam’s big picture on the alter and that’s all it took for me to start to cry.  So many people were there who were touched by Pam’s life.  It wasn’t unusual for her students to call her on a Saturday night if they had questions with homework.  She’d drop whatever she was doing and stay on the phone as long as it took.  She was a very dedicated teacher – and even dressed up as a turkey every year around Thanksgiving.  I love it.  After the Memorial I started reading some of the comments on Facebook:

“Tonight I witnessed the most amazing group of people come together and celebrate the life of a wonderful friend and mentor.  Thank you for allowing me to be  part of your life Pam.”

“It has been said that we make a living by what we get . . .but we make a life by what we GIVE.  Pam, what a life you made on this Earth!  Your passion for life will not be forgotten.”

“You will be greatly missed Pam, but your influence will live on with us.”

I could go on and on, but you get the picture.  While Pam’s death was a tragedy to so many people, it’s actually inspired me to do . . . more.   I don’t know what that even means yet, but I know that I have not given nearly as much has been given to me – especially these last several months.  I want to again thank you guys for helping me get through the loss of Tony – I have 102 thank you cards to write out that I need to get mail out – I am so blessed to have all you wonderful readers in my life – and no matter what Tony said, we are friends!

After the Memorial we went to Pam’s friends house for food and drinks.  Holy cow was this house gorgeous, right on the water.  They had this sign as you walked in the door.

And then my Mom pointed this out to me – it was all I could do not to break down and cry right then and there.

I loved this long dock to the water, we got there just as the sun was setting.  Sadly it was two hours from my Aunt’s house and my cousin had another two hours to get to her house, so we only spent a couple hours there.  I was happy to have a bit of time to chat with my cousin Sue and her husband Jim.  I think Jim loves pizza just as much as I do, so I told him when I come visit them in Oyster Bay, I’d gladly do a pizza throw down!  My Aunt Cele, Pam’s Mom, looked so tired – hopefully at her 85th birthday in June I’ll be able to spend more time with her, it all went by so fast.

Long time readers will remember my Uncle Dave, my Aunt Martha’s husband.  He passed away almost three years ago at their beloved lake house at Smith Mountain Lake.   Well that property was just too big to maintain without Dave, so she sold it and bought a River House.  It’s hard for all of us to say “river house” because we’ve said the “lake house” for 20 years.  But last Sunday we took a drive to the new property.  The kitchen is in the process of being completely remodeled, but I know we’ll have lots of new memories there.

It’s a salt water river, so at the end of the summer there will be jelly fish, but hopefully when we are there in July we’ll be able to swim in it. 

Even though the circumstances of why I went to Virginia were sad, I was happy to have spent time with these two strong women – all of us widows now.  My Mom is on the left and my Aunt Martha is on the right – circa about 1948.  We’ve all remarked that if we had passed away before our spouses, they never could have made it on their own and we all feel they would have remarried rather quickly!

Hannah had to work yesterday morning, so I stopped by her coffee shop to pick up something for breakfast.

I ended up getting a blueberry granola parfait.   When she handed it to me I thought “I’ll probably only eat half of this!”

Um, I ate the whole thing.  I liked how the granola was in a cup on the top so it didn’t get soggy on the way to work.  Also, it was plain Greek yogurt, so it wasn’t overly sweet like some parfaits can be.

I have switched my insurance back to a PPO since I no longer need the insurance where we know we’ll spend a lot of money.  I had called in my prescription for my insulin pen last week before leaving for Virginia, but I didn’t have a prescription on file since I had been doing mail order, so she said that she’d have to call the doctors office.  No problem, I had enough insulin to get me through to today.  So before I went to the gym, I went to Walgreen’s, only there is no insulin ready for me – they were still waiting to hear back from my doctor.  Gah!  So I pulled in the parking lot, called my doctor’s office, only to discover they are closed on Wednesday’s – I called the “emergency” number only to be put on hold forever.  Long story short, I ended up spending 20 minutes of my lunch in a parking lot on the phone.  I realized by the time I got to the gym and changed, I’d have like 20 minutes before having to get back to work, so I skipped it. 

I ended up picking up soup for lunch – chicken and dumpling, which I think I’ve never had before!  It was super thick like gravy, but at work I have chicken bouillon, so I added a cup of that to the soup.  I also picked up a spinach and sun dried tomato scone at Hannah’s work to have with lunch – I loved everything but the sun dried tomato, it was almost chewy, so I picked those out.  I definitely love the idea of the scone though and will try to recreate that.

Have I told you guys that I am catering my bosses dinner party on Saturday?  Just 10 people, but I went to her house last night to check out the layout, talk about serving dishes, etc.  I told her that I would make her and her husband (the named partner at my office) a deep dish pizza.  She remarked over Christmas that she ordered one from a local pizza place and it tasted like ass.  I also wanted to test her oven to see how it worked compared to mine.  Um, let’s just say she’s got a nice kitchen!  Mine is about 1/10 the size of hers!

By the time the pizza was done, we’d pretty much gone over everything, so I left them and was going to go to the gym, but my blood sugar was too low.  Dangit!  I was curious to see what they thought of the pizza, and late last night before I went to bed my boss started following My Bizzy Kitchen page on Pinterest.  I guess it was a hit!

So I had everything to make deep dish pizza, so I made one for me, Hannah and Jacob when I got home. 

Once the dough is made, this really comes together pretty quickly.  Maybe five minutes to make and 20 minutes to bake – so flippin good!  I am giving Lou Malnati’s a run for their money!

Alright, I have to start getting ready for work – I can’t believe I am going to say this, but I am happy it’s already 20 degrees this morning!  Make it a great day!