The first week of August was delightfully quiet. I worked for Tyson, kept up the house, cooked, and began doing some daily low-key workouts. But then the second week came, and I taught (or co-taught) eight classes. It was really hard, but quite fun. :) Unfortunately it was quite painful, too. And the ramped up pain didn't subside until ten days later when I saw a new chiropractor. Ugh. So, I am no longer a dance teacher. I really hope that one day I will be able to heal and teach again, but for now I'm done. And, yeah, as you can probably imagine, I'm quite heartbroken.
On the bright side, Jana, the owner of CAA, hired me on at the front desk. I'll be working afternoons/evenings five days a week, which will be a great blessing to our finances. :) And I'll be able to stay a part of such an awesome studio. :)
During the week that I taught all those classes, I went to a "nickel auction" in my neighborhood. Nickel auctions work like this: a bunch of ladies dig out their junk and we bid on it in 5-cent increments. It's silly and really fun. I tried to be inconspicuous about needing to stand instead of sit (sitting just hurt too much!), but I did attract a little attention. Fortunately the wonderfully kind sister-in-law of one of the sisters in my ward was there and recommended this amazing place where she experienced a complete recovery from her neck injuries. I went there, and I like their approach, but to make a long and frustrating story short, we can't afford it. But I still have a little hope that maybe something will work out eventually. :)
Tyson has been working on starting his photography business, and we're beginning to see the first few inklings of clientele. He's received two inquiries from his website that haven't yet followed through, and then one more this week that is ordering two large prints of the state capitol building! Also, one of his cousin's friends was interested in having him shoot her wedding next spring. Yay! I am so proud of him! If you haven't yet, go check out his website at buildingmomentsphotography.com. :)
On the food side of things, my favorite kitchen conquest this month was eggplant rollatini. Since Mike and Caleen have eggplants in their garden (see photo of a white, egg-shaped eggplant!), I wanted something to do with them aside from eggplant parmesan (and this random tasty recipe I found called vegetable tian). Basically, you slice and lightly broil the eggplant, roll some cheesy goodness inside the slices, pour sauce on it and bake it. Yum!
With the chiles, tomatoes, and zucchini Mike and Caleen gave us, I've made chile relleno casserole, tomato soup, stuffed tomatoes, chocolate zucchini bread, and a new zucchini casserole. (They gave me a nice big zucchini!) It's been so fun figuring out how to use such tasty veggies!
I also made the chocolate butter cake recipe from my new favorite book Pie in the Sky. (I have to give the book back to the library tomorrow, and I really don't wanna!) I made a half recipe in case it didn't turn out. The chocolate flavor was really mild (it's supposed to be topped with bittersweet ganache, but I'm lazy), but the texture was perfection! It disappeared quickly. Hee, hee.
Oh, and (sorry I can't stop talking about food!) about a month ago Tyson made his divine pudding from scratch (heavy cream, egg yolks, butter, the whole nine lards - I mean yards!), only he added cocoa to it to make it chocolate pudding. It cooked up beautifully and tasted sinful. Sadly, after letting it set up in the fridge for a few hours, it turned into soup! It was amazingly rich and delicious chocolate soup, but just a little too weird. We didn't know what to do with it, but I didn't want to just throw it all out, so I dumped most of it into a container and froze it. This week I took it out (I really wanted some chocolate!) and scrapped a little off the top. Epiphany! I then thawed it out in the fridge and poured it all into my popsicle molds to make the best fudgesicles ever! I am so proud of me. :D
