A Day for Slow

Good morning, my friends. Well, I'm back. We ventured into war-ravaged Portland on Tuesday to get our COVID boosters, and somehow, we came out whole. Yay, us. We even found our way back to our car parked in the underground parking garage. As we walked, we noted which bank of elevators we'd used and whether we'd turned left or right. Amazingly, we were able to walk directly to our car when everything was over. But, hey. They wouldn't let us leave without these lovely parting gifts.

As I've mentioned, we're enrolled in a "reactogenicity" study to see if one kind of vaccine is better tolerated than a different kind. It is a double-blind study, and so nobody knows which vaccine we received. (We're told we'll find out sometime around January.) 

Now that we've received the vaccine, we are emailed a "diary" to fill out each day. It asks us multiple-choice questions about any reaction we've had. We're also to note our temperature and to measure any areas of redness/swelling with that little ruler. So far, neither of us has experienced anything except for a bit of a sore arm. Even the sore arm only hurts if we poke around at it. We'll continue to fill out our diary for seven days, and then we'll be paid via a "ClinCard" (a debit card) for our participation. Pretty easy money.

So even if you haven't missed me, I suppose you've missed this handsome fellow.

Speaking of handsome fellows, we're wishing a very happy birthday to our first-born today. Erik, the Weber BBQ King, turns 46 years old today. I think we can all agree that I'm much too young to have a child this age. So, Happy Birthday, Kiddo!

We'll celebrate with the rest of the family at a restaurant this evening. I'm looking forward to that.

So, completely unrelated to the vaccine, I've been suffering with a muscle spasm. This is something that has happened on occasion for decades. It's the rhomboid muscle, which is the muscle between your spine and your shoulder blade. It can make sleeping difficult, and it's surprisingly disabling. I spent a good part of the day yesterday just leaning against a heating pad. With heat, I can make it feel better...temporarily, at least. I'm also taking naproxen, and that seems to be helping. That means I haven't done much sewing over the past couple of days. Nevertheless, I squared up the Barnyard quilt  yesterday.

And then I sewed on the binding.

And now it awaits my needle downstairs. I'll probably spend a good part of my day on that.

My shoulder spasm hasn't hurt my appetite any. I've tried a couple of new recipes since we chatted last time. My dear friend, Debi, sent me a recipe for this Sheet-Pan Coconut Shrimp and Sweet Potatoes. 'Tis the season for sweet potatoes, and so I wanted to try this right away. It was very tasty.

It takes a little time in the oven, but it isn't hard to make. I substituted gochujang for the sriracha (because I had one, but not the other), and I didn't do the broiling part at the end. (I don't really like to use my broiler.) Instead of broiling, I just added the shrimp and then returned it to the oven for ten minutes, stirring it up after five. 

If I were going to make this again (and I will), I might serve it over some jasmine rice. It has a flavorful sauce, and the rice would make a good vehicle for capturing the sauce. I've linked to the recipe above the image. It's from the NYTimes. That's a gift link, and so you should be able to open it. If not, email me, and I'll be happy to send it along.

For last night's dinner, we had this Thai Beef Salad. I was trying to use up half a head of red cabbage, and I had some cilantro hanging out in my crisper too. I believe I might have downloaded this recipe from the Cooking Light Diet some years back. Since Cooking Light no longer exists, I'm not able to find the recipe online. I'll give it to you below. Just know that I had Mike grill the flank steak. Other than that, I made it just the same. Again, I substituted gochujang for the sriracha. With Mike doing the grilling, this was an easy dish to make.

Thai Beef Salad

Recipe from Myrecipes.com

Serves 2

Ingredients:

Cooking spray

1 (1 1/2-pound) flank steak, trimmed

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

¼ teaspoon kosher salt

¼ cup fresh lime juice

1 tablespoon brown sugar

2 tablespoons lower-sodium soy sauce

1 tablespoon fish sauce

2 teaspoons minced fresh garlic

1 teaspoon Sriracha (hot chile sauce, such as Huy Fong)

1 ½ cups thinly sliced red cabbage

1 ¼ cups thinly sliced cucumber

¾ cup julienne-cut carrots

⅓ cup fresh mint leaves

⅓ cup fresh cilantro leaves

⅓ cup fresh basil leaves

Directions:

Heat a large grill pan over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Sprinkle steak evenly with pepper and salt. Add steak to pan; cook 6 minutes each side or until desired degree of doneness. Remove steak from pan; let stand 5 minutes. Cut steak diagonally across grain into thin slices.

Combine juice and next 5 ingredients (through Sriracha) in a small bowl; stir with a whisk.

Combine cabbage and remaining ingredients in a medium bowl. Add 6 tablespoons juice mixture to cabbage mixture; toss well. Toss steak in remaining 2 tablespoons juice mixture. Add steak to cabbage mixture; toss to combine.

* * * * *

Okay, so I expect to spend most of the day hand-sewing my quilt binding. It'll fit well with my desire to lean back against a heating pad. I want to keep myself relatively pain free so I can enjoy birthday dinner with the fam tonight. 

If my shoulder will tolerate it, I'll start working on my "quilter's choice" panel selection today. I'm kind of following along with this pattern:

But I have more panel blocks and some other ideas about how to make this work to use up a lot of the cat panels and fabrics I've collected from various sources.

Also, I've made some progress on this block for Grandpa's Bridges. When I had it this far, I decided to move my hoop up.

Now, it's encompassing the upper part of the roof, and that's where I'll start this morning.

Mike left earlier to make a drive south. He's been winterizing the RVs and the boat, and there's a boat part he needs in the Hubbard area. He'll probably be gone most of the morning, and so I have the house to myself for a little while. It seems like a good time to get going on my slow-stitching, and then I'll just see where the rest of the day takes me.