Enjoy your weekend. I will spend mine on the river. The Tennessee, not the Cumberland.

Casa Lilo CA Except for the smoke, the wildfire(s) are not threatening, the smoke is a nuisance, scratchy throat and watery eyes, not pleasant to be outside. When the westwind comes up in the afternoon, the situation does improve. I hope they get this thing under control soon, a crew of "Hotshot Firefighters" has been brought in to light back-fires, this should help. Our weather is more normal, no triple digits, middle nineties and chilly nights, good sleeping weather. Dog Gussie is getting more confident, that outing to the Coast with Joann's dogs has helped. She comes to the whistle! That is such a good thing, I don't have to yell for her. Shows she had considerable training before abuse made her such a basket case, and the training emerges by and by. Starting wiith baby-steps, now we begin to make some strides. Joann is fostering two 3 week old kittens, they were brought to the feed store yesterday, found on the side of the road in a cardboard box securely taped shut, apparently with the intent to be run over - I can't imagine what sick minds would do that. Anyway, the little female is a back and white cutie, and I think I may take her when she gets old enough. I showed her to Taffy, who stopped in his tracks, eyes as big as saucers, and then he slowly backed off. I don't think he is so crazy about babies. There is always room for one more, isn't there - and there is no such thing as a "free" pet. Lilo

Awoke with a pounding headache this morning and knew we'd get a taste of Ernesto tonight. Oddly, the change in barometric pressure affects me, I'm just one of those super sensitive people. It's been raining all day, dreary and gloomy and muggy, a sad ending to the month of August. Around 2 pm, the county schools announced a 2 hour delay for tomorrow. I remembered to check with DS's school when I picked him up tonight, they were still on a normal operating schedule but were waiting for the next weather update. Stopped at the grocery store on the way home for cat food, there was no rush on bread and milk, but it was busy. I always marvel at the people who think it wise to buy massive amounts of groceries when a storm is approaching. After Hurricane Fran knocked out my power for 4 days and I lost everything in my freezers, I learned my lesson. What a shame, the store had a good sale on ice cream too. Oh well, the sale will be on tomorrow too, if the power holds we'll eat ice cream for dinner. I couldn't muster up the energy to cook tonight so treated DS to dinner at the local burger joint. We must be odd, how many people go to a burger joint and eat fish and chicken? The food was mediocre, the service was horrible, but the company I had couldn't be beat. On the ride home we heard the announcement that his school was delayed 2 hours tomorrow. He's ecstatic, I'm not. I'll have to go in to work for 1.5 hours, leave to take him to school, go back to work for 3.5 hours and then leave to pick him up. Lots of driving in miserably wet and windy conditions...not my favorite thing to do. I've been sitting here listening to the wind sigh through the pines, the sighs are getting heavier. Last check we had sustained winds of 15 mph with gusts of 25 mph. Not bad, but enough to send the green pine cones flying onto the roof like mini torpedoes. I guess I know how I'll spend my last free weekend for the next month....cleaning up debris. Oh well, it could always be worse so I'll just count my blessings and do what needs to be done. The end of August...less than 3 months until Christmas...I won't think about it today, too depressing. Where has this year gone? The older I get, the quicker time rolls by. I don't want to be this age any more, I want to be 13 again, the age when time seemed to stand still. There was so much to look forward to and it never seemed like it would get here. Funny how we spend so many years looking forward, then all of a sudden spend the rest of the years looking back. I'm tired of looking back, tired of saying farewell, so I'll just say Welcome, September.... Maryanne

Most likely it's the same thing. I never call it Chicken Fried Steak, some do, depends on the region, maybe. Cube steak dipped in egg & milk dredged in seasoned flour, fried in cooking oil. I just brown the steaks on both sides, remove them to a baking dish, I add just a little water in the pan and bake the steaks til done. This makes them especially tender. I make the gravy in the pan I browned the steaks in. Sometimes I use beef broth instead of milk for the gravy. It's a comfort food here at the house. Sometimes I use half and half in the gravy, and sometimes I use half and half in my biscuits. Not very often though. I know this is confusing, but I never measure anything in the old recipes that I grew up with. Sometimes I will fry the steaks in the oil and remove them to a paper towel, make a rich cream gravy and then serve the steaks in a dish with the gravy on top, rather than serving it in seperate dishes. Now that I have thoroughly confused you, i'll hush.:0)