Feeling Lopsided

I have a love hate, hate, hate relationship with steroids. When I 1st go on them I don't sleep more then a few hours. I'm antsy and I have to be doing something every minute or I go nuts. The last few weeks I have cleaned my whole house,  put in two new flower beds, and started working on a third.

I get extremely moody and cry at the drop of a hat. This is totally not me. Just crazy steroid stuff. The lack of sleep, the constant need to move and do things. It wears a person down, mentally and physically. I found a way to help power down and get in a few extra hours of sleep.

Fresh air! Fresh air makes me sleepy. I work in the garden, I get sleepy. I try and go to bed and the antsy-ness creeps back in. So I decided, when I get tiered, I'm going to sleep in the fresh air. It worked! I passed out for 45 minutes the 1st day, and almost two hours the 2nd day.

The views are lovely

Although technically while laying down if I bother to open my eyes and look the view looks more like this . :)

But I know what is there. The smells from the garden and the sweet smell of pastured cows, the soft mooing in the distance, the birds singing, even a barn cat or two sometimes laying with me. It lets me relax and get just a little bit more sleep.

As the doctors have been trying to get the Crohn's under control with the steroids we have had an extremely difficult time regulating my potassium levels. They continue to drop most days and I have had to have several infusions. Have any of you had this one? It burns like a **** going in. The low potassium sucks the strength right out of you. Your muscles just won't do what you want them to any more. Yesterday after I sat in my lawn chair to take the photo above, I tried to stand without using my arms to pull myself up and I fell over! My legs were not strong enough to lift me from the chair by themselves. It scared me, even though I knew what it was. I went into the out patient, had my standing order potassium check done, then got a call from the doctor to go in for an infusion this morning.

So last night I was still not very strong. I was feeling way to week to venture the basement stairs caring a jello mold. So we did counter top photos. Not as pretty or as flashy, which was too bad because it was a pretty jello, but you can still see it. I even snapped a few photos of dinner, but I won't leave you the recipe as it wasn't that good. Chloe picked it out of a recipe book, you know one of those .25 cent garage sale buys of mine, what can I say, I have an obsession. It called for Romain noodles, I know right, but the kids love them, so I made this for her. I have had better. :)

I think our jello was called peaches and cream. I forgot to wet the plate down when I popped the jello out of the mold and it stuck sideways and was not going to budge without being ripped to shreds. Had I not done that I may still tried to venture the steps for photos, but feeling like I did with a lopsided jello anyway, it just wasn't happening.

The color is very pretty though, it could have been fun to photograph with some soft pastels around it. I'll probably make this one again though. We really like the whip cream mixed in. It made for a really light and fluffy almost ice cream like desert.

I also love the texture of the peaches and creaminess, that would have photographed so beautifully in the studio, yep, going to have to do a redo on this one later this summer. Had we had any daylight left I still could have had decent photos, but it was way to dark in that part of the house by dinner time.

Peaches and Cream Mold

1½ cups boiling water

1 package (8 serving size) or two packages (4-serving size each) peach or orange flavored gelatin

1½ cups cold water

1 tub (8 ounces) cool whip whipped topping, thawed, divided

1 can (16 ounces) peach slices, drained, diced

Stir boiling water into gelatin in a large bowl at least 2 minutes until completely dissolved. Stir in cold water. Refrigerate about 1¼ hours until slightly thickened (constancy of egg whites).

Stir in 2 cups whipped topping with a wire whisk until smooth. Refrigerate about 15 minutes or until thickened (spoon drawn though leaves a definite impression). Stir in peaches. Pour into a 5-cup mold which has been sprayed with non stick cooking spray.

Refrigerate 4 hours until firm. Unmold. Garnish as desired. Serve with remaining whipped topping.

Makes 10 servings