Sunday, November 24, 2013

Fried Green Tomatoes

I think I told you that we had a volunteer tomato plant loaded with green tomatoes when frost was expected.  We harvested all the tomatoes right before we got a killing frost.  Some of the tomatoes went ahead and ripened and some I used green for an old Southern favorite - Fried Green Tomatoes and one of my favorite foods.

I don't indulge very often even though I use healthy oils to fry in.  My OH doesn't care for them and that's another reason I don't fix them that often.  But since I had several tomatoes that would ripen before we could eat them, I decided to fix this simple delicacy.  They were delicious!

Unfortunately, the frost has killed off or put most of our plants into hibernation.  We still have rutabagas, arugula, parsley, spinach and cilantro in the garden and it's great having fresh produce this late in the season.  It's been a very cold fall this year and I don't know how much longer even our cold weather plants will survive. 

No art has been done by me for a very long time as I still don't have really good close vision.  Fortunately, I have an appointment with my doctor tomorrow and he'll see if my vision has stabilized enough to prescribe glasses or a contact lens.  He had said he'd give me a trial contact lens to see if I could adapt to monovision so I'm really psyched to try it.  If it works at all, I'll try to paint something soon!  Of course, we have to get through Thanksgiving first!




Saturday, November 2, 2013

FedEx Update and Painting Attempt

Just wanted to let you know that FedEx delivered my package yesterday and the young driver apologized for not getting it to me the day before.  I didn't even say anything about it when he told me he'd had the package then got a long way away from our house before he realized he hadn't delivered it and since it was so late he decided to deliver it the next day.  It was nice of him to apologize but it didn't make me think any better of FedEx as a delivery company. 

I told him I wasn't a happy camper about it especially after seeing the tracking update about not being home or the business being closed.  He said that was a sort of catch-all box to check when there were extenuating circumstances.  Hmmm, was still a lie, don't ya think?

But, good news.  I've been trying to paint in spite of not being able to see well up close yet.  I had cataract surgery on both eyes but I'm told it may take a while for the eyes to adjust to seeing both close up and at a distance.  I found a blog online where a guy with pretty much the same circumstances as mine had surgery a couple of years ago and who detailed some of the results and some of the things he found out.

I thought the way I see now was the final result but there's a good chance my eyes will continue to improve.  Or maybe I should say that my sight may continue to improve.  Sometimes the brain compensates for the uneven vision and actually adjusts to see things the way they're supposed to be seen.  Unfortunately, it can take months.  Fortunately, I can wear reading glasses if I really need to but, according to that blogger, the more I try to read or do close work without them, the more my vision is being "trained".  I also have a progress check at my optometrist on Monday and can see if things are heading toward improvement.

But, back to the painting.  I did paint this with the help of some reading glasses but even then couldn't see to do some of the really small details.  My husband and a good friend both said (at different times) that the painting looked "patchy" but I didn't know exactly how to fix it.  I did work on it a bit more and my husband said it looked much better but he may have been trying to be nice.  Anyway, here's the painting.  It's been painted in gouache on watercolor paper and is about 6 x 6 inches: