Adventures in Arizona

I had such a fun time in Arizona staying with my parent's at their cute little "cottage" in Sun Lake's retirement community. It was like going back to my second childhood. I got lots of love and attention. During the day my mom and I would shop around at the antique malls, Susie's Deals (clothes for $5.99 and under, wow) and the craft stores. Then we would go to Trader Joe's or the grocery store and pick up stuff for dinner. We prepared many cheap chic healthy meals in the evening. I even lost 5 pounds following my mom's type 2 diabetes diet, of course I have now gained them back, damn it! We would watch T.V. shows at night like American Idol and Dancing with the Stars. This was unusual for me because I don't have T.V. at my house. We haven't had it for over 4 years now. It was one of the things we cut back on to save money when my husband was layed off in 2002. We can't get reception unless we have cable or Direct T.V. so we haven't had anything except the occasional movie rentals. It was a real treat to watch all of these shows. We also watched a lot of HGTV. It was awesome. It's probably a good thing I don't have television because I could easily spend all my time in front of the tube and never get anything done. The Internet is hard enough to tear myself away from. Anyway I had a great time out there in cactus land, the land of the huge pre-historic cockroaches. Thank God I only saw one while I was there and that sucker had to have been at least 4 inches long. Mom and I had to scream for dad to come to our rescue and kill it and get rid the carcus. That's one thing I do NOT miss about Arizona. The weather was beautiful while I was there. Only a couple of days where the temps were in the 90's. The rest of the time it was 70's and 80's! Amazing for this time of year. I thought it would be much hotter. I spent some quality time with my sister Toni and her wonderful family. I was treated like royalty and practically waited on hand and foot. They took me out to lunches and dinners at cool little restaurants. I definitely got a taste of the "NON cheap chic" lifestyle for a few days. Thanks so much to all of them for making me feel so special and loved! Well anyway I mentioned the cheap chic healthy dinners that mom, dad and I prepared so I'll be sharing some of those recipes with you all. My parents thought it was funny that I wanted to take pictures of each step of our dinner preparations so that I could post them on my blog. They started getting used to posing their hands with spoons and knifes, etc... while making our dinners, lol! Stay tuned for some good and always cheap menus and recipes. It's good to be home but I do miss my mummy and dada.