Happy that your eye exam went very well thank goodness. We were talking today about how long it will take for my wife's hair to grow back. I thought mandolins we use for torture. Haha
Hey Tony. Thanks; I always appreciate your support! I finished chemo on July 29, 2021, and in about 6 months it's about 2" long. I could see "fuzz" within a month of finishing treatment. Let your wife know that each person has a different pattern of hair regrowth; mine was kind of a monk ring thing. The sides grew back a lot faster than the top! I was freaked out because I was afraid the top wasn't going to grow back but it did. I hope she's doing well with treatment.
Generally things have been okay, I'm in the parking lot of Sloan's right now waiting for her to finish her test she had an MRI and a mammogram today. She was supposed to get out at 3 but as you can see there a little late. She has one more chemo next week. She should have been finished but was delayed because of catching covid. I know she's nervous about the results of today's testing, we'll have to see.
Ah, the Ides of March. Seems like this year is rapidly spinning on by. We had a beautiful spring day today, sunny and mild. I opened the house up to let the breeze flow through and we worked in the yard for a bit. A friend who lives in Atlanta sent me a sad email. She was diagnosed with Stage 4 denovo metastatic breast cancer today. It reminded me of my brother's diagnosis in 2020... he had back pain and went to have it checked out after letting it go for a couple of months. The doctors found cancer all in his spine, metastasized from his lungs. He was diagnosed in July and dead in August. So back to my friend... she went to the doctor yesterday with pain in her lower back that had been bothering her for a couple of months. Today she's stage 4 breast cancer that has spread to her spine. I am hopeful for a better outcome for her.
Forgot to add that I found a pint of frozen blueberries in the freezer today. They looked a little iffy but I decided to whip up a cobbler with 'em. It just came out of the oven and tastes pretty dang good.
Beautiful spring day today; absolutely gorgeous outside. We are tearing out old, tired landscaping in our front yard and starting fresh with new stuff. My husband cut down some big old red tip bushes yesterday that left stumps about 7" across. He also leveled a sago palm that was beginning to get leggy and annoying. Everything just looked tired out there since the hard freeze about a year ago. The red tip stumps were a bigger challenge than anticipated. He was armed with grubbing hoes, shovels, power tools, pick axe and a 5' pry bar. Thankfully the bushes didn't have tap roots but were mostly root balls with runners. It took most of the afternoon to dig out 3 red tip stumps. Next week we'll head to the garden center to buy boxwoods or something easy. I'm pretty excited about that because I absolutely LOVE big garden centers. (Second only to libraries in thrilling surroundings.) I'm kind of grumpy because I don't have the physical ability to do much anymore. Since surgery last August I have to baby my right side, which is my dominant hand. I'm not supposed to lift more than 15 pounds or do anything that is repetitive movement. I was grabbing one of the big roots today to pull while my husband used the pry bar, and when it let loose I stumbled. Now my stupid right arm is aching and has "pins and needles" from my shoulder to my fingertips. I hope I didn't pull something loose in there. My new countertop oven is here but the box is as big as a Volkswagen and weighs as much, too. I'll need help wrangling that thing so I'll just wait on that. The hubby is in the shower and headed over to play dominoes at his sister's house. This stupid physical limitation thing is very frustrating for me since I used to be able to rearrange furniture or drag 50-pound bags of mulch around the yard.
Another beautiful day today... sunny and around 70 degrees. The hubby helped me unbox the new countertop oven before he left to go to his mom's, so I got it set up in place. I boxed up the old one and put it on top of the refrigerator in the garage; it will move to the RV at some point unless someone wants it. (Did that part by myself and now my shoulder is killing me. ) Here are a few pics of the new addition. I was happy to see that the cutting board that is made for the old 800 model will fit "OK." Size comparison BOV900 vs BOV 800... I tested the oven temp and learned 2 things; first, when the "preheat" signal goes off the oven is nowhere near preheated. I set the temp for 325 and it dinged at around 200 degrees, so if I need a true preheat I'll have to wait longer. The oven did reach the set temp fairly quickly and then leveled off exactly at 325 according to my oven thermometer. I let it bake for a while to help get rid of the "new oven burn off" odor. Now if the UPS guy would just get here with my bread baker I could be playing with artisan bread this evening. @John Brunner -- you might recall our conversation a while ago about the oven liner for the drip tray on the oven. (You made toast to show the difference with/without the mat.) I was kind of surprised to find that the 900 has a "high shine" bottom whereas the 800 has a matte finish on the tray. I suppose that's why I didn't have any noticeable degradation in performance with the liner. I guess I won't use one with the new oven, though.
UPS guy finally made it; I got the bread baker and I've been playing with it. It will just barely squeak into the Breville with about 1/2" to spare using the absolute lowest rack setting. I'm not sure if it's too close to the heating elements, though. Guess I'll be baking bread tomorrow.
The "preheated buzzer" goes off when the oven reaches 75% of the set temp (Troubleshooting: Page 32.) Breville has calculated that the recovery time (from opening the door) to achieve Full Temp is 2 minutes faster from 75% of temp than from full-preheated temp...or so they say. I've put a thermometer in my Breville and they maintain temp within a very tight range of only a degree or two of the setting (my Black & Decker toaster oven had a range of over 75°). I don't know if Breville recommends a minimum headspace between the elements and cookware. I do know that there are sensors throughout the oven to get location-specific readings so only the required element(s) is/are pulsed to maintain uniform oven temps throughout the cavity (just as yours does), so it's not as though all elements fire up for a period of time every time the thermostat kick on. As I was just rereading my manual looking for the preheat info, I saw that it said to not use foil on any part of the oven. Maybe I saw that before and just chose to ignore it. I guess I should take the foil off of the crumb tray. It's been there ever since I got the thing. Here's the link to the Breville BOV900 manual pdf download. I just downloaded a fresh one. My old download was a non-searchable crude pdf scan, this one is electronically converted. I hate their product naming/renaming nomenclature rather than sticking to model numbers. This manual is titled "the Smart Oven®Air Fryer Pro" in accordance with today's model name for the BOV900. My existing Breville download is titled "the Smart Oven Air, suits all BOV 900 Models" in accordance with the legacy name. The manuals seem to be identical according to the Table of Contents and my quick review, except the new manual has a Spanish section in addition to English & French so it's [obviously] 50% longer.
Yeah, I read the whole manual (I got a hardcopy in the box) earlier and saw that preheat info. Still doesn't make sense to me but whatev. As for the foil, I'd leave it. Since you likely don't use the oven unless you're close by, you'd notice if there was a problem. Those crumb trays are hard to clean if something gets baked on. I'll probably put foil on mine, too. Here's the bread baker. It will fit in there, and I guess the knob isn't that big of a deal. I'm actually more concerned about the bottom rack since it is really close to those heating elements on that "slow cook" height. The Kitchenaid ceramic bread bowl is about 1.5" taller than the LeCreuset so it is a definite "no."
Thanks for the pics. I would not worry about the closeness to the elements. As I said in that other post, each one of those elements pulses independently, controlled by its own sensor, so as to maintain a uniform temp throughout. In other words, I'll hold your beer...
It's another fabulous day today; sunny and gorgeous... plus the "March winds" are blowing. I'm surprised my allergies aren't making me crazy since the pollen is thick outside. My shoulder is making me miserable; it hurt so much last night I couldn't get much sleep. I have bread dough proofing for the first trial run of the LC baker. I had to do the kneading with my stand mixer because my shoulder is hurting so much. It's fun playing with new "toys", though.