Here's what I spent most of my weekend working on - cheesecakes for the lovely Miss Elizabeth's graduation open house. We were pretty busy this week getting estimates for the addition we're planning to add on to the house in August. A new dining room and a bigger kitchen!!!! The old dining room will become a library, I think. Maybe it'll be like a queue "Sit down and read something before you come in and eat in the new bigger dining room! I can't wait. We also got a couple of quotes on siding and shopped for new carpet for the family room.

I met with the one room schoolhouse ladies to plan our summer camp. We'll be celebrating nature this year, I believe. We're thinking about making chicken and dumplings over the fire too. We've never tried that before.

This is the beautiful rose tree that the peeps in my aerobics class gave me as a goodbye and thank you gift. I think I'm going to have Bob plant it right here, by the front door, when he gets home.

Some of those ladies had been in my class for almost ten years, and I will miss seeing them.

Coiffed Canines Crave Cheese Chunks - JUST TELL US WHAT WE HAVE TO DO TO GET THE CHEESE!!!!!! I drove Bonnie the Barbarian back to the Gas City/Upland exit Starbucks (we like to think of it as OUR Starbucks) to meet up with Brent so he could take her back home. I sent that rib bone along with her, as a sort of a reminder of all the fun she had at Grandma and Grandpa's. The coffee boys remembered me and asked if I was bringing the dog back again. They're just so nice and chatty at Starbucks.

Recipe of the Week: I believe the following recipe is the only recipe I have that calls for Jello. I don't get Jello - never have. It's nothing. Why bother eating it? I know lots of people like that Christmas ribbon jello salad thing, but am I going to spend my Christmas calories eating Jello? No, no. Bring out the heavy stuff - Bring out the fudge. Bring out the buche de noel - in fact, bring me a figgy puding, but please, no Jello. Anyway, this pretzel salad with Jello deserves to be in my recipe collection. The combination of a salty, buttery pretzel crust, cream cheese center, and strawberry topping is a winning one. For many years, our local Tri Kappa chapter hosted an annual salad bar luncheon in early June. We served a hot chicken and noodle casserole and a variety of side salads. This was one of them. The chapter doesn't do the salad bar anymore, but traded it in for a basket bingo afternoon some time back. Enjoy the salad.

Pretzel Salad

1 (8 oz) package pretzels, finely crushed

3 tablespoons sugar

3/4 cup butter melted

1 (8oz) package cream cheese

1 cup sugar

1 (8 oz) carton Cool Whip

1 (6 oz) package strawberry Jello

2 cups boiling water

1 (16 oz) package frozen sliced strawberries

Combine crushed pretzels, 3 tablespoons sugar, and melted butter. Press into 9 X 13 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for ten minutes. Cool completely.

Cream together cream cheese and sugar. Add Cool Whip and mix. Spread on top of pretzel crust making sure to spread completely to the sides of the pan so the Jello doesn't leak down to the pretzels. Put in the fridge.

Dissolve the Jello in the boiling water. Add strawberries. Refrigerate until slightly thickened, then spread on top of cream cheese mixture. Refrigerate.

"It's a shame that a family can be torn apart by something as simple as a pack of wild dogs." Jack Handey