my mom, the goose, and some chicken soup

My mom is precious.  I might have mentioned this a time or two.  Not only is she pint size (under 5' tall), but she decorates for all holidays, and just plain does and says the cutest things.  Remember our High tAcKy Texas Tea last July?  Yep. Cute.

She had to undergo major surgery on Friday.  Needless to say, we were all a bit nervous, but everything went well.  I had hoped to go visit her in the hospital on Friday after work, but my dad told me there was no point because she was pretty much falling in and out of consciousness every 5 to 10 minutes courtesy of meds.

Since we always do our family lunch thing on Saturday, we decided to meet (minus the parentals since my dad was at the hospital with my mom) at Red Lobster near the hospital.  We won't talk about how the cheddar bay biscuits are so not on my diet and how I may or may not have had enough to feed a small army (lack of self control much?).  After lunch, we sent older sister Cathy and brother-in-law Jay over to the hospital leaving younger sister Linda and brother-in-law Craig and I to seek flowers.  We went to the Kroger located in the same parking lot.  They had crap.  We didn't know what to do, so we decided to caravan drive until we found another grocery story.  Who knew we would have to drive for countless hours (slight exaggeration) until we happened across a Walmart?  Of course, Walmart doesn't have flower arrangements.  They have flower bouquets.  This meant that Linda and I picked out 2 bouquets of tulips (our mom loves tulips) and one bouquet of mixed floral lovelies.  We then sought out a vase, scissors to trim the stems, and bottles of water to fill the vase.  Whoa.  We were like our own freakin' flower shop.

We then caravanned to the hospital and Linda put the arrangement together (and did a wonderful job, I might add).  We arrived and spent some time with my mom.  About 30 minutes into our visit, the nurse came in to tell us she was being given the boot.  WHAT?!  Um...whatever.  She has gotten better sleep, more comfort, and better attitudes at home (she wasn't very happy with the nurses).

I arrived at their house and saw this:

Yes, it's my mom's goose.  Do you remember it from Valentine's Day in his little outfit of love?  Now he is wearing scrubs, as you can see.  I didn't understand why I hadn't noticed when I stopped by TWICE on Friday to help with Oliver (their bull dog).  My dad confessed that my mom forgot to dress the goose before she left for the hospital, so he had to do it on Friday night when he got back from visiting her.  Okay, if you knew my dad AT ALL, this is hilarious - him dressing a goose.  I mean - imagine your own dad dressing a goose...or a doll...same difference.  Hilarious.   My mom later told me that he couldn't wait to dress the goose...as in he was all kinds of excited about it.  weird.

A few weeks ago my dad was on a golf trip, so my mom put the goose in this outfit:

So, I had 3 vacation days left from last year and they had to be used by the end of this month.  I saved them to help with my mom.  I have mom-care-duty Monday thru Wednesday.  I have such great plans for us.  Um...she is gonna sleep and I'm gonna....do whatever she asks of me.  =)

I decided to start off by making her chicken soup for her soul.  I never roasted veggies before hand when making soup.  I've always just thrown the raw veggies in the pot.  I decided to change things up a bit.  I filled a pot with water and put 4 large (trimmed of fat) chicken breasts in along with several buillion cubes.  I cut up carrots, onion, and celery and placed it all on a baking sheet.  I then brushed the veggies with a bit of olive oil and sprinkled them with rock salt and garlic (from a grinder I bought at H.E.B.).  In the oven they went for about 40 minutes @ 350 degrees.  Once my chicken was done, I used two forks to shred it.  I added my roasted veggies to the soup and put some more water in, as well.  I honestly didn't need to add any more seasoning other than a bit of black pepper.

This will be dinner!