What's on your (PHOTO) Friday Menu?

Hopefully the new therapist has some good ideas to help your shoulder improve!

Good morning! Thankfully for most of you I am a terrible picture taker and Roger is worse so the photo dump remains somewhat under control!

Yesterday I had a good day food and beverage wise. Zero exercise again to speak of. I puttered around the house and spent hours of "mise en place" for the Moussaka. I did find a low calorie Béchamel sauce, but I am not sure it was worth the calorie savings to give up the luxurious silkiness of Moussaka done right. Next time, full on sauce and a bit more salt into the lamb mixture. But a solid first attempt and thank goodness. I have probably 6 servings of it left over. Maybe eight.

Today is supposed to be pretty hot. Maybe mid 90's for a while. I've got to do a goodwill run. Stop in the market for a couple things I forgot and pick up the grands to spend the night so the adult kids can celebrate the wedding anniversary. Their parents will be here early tomorrow to pick them up as they are off to the Oogie Boogie Bash at Disneyland tomorrow. We are having the favorite neighbors over this evening as well as we are scheming our next getaway. I've got two big Halloween craft ideas to keep the girls busy and then when they get tired of us there is always TV...

QoTD: Pantoprazole daily and when I am having flares two or three times a day. I wasn't aware of the dementia/kidney failure aspect so I'll discuss that with my doc next time I see him. However, I have to say, I lean towards quality of current life on these issues (example, estrogen implants), so I'll probably stay on the PPI.

Meals today will probably be:

B: Cottage cheese and chicken breast bites

L: Moussaka

D: Ordering a couple of pizzas for the crowd. But I might try and stay with turkey and cheese. Pizza really flares my stomach and I have never really liked pizza. Nobody unfriend me.

Photos. These are from our days in Istanbul. First full day we say the Dolmabahce Palace and had High Tea at the Four Seasons. That evening we struck out on our own and went to the Spice Market and Grand Bazaar. Spice Market was horrible. It was so packed with people that we were in a river of humanity and couldn't stop to window shop or sniff things because you couldn't get out of the current. I kept thinking I was one panicked human away from a crushing crowd surge. Just awful. Grand bazaar had much more breathing room and we did a little tiny bit of shopping. But we took no photos of those two things most likely because my anxiety was sky high. After we survived that, we managed to find our way to Suleymaniye Hamami. Jen and two other of our friends recommended this activity. TURKISH BATHS!!! We got into modified bikinis, laid out on a heated marble slab for 1/2 hour to let our bones and muscles melt in the heat and humidity. Then we got laid out on marble tables and scrubbed, slapped around, pounded, rinsed over and over with cool water, hair washed, drowned like a rat and then toweled off and bundled up like toddlers after an end of the day bath and sent to sit and have a cold drink. It was an amazing experience and even though I nearly killed myself falling off the silly little shoes they make you wear, I loved it and was so proud of myself for navigating through the strange streets of Istanbul, having a cold drink in a room full of Turkish men smoking and playing cards (they invited us in for a rest when we bough****er), dragged down a lonely alley to enter a copper smiths shop from the back where there were no other tourist, or even random locals in sight, and lived to tell the tale!! We then had to navigate our back to the ship on foot because we were out of Turkish Liras and the transit system only takes MasterCard. Once back, we had dinner in the formal dining room and my notes say Oh the Leek Tart!!!

The second day (whew, this is a lot, I know!) we went to the Beylerbeyi Palace and Asian Istanbul. Very anticlimactic given

the day before. I didn't even make a note about what I had for dinner1 And the final photo is of the Bosporus as the sun is setting.

Peace Everybody!

I am hoping to make the same trip in the next year or two. Depending on my overall health and ability to travel. I love hearing about your experience. So glad you are posting this. The spice market is one of the things I have been anxious to do so sorry it was not wonderful for you. I never thought about it being so packed with people that you could not enjoy moving around and having an awesome experience.

yea most of the things that tourists would be interested in are on the European side. The friends we stayed with lived on the Asian side (much of which is residential), and if I go again, I'll stay in a hotel on the European side. It was nice staying with our friends - and going to stores, etc, that people who live there go to, but we only went "downtown" a couple of afternoons, and there was a lot more I really would have liked to see.

did you go to Hagia Sophia? OMG that place is spectacular! Probably the most beautiful building I've ever seen.

If you want a travel companion when you go, let me know Trish.

will do!!!

Gorgeous!! The Turkish Bath sound heavenly!

I am so glad you enjoyed the hammam! I am all about the hammam anywhere one is available now, lol. There was definitely a size issue on the outfit when I was there because I was near my heaviest but they did not make me feel bad about it. My young man started singing when he was washing my hair and they all joined in, the acoustics in the marble room were amazing.

also, this is on my bookshelf, from Beylerbeyi.

Those gates to the sea. So stunning!

I was worried about a boob popping out! I mean, once you meet me you know I basically have no boobs and even with Roger's help we had a hard time securing the little triangle over each boob! Lol. The rooms were amazing. The marble tracks where water has flowed for centuries. It was pretty amazing. But the shoes, Jen. You should include a disclaimer in future recommendations!!

They reminded me of some 70s era clogs I had as a kid that were so easy to fall in!