The Curse of the Stuff Shells

This week has been difficult to keep up with. I feel like a rat running in a wheel. I have missed blogging twice, I have missed logging steps for several days, I have failed to go for my walk for several days in a row, I have been out of sorts all day (probably because I didn't walk.) The week seemed filled with many "carnival pop-up activities" ... to-dos that come out of no where and go on and on, like the carnival game where you take a hammer and pound down each pop-up head only to discover another head pops up, and then another and another. As we closed in on the end of the week, I got some very sad news from my cousin in PA. The week was not getting better. And today was a "company dinner day" at our house and I was serving the stuff shells. I should have known better - and ordered carry out pizza instead. Let me explain.

Last January we scheduled a get together with old friends at our house. I planned on making these stuff shells - new recipe for me. January being January, some of our friends were sick with flu-like symptoms, so we rescheduled to February - still at our house. We ate the 2 trays of shells in January - they were good but it was a lot of shells. By February I was ready to make the shells again - 2 trays. And again, we were foiled. No one could come because we got between 2-3 feet of snow that weekend. So again, we ate 2 trays of shells. I felt pretty sure I wouldn't be making these again anytime soon. I saw a pattern forming. And besides, I was pretty tired of them by now.

This September it was my turn to make the company dinner, and again I made the shells (after all, none of our friends had tried them yet, and it has been 7 months since I last made them). I held off until this morning to throw the recipe together - delaying the cooking (just in case - I am not superstitious, but ... ). As it turned out one person had severe bronchitis and didn't come, and right before folks were to arrive, my son calls me from the emergency room were he was with his girlfriend. She is a runner and was running a 20 mile race this morning. She collapsed just after crossing the finish line. Turns out she was ok, probably dehydration (I wish the summer temperatures would just give up!) but still it was a scary situation. We are so glad she is ok. I didn't have time to think on this because as I hung up the phone, our friends arrived. We were not totally canceled out, but the gods did seem to have it out for us once again. I guess we should be happy there isn't 3 feet of snow outside today.

So this bad karma day which included some other disturbances ... this day (and this week), is finally over. Really, I am not a superstitious person, but I can't decide if we broke the curse of the stuff shells or we just managed to survive it.

Tomorrow I will decide if I should throw that recipe away. Too bad, it is a good meal!