Prayers and Good Thoughts Needed... and some Chocolate Pie

When I'm happy I eat. When I'm sad I eat. When I'm upset I eat. When I'm mad I eat. See a pattern here? For the most part I've been able to curb this addiction but lately I am thinking about food all the time. My grandma is in the hospital. Has been since last Thursday.

Congestive heart failure, renal failure and pneumonia.

Not a fun trio. For the most part she seems herself although she's hating the whole hospital thing. And if she can get her oxygen levels up and breathe on her own again she might just be able to work on everything else going on.

But for now she waits. And waits.

So we wait with her. I find other family members willing to watch the kids while I visit. The visits aren't all that exciting and for the most part I just sit with my aunt, uncles and mom while reading a book. I haven't read this much in a long time. But every once in a while I'm able to visit with her alone. And we chat. Small things, big things. It's nice.

I haven't really thought that it's impacted me much but I think it is. The other day I went into the pantry, went into the fridge and checked out the freezer. Nothing sounded good. Nothing looked good. Ugh.

So I figured I'd check out a few of my recipe books and I grabbed one of my favorites, Dorie Greenspan's Baking from My Home to Yours. And I happened to open it on a recipe for chocolate pie. With a chocolate shortbread crust. I already had some pie crust in the freezer so I grabbed that and let it thaw. Now I should have stopped right there. If I had time to thaw crust I had time to realize that this was just a bad plan all over.

I am losing weight, on the right track, just got over a 6-week weight loss challenge.Why sabotage these efforts? Because I could. 

So I made Dorie's chocolate tart filling.

Added some diced macerated strawberries and waited for the mix to chill in the fridge. As it was chilling I baked up the pie crust and let it cool. Once it was cool I grabbed the chocolate/strawberry filling, poured it into the crust, and smoothed it all down. If I had any whipping cream in the house I probably would have whipped that up and layered it on as well. But lucky for me I didn't. And I was out of chocolate.

Half of the pie was gone the next day. Oy...

So I ask for your prayers. No, not so that I stop eating. Only I can work on that. Prayers for my grandma. Prayers that she finds peace, gets better, makes it to her 60th high school reunion later this year. She says she's ready but I know she wants to do just a bit more. Let her visit with her sister at least.

I thank you in advance for any positive thoughts or prayers you have to offer. I truly appreciate it!

Oh, and the pie was amazing.

I'll have to make it again. And maybe isntead of strawberries I'll throw in a swirl of peanut butter. Yum!