What I Did On My Spring Vacation

I may actually make some of my students write this very essay on Monday.  Here's some of what I did.  Monday I had my chiropractor appointment.  Afterward I went to Half Price Books and bought 2 books and 5 CD's.  I found the sound tracks to West Side Story, Showboat, Fiddler on the Roof, and South Pacific.  On Tuesday I took my niece Jessica out for lunch and we chatted for couple hours.  I also did some shopping!  I went to Kohl's with 15% off and bought a rug, a shirt, earrings, sandals and something else.  I spent just over $50 so I got a $10 cash coupon, which I used on Friday to buy some new sunglasses!  Then I went to DSW and used a $20 off $50 coupon.  I found the Eastland shoes I love in BLACK!!  They were on sale for $60 marked another 30% off and I also bought some Teva sandals on sale and scored another bargain!!  Wednesday I drove down to Northfield to get a cut and color.  Thursday I went to the mall with Bob's gift certificate from work and bought him shirts and pants for work.  On the way out of Macy's I stopped at the Origins counter.  The dermatologist told me to get GOOD sunscreen for my face.  I ended up buying one of their moisturizers with sunscreen and a serum with natural bleaching agents.  Laser treatments on my sun damaged spots are expensive, so I thought I'd try something that cost less.  Still on those 2 items I spent just under $100.  She did give me a free sample of the moisturizer for my purse and another sample of their cleansing scrub.  She could tell I don't exfoliate!  Friday I spent at home cooking a turkey, taking it off the bone, and boiling the carcass for soup.  I also made Ole some homemade dogfood, which I took a picture of.  I also took a picture of me and my sun damaged spots.  We'll see if that serum makes a difference in a month or 2 :)  Check out my scarf.  Grandma O. gave me some square silk scarves, about 20" by 20" years ago.  I've been wearing them the last year a lot.  I'm not a fashionable sort, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't like to be!!  So I didn't accomplish too much, but I had a chance to relax, read a little bit and walk the dog. Ready for work tomorrow...........

Genius!!

Here is a picture of the Mexican shrimp.  It was frozen raw, instead of precooked like the smaller bags usually are.  I marinated it in oil, soy sauce, lemon juice, garlic and Old Bay Seasoning.  Definitely the best kind of shrimp we've ever had.  I prefer this over the prawns.  (Bigger shrimp)  Very tasty and lots of leftovers!








So I took a picture of my plate.  I totally forgot to take pictures on Saturday night when we had the swordfish kabobs.  Bob invited the neighbors over and Hans was here, so I wasn't thinking about the camera!    

So....my stroke of genius was finding a recipe for
granola muffins.  I baked them this morning and they
were good.  I was thinking about spreading the granola in the back yard for the birds because of the off taste of the walnuts, but baking took care of that.  I still have a couple cups of granola left over, so I'll
probably still give the birds a treat!  Happy last day of March!!     

Spring (?) Break

Well you can see we still have quite a bit of snow for late March.  The sun was warm today, but still only about 30 degrees.  It felt much warmer by the side of the garage, so we spent some time today sitting out and playing with Ole.  Tonight we are having Mexican shrimp and tomorrow night swordfish kabobs.  I will take pictures again.  I also have to remember to wear sunscreen.  I went in yesterday for a spot on my head, which was fine and benign, but the dermatologist also burned off 5 precancerous spots on my nose.  Yikes!  and here I am, sun on my face, and no protection!  Better get at that.

Something's fishy

 I'm giving this formatting another try.  Here's what we ate last weekend.  Cod on Saturday with roasted cauliflower.  I had to have some carrots for color.  The next picture shows the salmon before I fixed it.  It's Scottish salmon, something we've never had before.  We usually get Norwegian or Atlantic.  I made roasted sweet potatoes and coleslaw with those.  The last picture is my plate.  I can say that I've probably never taken a picture of my plate of food before I've eaten it, but there's always a first time.

I've only roasted vegetables for the last couple years.  It's so fast and it cooks about the same amount of time in the oven at a high temperature with the fish. 20 - 25 minutes, and everything is all done.  Tonight we grilled mahi mahi.  Bob buys trim pieces at work, so we had 3 pounds of fish for $6.  It's not my favorite fish, but I found a good recipe and it was really good.  I did not take pictures. 
 Well, I'm feeling kind of pleased here.  My writing is staying where I want it, and I wonder if it will look the same when I save it?  Off to bed, the weekends go too fast!

Practicing

Here is our silver maple tapped and ready to go.  I brought home my small burner from school.  I've got an old pan and I need a candy thermometer too I guess.  If I can get 10 gallons of sap from this tap, it will make a quart of maple syrup.  My custodian said the best place to make it is outside, not in the house.  It'll be a couple weeks before my first attempt.  If you let the contents partially freeze, the water freezes first and then you can pour out the sap to cook down later.

Adding pictures and making granola

Well, this took me an hour.  Arggg...I took some pictures today that I haven't loaded, but I just wanted to see if I could do this.  Here are a few of the moebius cowls I knit this winter.  Did I spell that right?  I used ends to make a couple striped ones.   I have pics of our fish dinners and my tapped maple tree.  I'll give that a try later.  Granola; I made my recipe today and thought I could swap walnuts for pecans.  Somewhat bitter, so I won't do that again :(

Almost over the hump

Our international tasting evening is over, the science fair is Thursday and most projects are ready to go.  I totally adore my student teacher, she is wonderful!  Testing is underway and going well.  I have half a dozen baby sweaters to sew buttons on, quite a few chunky cowls, (12-15) and looking for my next project(s).  A while ago I bought some felt play food and then made some saltines, cookies and fried eggs.  I will have to take some pictures one of these days.  Maybe I'll sit and sew some more food.  Speaking of food, my folks were here a couple weekends ago and we fixed tuna steaks.  Now I should have taken a picture of that!  It was delicious.  We fixed it rare and medium well and it was good both ways.  I made scalloped potatoes to go with.  I bought a mandoline (?) a few years ago and the potatoes slice so uniformly and thin and fast, so they don't have time to discolor while you prepare them.  Off to bed, it's past my bedtime!