Update on David

I got to talk to David yesterday. I'd left a message on his Facebook wall asking when I could call him and he called me. I'd had an amazingly quiet morning. No phone calls or visitors at all. I had just sat down to eat my lunch and had taken about 4 bites when he called. Now, naturally I'll eat my lunch cold if I can talk to David. I haven't talked to him for a month! However, we were only on the phone for about 5 minutes when the school called saying Dylan was sick. GRR! Great timing!
David and I cut the conversation a little short but not before he relayed the good news/bad news. Good news is that he's coming to Oregon in another week and a half. Bad news is that it isn't really to see us. He started dating this very nice girl, Kimberly, over the summer and is coming over the long weekend to see her. She goes to college at Western Oregon in Monmouth and he doesn't know if the plans for the weekend include a trip to Newport or not. He wisely lets her do the planning, - just as it should be, lol. Hopefully we'll be able to meet them for lunch in Albany or something. She's very worried that we'll be offended but, of course, we're not. This is an unexpected opportunity for us to see him too and we certainly understand how it is trying to make a long-distance relationship work. We did it ourselves for over a year. Anyway, he's settled in at his dorm at UCF in Orlando and enjoying having a kitchen (although he did mention it's not so much fun when he actually has to cook his own food). He likes his roommate and has a class at 9:30. Yes, folks, that would be A.M.! That really cuts into his beauty sleep but he enjoys the class so much he's motivated to actually attend even though it is so "early". He was sure to give me his address so that I would have no problems sending him a care package if I was so inclined. I guess I'd better get busy with the brownies and chocolate chip cookies if I don't want him to waste away to nothing.

How to peel a hard-boiled egg the easy way

Last week at my sewing group, everyone was talking about this video. I, as usual, was clueless.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN2gYHJNT3Y

Now I know! This is so cool! I actually don't eat hard-boiled eggs just because I can't stand to peel them. I haven't tried it this way but am planning to next time I need to peel a hard-boiled egg. Some of the comments I've read have expressed disgust for this method because of germ transfer from spit. So for those of you who just decided never to eat eggs at my house for fear I've spit on them, - get a grip. You blow the eggs out, for heaven's sake, you don't spit on them.

Dakota's big soccer game

Dakota is playing soccer this fall on a team called the Eagles. I love soccer and think it is the best team sport there is for younger kids. It has action so kids like mine don't get bored, the kids who work as a team generally do better than those who don't, and kids who may be a little athletically challenged (like Dakota) can still make a meaningful contribution. That's Dakota in yellow getting ready to take that girl on! She moved right past him, by the way. But he did get in several good kicks during the course of the game.

Today was the fourth game for the Eagles but it was the BIG game. The Eagles had already won the first three games handily. See, there's that team in every league who is just better than everyone else. Most often these kids have played together longer (they trust each other) with the same coach (dedicated and knowledgeable) and have a combined seasons of experience much higher than all the other teams in the league. You might think that was us, but no, it's the Hawks. We got trounced and were jubilant. You see, the score was 2-7. A team that most often scores in the double digits only scored 7 on us. -AND we scored 2 on them. This is unprecedented! We play them again later in the season and I'm hopeful we'll do even better then. I'm the assistant coach so I feel pretty confident predicting that improvement. The Eagles are a great bunch of kids (to be fair, I'm sure the Hawks are, too) and they've made measurable progress already this year. I'll let you know how it goes after the rematch. As Dakota would say "dun, dun, dun, duuuunnn!"

Anyway, after the game we went out to lunch at the local pizza/pasta/salad/dessert buffet place. Here it's called Izzy's but I know you have one just like it where you live. Sometimes I think they all use the same recipes. The outstanding thing about this particular buffet place is the view. This picture is taken from the deck of the restaurant. It's just north of town looking south down the beach to the north jetty (that long skinny thing poking out into the water).

Quote of the day -

Racism has always mystified me. There are so many reasons to dislike people and you're going to go with color? by: random guy on podcast

Canning tuna

So, I have this neighbor who is a tuna fisherman. He goes out in this tiny boat for days at a time (WITH a helper) and catches a couple hundred tuna. Then he brings them in, sleeps for a day because he's exhausted, and spends the next several days selling his catch off the back of his boat. When it's all sold he takes the afternoon off, gets up the next morning and goes out again. Tuna season is only a couple months long, but still, this seems like a hard way to earn a living.


I'd never had fresh tuna until we moved here. It's amazing! It bears almost no resemblance to the fishy stuff from the can. You can grill it or fry it or bake it. It's all delicious. Last year was really busy with the move here and all but I resolved this year that I would can my own tuna. Now, almost everyone here cans their own tuna. I'd heard several people say that once you've had fresh home-canned tuna, you'll never eat the stuff from the store again. That's kind of scary for me because we're moving away in a couple years. Will I never eat tuna again after we move?? Can it really be that good?


Anyway, I bought several fish from my neighbor (I happened to get the very last fish of his last tuna run of the season) and he brought them over for me on Saturday. He said I had several days before I had to do anything with it but if you've ever seen the size of a bag of 25+ pounds of tuna loins, you'll know that waiting wasn't an option. I have no room for this in my refrigerator! So I canned tuna on Saturday and Sunday and now I have about 25 jars of tuna in my pantry. Guess what! It really is that good! One of the pints didn't seal so I stuck it in the refrigerator and it was gone less than 24 hours later. That's a pint - about 2 cups! I guess I'll be canning more next year.

Word to the wise, though. If you ever can tuna just throw out all the washcloths you use. That tuna oil smell didn't come out even in a long soak with bleach. On the contrary, now all our whites smell odd. I've put them in the washer again - like I don't already have enough laundry - and hopefully they'll smell normal when they come out this time.



Thursday thankfuls:
great neighbors
electricity (thinking of the outages caused by Ike)
not worrying about where my next meal is coming from - I already know it's tuna, lol

What flower are you?

I am a Daffodil What Flower Are You?

I found this and thought it would be a fun way to introduce myself. I'm not sure how accurate the description is although my friends would probably agree with it. I do know that daffodils are one of my favorite flowers. If only they lasted longer. sigh