respublica

What's for dinner?

I'm not much of a lunch eater so supper is important. And Dale always likes a normal meal at the end of the day, not something cold like salad. But it's getting harder to decide what to have. If you're anything like me you have a certain meal rotation that you use. I use mine because I'm familiar with the recipes and they're normally satisfying. However, they're getting boring.

When Dale is not home at dinner time I often fall back on things that are easy or something he normally would not care for. Easy is a scrambled egg sandwich, at least it's a warm meal. Or homemade macaroni which is more time consuming or soft pita with some sort of chicken or sliced steak and avocado and cheese. 

I need new ideas.

Thanksgiving weekend

We've been busy. First came getting the house and food ready for Thanksgiving. We had Lizzie's family here as well as our former neighbor, Mary.

Before we had dinner, Lizzie took the boys around the campus for some photo ops. Here's one of the 3 of them sitting under the tree in the quad. Christmas lights dangle above.

And, throughout the whole weekend we worked endlessly getting our Tiny Town Christmas village out and lights hooked up.

Appliances drive me crazy

We've had a boatload of appliance breakdowns in recent months. Some say things like this come in 3's and it seems to be true. Our refrigerator stopped cooling, the air conditioning system stopped cooling and needed replacing, the glass window in the oven has a vertical crack and now the garbage disposal has quit. There have been more, but my mind refuses to go any further in case the dishwasher wants to join the club.

At least with the disposal I have a few things I can try to get it working again. The first thing to do will be take an allen wrench and work it around the hole on the underside of the unit. Hopefully it just got clogged over Thanksgiving and a bit of back and forth will help. But there is no wrench under there with the disposal. Most times an Allen wrench comes with the unit and is either attached or sitting under the sink somewhere. Hopefully I can find one around the house that will fit.

Gulf views

Today has been sunny and quite warm. Lots more people out walking or sitting on the sand.

One of the shoreline things we come across all the time when we're out walking is gelatinous masses which look awful. Squiggly gelatin lumps in circular forms, often with the red design inside. We do not want to step on any of them. We had no idea what they were and finally asked a more veteran Gulf Shores person. He told us they were dead jellyfish.

Ugh.

What caught my eye when we walked down the beach to the public pier was all the signs indicating what you cannot do. Sort of like we've had to do at the seminary.

And you know what? Everyone obeys these signs, unlike seminary bikers and dog walkers.

This public pier is massive, most likely hurricane reinforced in recent years.

Later this afternoon we're going to climb the pier and walk to the end.

A trip to Gulf Shores Alabama

We're on day 3 of our time in Gulf Shores. The sun has almost never made an appearance, but it really hasn't mattered. The dark skies, white caps, mild temperatures are all just as good.

Yesterday this view from our balcony was purple sky.

This morning fog

As per his habit, Dale can't make it through a day without studying something.

We went to Lulu's, a local favorite for dinner last night, fun talking with people at other tables, all of whom are visiting from other parts of the country. The food was plentiful to say the least.

One gorgeous sunset.

 

 

Commenting

For some reason Typepad, my blog server, has stopped allowing me to comment on my own site. I have no idea why.

Some weekend

With Katie flying in to town to then head off to Mizzou for Homecoming and Lizzie's group driving to Mequon Wisconsin for the Lutheran National Cross Country meet, it has been quite the coming and going couple of days. Yesterday afternoon everyone was back and at our house for dinner and catch-up. Christian's Christ Community Lutheran School finished their XC race in 5th place, the best finish in school history. I'd say this is amazing for a national race.

The boys after the race, looking tough and proud as junior high boys can.

 

 

I got Katie to the airport early this morning and now plan to do simple things.

Traveling family

This is one of those crazy weekends. Dale is in Texas, Katie flew in from DC and is now headed for Mizzou for Homecoming and Lizzie and her bunch are in Mequon, Wisconsin to watch Christian and his teammates compete in the Cross Country Nationals.

And, today a whole bunch of Comfort Dogs are going to be on campus for a conference. It's been dizzying.

Copper crispers

I almost hate to admit this, but one Sunday afternoon a couple of weeks ago I was bored and flipping through the tv channels when I stopped to watch QVC for a bit. It happened to be the In the Kitchen With David segment and featured a guest promoting his Copper Chef, Copper Crispers. They are touted as air fryers, put food on them and Air-Crisp Technology allows heated air to pass through & circulate around all 360 degrees of the food with no turning and no burning. I was rather intrigued by how those copper pans were used and after a while decided to buy them.

Don't judge me.

They had a special deal going whereby if you purchased that day you'd get two sets. One had a basket for cooking things like french fries or vegetables or fried chicken etc. The other basket had slots or channels that could be used for bacon or meatballs etc. Each had a copper tray to hold the baskets.

I thought I was getting one of each type, but when they arrived, imagine my surprise when I actually received two of each kind. Our daughter happened to be home for a few days when the box came and she laughed and laughed that I did this. But, hang on. The first thing I tried was meatballs for meatball sandwiches and wow, they turned out fantastic. No turning to brown each side, the pans really did brown all around with nothing for me to do.

Last night I used the flat basket and roasted a whole chicken. It turned out very well, although I could have done with a slightly smaller chicken.  You can do hotdogs, brats, meatballs, etc in the slotted pan, I love that. They clean up easily too.

Here is a picture of my meatballs.

 

Cardinal base running

While Katie, Charlie, Drew and Jake were here this weekend, we took them to a Cardinal game. At the end of the game, all kids were invited to come to the field and run the bases. COOL!  4 of the grandsons did this. Since we weren't sure we would have time to go the game, we waited until a couple days before to get tickets and they were located as far up as you can go at Busch. Sections 450 and 449, but right above home plate. I was amazed at how gorgeous the view was and we could see every play perfectly.

I always believed we saw the game better down low, but this was surprisingly great, I'd do this again.

Here is a vague shot I was able to get of Connor in the lead and Drew and Jake in red following as they zoomed around the bases.