It’s My Imagination

Baked Salmon Recipe

Last night, we went to dinner for my husband’s birthday. My daughter ordered the baked Atlantic salmon and it turned out to be quite delicious. As someone who was born in the Pacific Northwest where salmon is considered a staple of people’s diet, finding well cooked salmon in Texas is not always easy. Last night was a pleasant surprise.

I grew up with a dad who loved fishing. Living near Puget Sound in Washington state, he was known to bring home fish, including salmon, on a regular basis. My mom knew how to clean and gut fish and then put it in the pan and cook it. I grew up having some very delicious fish dinners. Thankfully, I paid attention (sometimes) and one of my favorite dishes is to make grilled salmon.

Because I’m not a fisherman and I don’t live on either coast where I can get fresh caught fish, I try to buy fish from a quality supermarket. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to just pop over to Pike’s Place Market in Seattle and pick up salmon or any other seafood and know that it was caught locally and that it’s fresh? I prefer salmon that is dye free, I’m really not sure why they feel the need to put dye into it. Salmon is a very tender and tasty fish and does not need much done to it. In fact, the less you do, the better in my opinion.

Ingredients include either a fillet of salmon or a salmon steak, lemon and melted butter (not margarine). Place the fish on a baking sheet covered in foil. Brush butter on both sides of fish and sprinkle and squeeze lemon juice over the top. Bake in oven at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes or until fish is flaky.

Just like the fish my daughter ate last night at the recipe, I like to bake it in the oven. The same recipe can be used to cook the fish on the grill if you prefer.

Now, this is a pretty simple recipe, but wouldn’t it be fun to enter it into the Great American Seafood Cook Off which supports the positiveness of domestic seafood sustainability. Do you have any yummy seafood recipes you’d consider entering into the Cook off? Leave me a comment and let me know!

Back To School Shopping

My daughter and I have spent the last 3 days searching for the perfect binder for 7th grade.  We began by looking for 3 ring binders with shoulder straps.  Finally, we found one.  It’s not exactly what my daughter wanted, but we bought it in case we don’t find anything better.

This morning, my daughter informed me that she thinks she’d prefer a regular binder and a messenger bag.   She found one online that she likes, but I’m having a hard time with the $65 purchase price (add shipping to that).  So, I took her shopping today, for 4 hours!  We came home with nothing.

School supply shopping sure does become more difficult as she is getting older.

Must Have A/C in Texas

My daughter and I just got back from running a few errands. We went and picked up a few items for my husband’s birthday, which is today, and then we stopped at a couple of office supply stores to shop for back to school supplies. We weren’t gone that long, but it’s so hot outside, it just wears me out going in and out of the heat from the car to the store and back. Thankfully our van’s air conditioning is performing quite well and is able to cool us down pretty quickly, especially since this is our 20th day of temperatures in excess of 100 degrees!

My husband had our auto air conditioning checked out before I drove to Tennessee a few weeks ago. It’s a good thing too because I couldn’t have done the drive without it. The a/c compressor is working just fine and we only had to have some coolant added. That would have been a miserable trip without air conditioning, that’s for sure.

If your auto needs any a/c parts, check out www.1airconditioning.com, they provide free shipping and a warranty on every part they sell.

Time To Celebrate

My husband should be on his way home.  We have his gift wrapped and cards signed.  I need to go change clothes because we’re going out to dinner.

This certainly isn’t the trip to Austin that I had planned, but it’s nice just being able to spend time together.  We’re going to Dave & Buster’s.  It’s been years since I’ve been there, I can’t really even remember what type of food they serve.  It’s the place my husband chose, and, when it’s your birthday in our house, you get to choose the restaurant.

If nothing else, it is air conditioned and it’s always good to get out of the heat!

Shielding Against the Texas Heat

I heard on the local news last night that yesterday was the 19th day this year that the Dallas/Ft. Worth area had temperatures of 100 degrees or more. The average is 16 days per year, and it’s only the end of July. We still have to get through August, one of the hottest months of the year!

I have gone through the entire house and closed all of the blinds are closed to help keep some of the heat out of the house. When we moved into the house last year, several of the blinds were broken and I had to replace them. NoBrainerBlinds is the perfect place to get blinds because they can be custom made to fit and then they are shipped factory direct so it saves money and time. Their blinds also come with a written warranty, so I can get them replaced if something were to happen.

I just hope the temperatures return to a more comfortable level soon. I can’t even be outside in this heat.

Happy Birthday!

Well, I had planned on a nice trip to Austin this week, but with all the hecticness of the last two weeks, and having to attend our brother-in-law’s funeral in Atlanta last week, I cancelled.

The Austin trip was a surprise gift to my husband, today is his birthday.  No matter, I think he’s almost as tired as I am and it feels so good to be at home.  So, instead of Austin, we will be going to Dave & Buster’s tonight to celebrate his birthday.  He’s been wanting to go there for quite some time and I think he will enjoy it.

I’m off to pick up a few things for him now and I need to wrap his gift, more on that later. 

Can Resveratrol Help a Human Cancer Victim?

I am so fortunate that at this point in my life, I have not had to battle anything as scary as cancer, of any kind. There are many other people though that are not so fortunate.

One man in particular, who has been given only 4 months to live, has agreed to test the theory that the drug Resveratrol can fight cancer. In fact, members of the forum at imminst.com have come together to provide this man with large quantities of Resveratrol so that he can attempt to “mega-dose”. The forum members are looking for anyone who might be interested in contributing to consider reading the full article at the resveratrol forum.

River Rafting in Tennessee

As you know, I was away from home for the last 2 weeks. The purpose of the trip was to attend a show in Knoxville, TN where my sisters and I had a booth in order to sell our hand sewn items. However, the show was only 3 of the 14 days, the rest of the time we were simply out enjoying ourselves!

One of the first things we did was to go river rafting on the Pigeon River in Tennessee. We started the adventure just below the North Carolina state line and rafted for about 5 miles. The trip took about 4 hours, mainly due to the river being low. There were a lot of rocks that we had to navigate around and over. There were some small rapids that made it exciting, and a few spots in the river deep enough to take a swim. We really did have a good time!

Lack of Internet Connection While on Our Road Trip

While traveling over the past two weeks, I found myself frustrated at the fact that I had no internet connection of any kind, wireless or otherwise, most days. I had a few days at my sister’s house where I was able to connect to an extremely slow dial up connection, but that is certainly not conducive to blogging. I did have my laptop with me, but, it was pretty much pointless until I was in Atlanta the last few days. Then I had a decent, but unsecured, wireless connection. I was also able to use my mobile connection on my cell phone, but it’s not easy typing a blog post on a 2×3 inch screen!

I really wish I had known before I left that I could Download Avenquest for free. The following is their press release. Read all about it and you may find, as I did, that it would be very useful.

Avanquest Software, a leading developer and publisher of business and consumer software for the global PC market, has released its new and powerful Avanquest Connection Manager tool, worth $29.95, for FREE. This title will save laptop users time and effort as it simplifies the process of detecting, selecting and connecting to different networks, printers and other peripherals whenever they change their location.

Today, mobile computer users often access public and private networks from many places they visit, from coffee shops and offices to airports and hotels. This usually requires different types of internet connections with a variety of different settings to be able to work properly, requiring the system to be reconfigured every time you move from one network to another. Avanquest Connection Manager allows laptop users to save time and avoid frustration by automatically:

* Detecting and storing preferred settings for each location.
* Selecting and identifying the settings if they return to a previously visited location.
* Connecting to preferred settings and peripherals for that particular location

Avanquest Connection Manager enables laptop users to automatically disconnect and reconnect to different networks and peripherals every time they change location, making it much more than just a wireless connection manager. Preferred network connection settings for the internet, Virtual Private Networks (VPN), email clients, default printers and disk drives are all remembered for future use, allowing users to visit locations and not have to re-enter any configuration information.

Finally, I’m Home!

I have to say, I don’t think it’s ever felt so good to come home!  My 9 day trip turned into 14 days and was extremely tiring, logging just over 3,000 miles.  I’m tired and trying to catch up.

I spent most of yesterday catching up on regular mail and balancing the check book.  My goal for this week is to update all of our financial information, so I may not be online too much.

I appreciate any of you who have stopped in, thanks!  I am attempting to repay visitors this morning by returning comments and visiting your sites.  Sadly, I had over 3,000 spam that Akismet caught and so, if a legitimate comment somehow wound up in that folder, I’m sorry, it was deleted.

Once I get my house back in order, I will be back and hopefully posting pictures of our trip.  As tiring as it was, my daughter and I had a lot of fun and we loved visiting with my family.  So, check back, I do plan on posting very soon!