The Best Salsa EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sometimes I love being an instructor. I have seen so many speeches, and learned so many 'secret' family recipes from people over the last few years. Some of these recipes have made it into my permanent collection (of course I ALWAYS GIVE credit where credit is due and NEVER take credit for someone else's recipe's or ideas - because in my book, that's worse than being slapped or spit on!). Getting back to the point, one of my students has been making salsa for about 20 years, and she shared her recipe in class today. I must say, it is BY FAR one of the best salsa recipes I have ever had. I replicated it tonight at home because it was so good in class. Well, it wasn't quite a perfect as the one in class, but it was still quite amazing. She said that she is going to send me the recipe so I can forward it on to the class. So, if you want the recipe (which I will NOT be posting here), I will certainly send it to you through email. That is, once I get it. :) Let's just say, that even 5 hours later and a dip in the hot tub, my hands are still burning from the habanero pepper that is in it. You can make it as spicy or as mild as you'd like, but the recipe calls for 5 different types of chili's. That's right folks - 5 different types. Now, I'm not generally a hot salsa kinda person, but this one I made fairly mild - and it was DELICIOUS. Sweet dreams!

A day in the life......

Here is a snippet of a conversation Shawn and I had yesterday:

Shawn: (frustrated beyond belief) I brought my socks and my phone in here. Can you PLEASE help me look for them before I loose it?

Carol: (slowly looks towards Shawn and looks down near the floor) Uh, well, you're wearing socks, so I think I found those.

Shawn: (looks down and partly smiles sheepishly in utter frustration)

Carol: (doubles over in laughter)

Sometimes marriage makes me laugh!

I don't usually post stories like this, but this one was too cool!

From cnn.com
TOKYO, Japan (AP) -- When Yosuke the parrot flew out of his cage and got lost, he did exactly what he had been taught -- recite his name and address to a stranger willing to help.

Police rescued the African grey parrot two weeks ago from a neighbor's roof in the city of Nagareyama, near Tokyo. After spending a night at the station, he was transferred to a nearby veterinary hospital while police searched for clues, local policeman Shinjiro Uemura said.

He kept mum with the cops, but began chatting after a few days with the vet.

"I'm Mr. Yosuke Nakamura," the bird told the veterinarian, according to Uemura. The parrot also provided his full home address, down to the street number, and even entertained the hospital staff by singing songs.

"We checked the address, and what do you know, a Nakamura family really lived there. So we told them we've found Yosuke," Uemura said.

The Nakamura family told police they had been teaching the bird its name and address for about two years.

But Yosuke apparently wasn't keen on opening up to police officials.

"I tried to be friendly and talked to him, but he completely ignored me," Uemura said.

Gotta Love Our Area

A few weeks back I came across a website that advertised outdoor movies in a town close to ours. Shawn and I have been talking about doing outdoor movies in our backyard for quite sometime now, so this was perfect. He wants to get a projector, set up some couches in the backyard and put up a movie screen so we can enjoy outdoor movies. Well, the company that does it sets up a pretty big outdoor screen, serves free popcorn (and tonight there were free cupcakes), people bring their own chairs, blankets, pillows, etc... and enjoy a free outdoor movie. Tonight's showing was The Wizard of Oz. We had a good time. I love doing stuff like this - so much fun. Shawn thinks I'm kind of a geek when it comes to stuff like this. In fact, he looked over at me a few times and said, "Double P (his nickname for me), you're so cute." Then he laughs in disbelief that I enjoy things like this so much. Are you kidding? A FREE community event? With free movie theater popcorn! What's not to love?

I don't know what the next showing is, but it's in a couple of weeks - and you can bet your bottom dollar that we will be there.

Sometimes things are a bit unusual

This morning I walked from our house down to the Farmer's Market in town since it was the first of the season. While walking, and because our town is so incredibly friendly, I say "Good Morning" to passers by. Well, this morning I passed a man walking an Emu and casually said "Good Morning", as if this were totally normal. I'm not sure who was stranger, the guy walking an Emu on a leash on Main Street downtown, or me, the person who said "Good Morning" as if this was something that occurred everyday. I chuckled to myself and kept walking.

The Dentist

Anyone who knows me knows that I hate going to the dentist, and the Dr's for that matter. Well, Shawn and I have been putting off establishing a new dentist in the area for over a year - well, a year and a half to be exact. We both went in yesterday, after making a last minute appointment in the morning, because that's how I roll. I called in the morning asking if we can get in that day because if there is one thing I hate more than going to the dentist is WAITING to go to the dentist. The receptionist at the dentist office said we could get in that day, and off we went - for a 2 HOUR DENTIST APPOINTMENT. She scheduled both Shawn and I back to back with the same hygienist so we had to wait for each other. All in all it took 2 hours for both of us - but at least we were in there the same day.

The good news: Neither of us had ANY cavities. I could have sworn I had at least one, but the dentist said nope. My teeth are great. No cavities, all fillings are holding up just fine, in short, all is well! No more dentist for the next 6 moths PRAISE GOD!!!

Suicide

About a week ago one of my students (who is in her 40's or 50's) decided to tell me that she believes that if someone commits suicide they will not go to heaven. Now, I'm not offended if someone wants to talk about suicide, or make references to it because not a whole lot of people know about my dad's suicide. But, I am constantly amazed about how freely people talk about it without regard to other people. There are lots of suicides in the world, many of which are in the US. Why would someone make such a thoughtless comment? I did stop her right after that comment and tell her that my father committed suicide and that I didn't necessarily think that at all, but hold onto the hope that my God is bigger than our narrow minds, and that He sees the pain and suffering people go through who commit suicide and see no way out. She immediately apologized to me and felt really bad for saying that. In our world where there are so many issues going on, how do we interact with people without offending? We can't right? But is there a line we draw in talking about things? Or, are those of us effected by situations like this supposed to simply stand by and make exceptions? Just a thought.....