Sharon's Sensational Salsa

Sharon made her salsa for us on a girls weekend, it was so amazing I actually craved it and began cooking Mexican food just so I could make this. Once I moved back to WA I started making it for family gatherings and this summer I was making it every week for my sister, it's that good!

When a recipe calls for salsa I have to make salsa, I can't use the jarred version, it's just not good enough anymore. Not when you're used to having a salsa that's so fresh tasting it's like you're eating out of a garden. 

Mini-me wallpaper

Thanks to Mia's talents we're going to be adding wallpapers to this blog. It's wonderful to be a sometimes muse for an artist! Click on the image to pop up a larger version and save.

I'm dreaming of a green Christmas!

Nestled oh so nicely on my Christmas tree are Powerball tickets. Nancy picked up $14 worth of tickets yesterday for us. As the old WA state lotto ticket commercial says, "you can't win, if you don't play." Someone at some point will win, why not us? OK the chances are slim that we're going to win, I would say 14 in 425 million chances but that's better then zero chances.

I don't buy lotto tickets often but always find it funny that those of us who don't play on a regular basis will buy when the winning amount gets crazy high. Is 1 million not worth trying for? The reason I don't buy lotto tickets more often is because I'm lazy and I'm cheap. While a ticket is only a dollar, I could use that dollar towards some beef jerky.

Damn, it's good to be me!

Entertainment Weekly had a recent article, 21 Classic Opening Lines in Books. One thing I notice about lists such as this is they never include books that I actually read.

I don't really remember opening lines from books but one I will bever forget, maybe because I can relate so easily to it, is this line from The Immortal Highlander by Karen Marie Moning, "Damn, it's good to be me." Adam Black, talk about setting up a book!

Are there any opening lines that you remember? Please share.

Adult diapers outselling baby diapers

Nancy told me about this article, it was a business week article about stocks in Japan and we both took away only one line from it: Last year, for the first time, sales of adult diapers in Japan exceeded those for babies.

Apparently Japan has an aging population. All I could think about was the fact I know I'll be wearing them when I get older.

Cranberry Chutney

I've never been a fan of canned cranberry sauce, part of it I'm sure is because I don't eat cranberry with my turkey. It's all about the gravy for me, I may have mentioned that before. But I do love to make this awesome and easy cranberry chutney and use it as an appetizer, with some set aside for those who want to enjoy it with their turkey. 

It's not quite as popular as my cheese ball but I really enjoy the tart sweet combo and of course, it's served with cream cheese so it has to be delicious. I tried it once with brie, cream cheese is definitely better. 

That was the Thanksgiving that was

I hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I have to say, I think this Thanksgiving is one of my favorites. Since I cooked most of what I needed to cook I stayed in bed watching football when I woke up and then dragged myself into the living room to watch it and do a little cleaning in the kitchen. 

The football game went into overtime so we left the house a little later then planned but since I was planning on getting there early, we weren't really late. We have a family tradition of going to Andy and Christina's house for Thanksgiving and Kimberly and Jeff's house for Christmas. 

Soap characters are like family

This week General Hospital said good-bye to the much loved Edward Quartermaine and the actor who portrayed him John Ingle. I wanted to blog about it after the holiday, this story made even more poignant by the death of the actor who made JR Ewing and "Who shot JR?" a national catchphrase Larry Hagman. 

When my mom moved to the US soaps were what she watched to help her with her English. Since she watched soaps, I watched soaps. I remember waiting until after my shows were done before I'd run out and play with my friends. Or coming home for lunch to watch Bo & Hope on Days while my mom watched a different soap in the living room. My dad also came home for lunch and would make fun of the characters the whole time yet he knew everyone's name. 

He Ain't Heavy, He's Alfie Boe

It's one month until Les Miserables comes to our movie theater featuring Hugh Jackman. I love Hugh and think he's a wonderful talent but he's going to have to sing his butt off to erase the memory of Alfie Boe in my head.

Alfie played Jean Val Jean in the 25th Anniversary edition of Les Miz. While rehearsing for the show he became great friends with Matt Lucas who played Thenadier. They were such good friends that Matt opened his home to Alfie while he and his wife were house hunting. The only requirement was that Alfie sang for his supper. Here they are singing, "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother." Talk about talent! He's sitting in the kitchen belting this out!

Nancy and I are hoping to see the midnight showing Christmas Eve but I can't find any info on it. Anyone have any information about it?

What I'm thankful for this year

Tis the season to be thankful! Unless you're from a really dysfunctional family, we're all thankful for our family and friends so I thought it would be fun to think of non-tradional reasons to be thankful. Here's my list:

I'm thankful that my eyes are bigger then my stomach, if my stomach was bigger then my eyes, well, it's not a pretty picture.

Speaking of pretty, I'm thankful that my mini-me is as pretty as the real me.