Zucchini Zoodles with Shrimp

Bryan made one of my favorite meals for me last night: Zucchini Zoodles with Shrimp and Capers! I love it, and if you follow the Weight Watchers plan, its only about 1 point per serving! Or at least it was about 6 years ago. Their plan changes periodically, so I really can’t keep up with them. Regardless, it’s a very tasty and healthy meal.

I splurged several years ago and got myself a spiralizer. One of the best purchases EVER! I highly recommend getting one – but I don’t recommend getting the one I got. It’s very weak and can pretty much only do zucchini and nothing else. I’d like to try potatoes and/or broccoli one day but will have to wait until we get a sturdier brand.

For the meal, we spiralized 3 medium zucchini and sautéed them in lemon juice with the capers until just done. You want them to be firm but cooked.

While that was cooking, we mixed a bit of olive oil with a generous helping of minced garlic, and then added the shrimp. There was a special at the store on shrimp, so he bought way more than we really needed – but now I have shrimp to nibble on for my lunch today! Pop it in the air fryer till it’s done (I like my shrimp cooked a bit more than he does).

Add the shrimp to the zucchini mixture and mix it all together. Serve in a bowl and eat it while it’s hot!

Sheep Mountain Lodge

We had a lovely weekend get-away this month, driving about an hour and a half up north to the Sheep Mountain Lodge. They offer four different accommodation types: Premier Cabins, Classic Cabins, Guesthouse Rooms, and their newly renovated Mountain House. For our weekend, I rented one of their Classic Cabins with a Queen bed, a private bathroom (with shower), and a small kitchenette.

When we got there, we discovered that they had given us a surprise upgrade, putting us in a Premier Cabin instead! We were totally okay with that, except that we had packed all our cooking stuff expecting to have to cook our meals out on the deck. The Premier Cabins offer a full kitchen with all the pots & pans we could use, so we just didn’t unpack the camp stove.

One of the reasons why I love the Sheep Mountain Lodge so much is because they let me bring my kittens with me when we stay there! Our upgraded cabin gave us a lot more room for them to romp and play, so they were quite happy too. I set up my table with all my crafting stuff, Bryan set up our portable DVD player with the monitor & speakers, and we were golden.

We checked in on Friday and got settled in. By the time Saturday rolled around a huge snowstorm had blown in! We’re talking horizontal snow, with visibility down to just a few feet in front of your face. Bryan bundled himself up to go out and see if he could find some bunnies but ended up back at the cabin just a few short hours later. The blizzard was so bad we thought we might not be able to get home on Sunday even and talked about the possibility of having to rent another night’s stay.

Thankfully, the state’s road maintenance crews were able to get the roads sanded and the downed trees removed in time for us to get home as planned. Never a dull moment up here, that’s for sure.

Photos After A Trip

One of the first things I do after I get home from a trip is to download all the photos I took, getting Bryan to download his as well. I then put them into a folder with the date and name of the destination and file it all into the Master Folder where I keep all my pictures.

For this most recent trip, we had arranged to create a Google Drive to be able to share our photos with everybody on the expedition, so my next task was to take a copy of all our photos and go through them to weed out the undesirable ones (out of focus, caught my thumb, multiple shots of the same thing, embarrassing facial expressions, etc…) and upload them onto the Google Drive to share with everyone. Once that was done, I went through the photos from all the other members of the expedition and downloaded the ones I wanted, saving them into their own folder inside the Master Folder holding my own pictures.

Then I created a copy of my own pictures and went through them all, picking out the ones that encapsulated the highlights of our trip – roughly 10 for our week in the rental car and another 10 or so on the Earthwatch Expedition. These were then posted on Facebook to give people a taste of what our trip was like.

Creating the posts for my blog required a bit more work. I created yet another copy of all my photos and then weeded through them all to come up with two or three photos from each event/place we’d been to. I then started in on the narrative, researching on the internet to find the specifics of each place. I ended up with one post on the week in our rental car, one post on the Expedition we were on, one post on all the food we ate while we were there (the food was so good I just had to highlight it all), one post with book recommendations that the Lead Scientist had made, and one post on the Foodie Tour we’d taken.

I decided to create two photo books this time, since it really was like two separate vacations: one for the Earthwatch Expedition and one for the week in our rental car. That required yet another copy of all the photos that needed to be weeded through yet again, to ensure that I got the best photos to create the narrative I was going for in each book. Thankfully I’d done most of the research already for the blog posts, but there were a couple items that required more information. I organized the photos by date and then put them into subfolders by event. Arranging them all into the program that creates the books for me took several weeks, to ensure that it was just right and that I had no grammatical or spelling errors. A click of the button had them both ordered, and they are now sitting proudly on my shelf ready for whomever wishes to look through them.

Once that was taken care of, I then had to create – you guessed it – ANOTHER copy of all our photos, this time going through them to find the perfect ones to update my Power-Point Presentation. I am scheduled to give a talk on our trip on the last Saturday of October to my sister’s church group. It’s a potluck as well, so I not only get to talk about my favorite subject, but I also get to eat lots of delicious food!

My final task pertaining to the photographs is to create a set of pictures to host a Family Movie Night so we can show our families all the (best) pictures of our Iceland trip. I probably work on that tomorrow, while he watches the football game.

Wait... What?!?

Way back on Saturday, June 8th, I took Mother to the Colony Days Parade in downtown Palmer. We set up at her favorite spot right in front of Noel’s Salon (which actually is no longer Noel’s Salon as she sold it a few months ago) with a couple chairs and a lap rug to keep her warm. People came over to chat with her while I went and got her a cup of coffee from the café nearby.

Once the parade started, she sat and enjoyed watching all the people go by. It was a good one this year, too, with lots of entrants ranging from horses and dogs to antique cars and marching bands.

One car in particular caught her eye as it was just covered in hundreds of bumper stickers of all kinds. One of which was a Bigfoot sticker that had the silhouette on it. 

She watched it drive past, then turned to me and said, “They really do walk like that, you know.”

I looked at her and said, “What?”

“With their hand turned backwards. They really do walk that way.”

“What??!!??”

“We had one when I was a kid. The men would leave food for it, and it would come take it. It must have had a family, but I never saw them.”

“WHAT???!!!???”

But then the horses came by, and she was off on another subject. I never did get anymore information out of her.

Strangest story yet…

A Walk in the Woods with Friends

I have known Heather and Tammy now for well over 10 years, but it’s been a while since we last all got together. Thanks to Heather for organizing this: we all met at the Eagle River Nature Center last weekend for a wonderful stroll through the woods!

The weather could not have been better – it was chilly, but with proper clothing we had no problem. Honestly, we all warmed up a bit along the way, so ended up peeling off layers. We had all planned for that, however, so it did not hinder us in the slightest.

Both Tammy and Heather had their dogs along with them, and both dogs did very well. Several other people were on the trails along with us, most of whom also had their own dogs with them. Thankfully all the meet-ups were congenial with no problems.

I have to admit this is my least favorite time of year. The trees have all dropped their leaves and everything looks so “dead” and dismal. I know, I know… it’s the natural progression of nature and winter will soon cover everything in a blanket of white.

But it’s always good to visit with friends!

New Lights in the Craft Room!

The lighting in my craft room has never been the best, by any means, and lately they have begun to fail. So, we did a little research and found some replacement fixtures to brighten up the place and make it easier for me to do my thing up here.

Bryan spent the entire day removing the old fixtures and installing the new ones. It never goes as easily as you think it will, so of course he had a few unexpected issues to deal with.

But overall, I think I like it! The fixtures are LED, so theoretically the bulbs will last longer. They certainly are sleek & slender and are about twice the size of the original ones. They are also dimmable. I will (I think) have a remote to operate that function and will keep it here on my desk at work.

All in all, I believe that was $300.00 well spent.

Our Purple Bed

After years of uncomfortable if not downright painful sleep on a very old mattress (the darned this was well over 25 years old, I’m thinking) we finally bit the bullet and got ourselves a new bed! Taking advantage of the Labor Day weekend sales, we headed on down to Mattress Firm in Wasilla and purchased a Purple mattress and frame.

We opted to pick it up ourselves rather than pay extra for delivery – so of course it arrived while Bryan was out of town. He got home 3 days later, however, so we didn’t wait too long to pick it up. Looking at the boxes in his truck, it’s hard to imagine that an entire queen size bed fits in there! The boxes were certainly heavy enough, though. And once we opened everything up & assembled all the parts – we have ourselves a new bed!

Purple technology is somewhat similar to the Memory Foam stuff in that it takes a good 48 hours to completely recover from being stuffed into a teeny-tiny (relatively speaking) box – so I can’t say for sure yet how much of an improvement it is on my sleep – but I can say I like the look of it. It’s very European, somehow.

Mother's Black Eye

Mother fell the other day and hit her head pretty hard. She also dinged up her wrist pretty good, but the bump to her head was much worse. It swelled up about the size of a hard-boiled egg at first and was quite painful. She spent most of the day laying down with an ice pack on her head.

She refused to go to the ER and would not let me call an Ambulance – but I did eventually get her to go to the Urgent Care with me. Of course, she wouldn’t let them take any x-rays or an MRI, so there was no real way to know for sure if she’d broken anything. They did a neurological exam to see if she had any injuries to her brain, then sent us home with some bandaging for her wrist.

I talked to the doctor while we were there, asking what signs I should look for (slurred speech, droopy and/or weak muscles, etc…) and stayed nearby for the first 24 hours or so. Kelly stopped by as well and chatted with mother for a while. Other than changing out her bandage each day, there’s really not much to do for her.

These pictures show the healing process on her eye: the first picture is 24 hours after the fall, the second picture is 48 hours after, and the third picture is just today, 8 days later. It looks horrible, but is actually doing quite well.

Our Metal Bears

I haven’t tortured Bryan enough lately, so thought I’d subject him to another artistic Date Night – this time at Paint Nights with Sarah in Wasilla. We got to work on a Metal Bear with Alcohol Paints: a first for both of us.

The place was nice enough – three long rows of tables, each with 3 place settings. Our event was, apparently, sold out – so we had quite the crowd. Bryan was, once again, the only male in the room.

This time it was an actual person stepping us through the process, rather than just watching a video. I do like that better – if anybody has questions, it’s a lot easier to get answers when you’re dealing with a human being and not a video. Plus, they work the crowd, so it is a much better, more personal experience.

I find it fascinating how two people can receive the same instructions and yet come up with two completely different results. We both did good, though… and had fun.

Blueberry Cordial

He made a Blueberry Cordial the other day, using the berries that he picked out in Nelchina on our Weekend Get-Away a few weekends ago. This time, using Patrón Tequila. I am not a fan of tequila. Those of you who say there is no taste to tequila are just wrong. I can definitely tell when it’s in a drink, and I do not like it.

But – he did pick the berries himself, so I figured he deserved to make the cordial his way. It was not an easy task to pick them as there were perhaps one or two berries per bush, so he had to really work at it for a several hours just to get what he got. Which, sadly, was not enough for the type of cordial that I like.

This time, he did not use our fancy juicer; he just stuffed all the berries into a big jar and then poured the tequila on top. He’s letting it set in our pantry for a couple months to really soak in all the blueberry goodness. I’ll give it a try when it’s done, just to see – but honestly, I’m not expecting much. He’ll be happy, and that’s all that matters.

High-Bush Cranberry Season!

Bryan and I headed out to our Secret Berry Picking Spot last night after work. This is our third time going there, and it did not disappoint: we got so many berries!

The weather was perfect: just this side of rain, not too hot – not too cold. I had on my Irish fisherman’s wool sweater & a wool cap and was just fine. The mosquitoes eventually drove me to the bug dope, but that’s just part of being outdoors in Alaska.

The berries were so plentiful we could see them as we were driving down the road to The Spot. Picking them was so easy: you just reach your hand out and grab handfuls each time. As many as 40 berries in each cluster!

And the smell! Oh, I do love the smell of high-bush cranberries in the fall. Some people say they smell like dirty socks, but I disagree. I think they smell wonderful.

We now have SO MANY BERRIES!!! I plan on making more cordial of course – but what else can we do with them? We don’t eat enough bread to warrant making jam or jelly…

Pickin Taters!

As we were unloading the truck, getting all our gear into the rental for the weekend, the owner walked over to talk to us. We assumed he’d come to welcome us – but instead we got the following:

“Yep, just spent the day pickin' taters. Did about 150 plants out front – got 200 or so out back to do still. They’re nice big taters, too. Sum of 'em are about yay so! I’m gonna give you sum!”

So, we now have 6 big potatoes! Each one could feed both of us a couple meals – they really are quite large. We plan on eating one, just so we can taste a fresh, just out of the ground, tater. The rest of them I’m going to dehydrate for my soups.

First, I have to cut them up into small evenly sized pieces.

Then I load up the trays of my dehydrator and get it going overnight.

Once it’s done, I just fill up a couple jars and seal the lids shut.

Our pantry is looking good!