Recipe of the week - Parmesan Crusted Tilapia

i tried this last week for the first time and really enjoyed it.  Hope you will too!

12 oz Tilapia fillets, thawed
1/3 cup dry, unseasoned bread crumbs
2 tsp parsley flakes
1/4 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp salt
2 Tbsp spicy brown mustard
4 tsp grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 350.  Stir together bread crumbs, parsley, paprika and salt.  Brush both sides of each fillet with mustard.  Place fillets in crumbs; coat with crumbs.  Place fillets in large shallow baking dish.  Sprinkle with cheese.  Bake 14-16 minutes or until fish flakes easily with a fork.

Enjoy!

10 Things That Make Me Happy

1.Animal Rescues

2.  Smurf glasses

3.  Coffee in a cup and saucer

4.  Music boxes

5.  A good oboist

6.  Moon River

7.  CornFlakes

8.  The Lonely Goatherd

9.  White Kitty and Black Kitty

10.  Bacon frying

Thought for the day - music in my head

It's not unusual for me to wake up with some random song playing in my head.  i don't know exactly why specific songs are in my head, but that's the way life is sometimes.  i am one of those people who constantly has music going inside.  Sometimes someone will say something that i know is a line from a song and will start singing that in my head.  Sometimes it's just the name of an artist that is suggested and that will cause a song to play.  First thing in the morning, though, i suppose it stems from something that i dreamed of or someone.  i normally do not remember my dreams but that is the only explanation that i know of.

Anyway, when i woke up this morning, this was the song in my head.  A very old fashioned song that i love dearly.  Mom and i used to sit at the piano and play this.  We'd sing harmony just like in this version.  We spend so many hours at the piano doing this kind of thing.  i still find it relaxing to this day, even though i do not really have anyone to sing with these days LOL  But, then again, with the way my singing is that could be a blessing in disguise :)

Still, it's a lovely song and it was a beautiful memory to wake up.  i need to go find that sheet music and relearn it.  Who knows, maybe one day i'll find someone to sing it with again :)

Cheers!

Golden Girls pic

Thought for the day - cassettes

i am so happy that my new stereo that Michael got me for our anniversary has a tape player on it.  i still have so many cassettes that i just cannot throw away yet....yes, i know...pack rat, hoarder, whatever.  But i really do enjoy them and some are just simply irreplaceable.  Kids today, or hell, even people in their 20's and 30's, just do not understand the beauty of the cassette tape.  They will never know the joys of making a mixed tape for yourself or a friend or a romantic interest.  They will never know the anguish of having to wait for the radio to play a certain song and you have to hold the recorder up to the speaker to get it on the cassette.  It is definitely a lost art.

When i was in college, my friends and i made a lot and i mean A LOT of mixed tapes for each other.  I guess now maybe people do it with cd's or playlists or something.  But having to look for the music and record it onto a tape was time consuming.  And then, you had to actually estimate how long each song was because tape sides were either 30 or 45 minutes only.  If you went over and the tape ran out, then you had to do it all over again and that was very frustrating!  i've kept every mixed tape that was made for me in college.  i sometimes wonder if the people i made them for kept them as well.  And now that i have a tape player again, i can go back and listening to them anew!

Today, while i was doing some cleaning, i found a tape from 1986 that i made.  That year, we took a road trip to Washington, DC to see our Uncle Bernie.  It was a wonderful trip full of great memories.  In those days, though, one had to make one's own fun on a long car trip.  We didn't have the convenience of ipads and laptops and such.  Usually, fun involved reading a book or doing mad libs or putting a tape in your Sony Walkman.  For that specific trip, i spent weeks making tapes of tv shows.  i would put the tape recorder up to the television set and record the audio of different sitcom episodes.  i figured that would take up a great deal of the car ride for me.

This particular tape has an episode of "Newhart" on Side A and "Designing Women" on Side B.  This was easy to do because they played back to back on Monday nights.  i remember recording them from tv....hitting the pause button to skip over the commercials.  i recorded some other shows like "The Cosby Show", "The Jeffersons", and "The Golden Girls".  i don't know whatever happened to those other tapes because this is the only one i can find.  And, of course, the DW episode is the beauty pageant one with the infamous Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia speech....still an amazing moment in sitcom history.

So, as i find more cassette tapes...and i know that i have more in the garage...i am going to really enjoy going to back and listening to them and reliving many wonderful memories.   The mixed tapes in particular.  Someone took the time to pick out these songs just for me.  Someone cared enough to to that.  i love it!

Cheers

Quote

"There is a fragrance in the air, a certain passage of a song, an old photograph falling out from the pages of a book, the sound of somebody's voice in the hall that makes your heart leap and fills your eyes with tears.  Who can say when or how it will be that something easters up out of the dimness to remind us of a time before we were born and after we will die?"
                                                                           Frederick Buechner, Telling the Truth

Thought for the day - when friendships change

There's a restaurant around the corner from where we live called Fishbones. i walk by it all the time on my way to the neighborhood grocery store.  It's a great place to eat and i really do enjoy their food and atmosphere.  i walked by it the other day and it got me to thinking of all of the people that i have eaten with there.  Bethann, Jennifer, Sean, Michael, Adam, Shelby....to name a few.

For some reason, i focused on eating there with Jennifer.  When we ate there, it was the first night that she and Michael met.  Jennifer was my best friend from college.  We met and we clicked immediately.  We even were roommates her last year of graduate school.  As life goes on, our times together have become less frequent.  And being able to get together that night with her was magical because it had been years since we had seen each other.

Anyway, having my best friend from college meet my husband was a big deal.  Everything went smoothly.  We had  a blast.  Even when Dusty "She doesn't drink red wine" showed up.  i knew that was going to happen, but we sat through it patiently!  It was a great meal and Jen was spending the night so that meant we'd be drinking and talking til all hours.  We got plenty of alcohol to go and headed back to the house.  Luckily, Squirt took an instant liking to her.....otherwise there could've been an issue LOL

That was the first of several nights that we got to hang out over the last few years.  Each time was wonderful...like no time had passed at all...only much time had.  Things evolved and she began a new relationship.  That was great... but, selfishly, the phone calls and texts came less and less.  And that bothered me because we had just really reconnected and now she was going away again.  Long story short, she got married this year.  i was not there for the wedding.  At one point, i was suppose to be but that all went down the tubes and i am not exactly sure why.

She invited us to visit over Labor Day this past fall.  That trip, even though it was great to revisit Wilmington, was a disaster.  Jen had so many social obligations that weekend that she had no business inviting us when she could not spend time with us.  We were there 3 days and 2 nights and i think that i saw her 4, maybe 5 hours the entire time.  If you have that many things to do you have no place inviting your best friend to come visit....it's simple etiquette.

After barely seeing her and Sam Saturday, they did cook us breakfast Sunday and promised a fabulous dinner at 6 that evening.  They had to go to a party of a friend who was leaving town during the afternoon...understandable.  6 came and went, so did 7, so did 8.  i'd bought a bottle of wine for the evening it was gone by 8 totally.  They showed up after 9 to cook us dinner....apologizing profusely again...a weekend motif.  But, by the time they got home, Jen was so drunk that she passed out in her bathroom after barely half an hour with us.  i was so angry i went to bed without dinner.  Sam and Michael stayed up for the special dinner we'd been promised....and apparently it was salty.

Needless to say, we left the next day as scheduled.  i tried to leave quietly, without seeing them, but they woke up and caught us as we were packing the truck.  That was September.  The wedding was in November and i never heard one word between our visit and the wedding.  i suppose that if my presence had been important, truly, i would have heard something. Hell, they even came to Burlington...about 20 minutes away from me....to see a show in October and never called to say they were close by.  So, no wedding for me.

What i don't really understand is why?  Honestly, i think it's either one of 2 things.  Either 1, her new husband does not like me and wants to limit her communications with me.  Or 2, she's so afraid that i will tell her exactly what i think of her behavior that her need to be married is worth my silence.  i really don't know.  i hope that it isn't either of those things and that one day we'll pick up where we left off.  i just don't know.  Only time will tell.

Cheers