Leave it to the firefighters! . . .

One of my favorite things to do when I'm bored is to plop down on the couch with a collection of my cookbooks and surf through recipes. One particular cookbook I enjoy alot is a book that was put together by a New York City Fire Chief. In this book he has collected recipes from various fire stations in the NY area and compiled a great book! You know that fireman eat well since they are at the station 24/7 and a number of them really enjoy cooking. This is one of those recipes that I have made a few times and it's always gone..no leftovers. Hope you enjoy!

Chicken Tetrazzini

(serves 6)

1 package (7oz) spaghetti, broken into thirds

1/4 c. margarine or butter

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 t. salt

1/4 t. pepper

1 cup chicken broth

1 cup heavy whipping cream

2 T. cooking sherry or water

2 cups cubed cooked chicken or turkey

1 can (4oz) sliced mushrooms, drained

1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Cook and drain spaghetti as directed on package. Melt margarine in 2qt saucepan over low heat. Stir in flour, salt and pepper into margarine. Cook, stirring constantly, until mixture is smooth and bubbly, remove from heat. Stir in broth and whipping cream. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Boil and stir 1 minute, Stir in sherry, spaghetti, chicken and mushrooms. Pour spaghetti mixture into ungreased 2 quart casserole. Sprinkle with cheese. Bake, uncovered about 30 minutes or until bubbly in center.

Note: I usually don't add the mushrooms because people in our family are not big fans of them. Also, make sure you don't go crazy on the amount of pasta you use otherwise your sauce wont' be creamy enough. Enjoy!

Latest political update . .

They sure know how to make McCain look good . . .

Because we are Oregonians . . .

We build fires. That's what we do in the Northwest. When it gets cloudy, we build a fire, when it's rainy, we build a fire, when it's icy, snowy, cold, we build a fire. Having said that, it was time for us to buy another cord of firewood as our pile was down to just a few pieces. So I made a phone call to this sweet little old lady that lives on a hill out of town, we have purchased from her and her husband for the last few years. It supplements there retirement income. She's quite a character to visit with, she says, "Oh sure honey, Ray will be in town today he can drop 1/2 cord off today and the other 1/2 on Thursday if that's ok? it's been buried under the snow the last few weeks and he's just uncovered it".."Sure, that works", I say. So today when I get home from work there is a big old pile of wood in the driveway. Hubby is working late tonight at the Sportsmans Show in Portland, so I get my grubbies on and start stacking wood. Hey, us Oregon girls do that . . . we don't mind getting a little wet and dirty sometimes or need to wait around for a man to do it...no..I can do it. So I made good progress until about the last 10 or so big logs, I just couldn't lift another piece. As I sit here now, I can feel my shoulders beginning to tighten, my back is beginning to ache and my arm at the bend is getting sore . . . this is not looking good. Wishing now maybe I wasn't so bullheaded and waited for "my man" to do it. I didn't know there were suppose to be warm up exercises that needed to take place before hauling and stacking wood. Hope I can get out of bed tomorrow. If I can't at least I know I can make a big fire!

Welcome to my world . . .

So this is where is all happens. The command center I guess you would call it. What is it I do all day you ask? Primarily coordinating and entering school events information into a centralized scheduling system at our high school. All school events, athletic contests (broken down down Varsity, JV, Freshman teams), concerts, assemblies, drama performances, A Day or B Day schedule, etc. Ordering the busses to all away events. In the spring alot of cancelling and rescheduling of games, busses, officials, due to rainouts. Obtain officials for all home athletic contests, prepare/record awards for various teams, submit purchase orders for athletic equipment, payroll paperwork for all coaching staff, prepare and mail end of the season coaching evaluations, arrange food and awards for season ending awards nights, continual grade & attendance checks on athletes, prepare weekly staff newsletter, assemble/prepare/copy rosters for all athletic events, call and obtain parent volunteers for coverage with concessions, tickets, security, assist in supervising athletic student assistants, make sure every student athlete meets the criteria for eligiblilty, submit ongoing reports to the OSAA, coordinate end of the year senior awards assembly, provide bags of ice and sympathy, attempt to be a good listener and shoulder to cry on for students, coaches, and parents, a public relations person for our athletic programs at the high school, all the while as my phone rings off the hook, fax machine is beeping and my email box continues to fill. We have also recently taken on the scheduling of ALL our school districts (6 Elem, 1 Upper Elem, 1 Jr Hi) gyms & field use scheduling to better coordinate all of our youth programs. Oh, yes and the "other duties as assigned". Most days it's all good, then some days I just want to scream.....AAAAAhhhhhh!!!

Daddy's Giants WIN!

Our grandson Lucas is very excited to see his Daddy soooo happy the Giants won! Lots of hootin and hollering, good food and friends...see you next year!

Enough with the snow already . .

Hey, I'm not going to wash my arm! . .

Today at school we started talking about celebrity sightings. Seeing a so called "famous" person in our lifetime. It was fun to hear some great stories from a couple coaches about popular players/coaches they have run into in hotels or classes while attending coaches conferences. Another teacher who use to live in LA talked about jumping a fence in high school to hear the Rolling Stones at the Forum. He walked smack dab into Keith Richards having a smoke behind the mainstage area before the concert.
I shared my two big celebrity encounters with the group- First and foremost we were next door neighbors for nearly 7 years to Portland's own kids show host - Ramblin' Rod. On TV he was goofy, showed cartoons, had groups of kids come to his show and appear in the audience. He had alot of audience participation games and stunts. He wore a "Mr. Rogers" style sweater covered in buttons, all kinds of fun buttons (this was before the movie "Office Space" made wearing flair popular!!). I can tell you from being his neighbor...he was NOTHING like the TV personality.

My other celebrity sighting is my favorite - when hubby and I took a trip to Puerto Villarta, Mexico a number of years back we stopped by a big huge flea market in town. We are browsing through the market when this entourage of gentlemen with "big" hair come walking past us (remember this was the 80's, lots of guys had big hair then). I am kind of moving to the side a bit when this one particular guy rubs right by me, I turn to look and I'm "oh my gawd, oh my gawd....I said ...Dale...look...look who just walked by me!!! .... look who just rubbed by my arm!! oh my gawd!!" Of course he is looking at me like I am crazy . . . I tell him who it is and he's like..."Well who's he???", I'm like, "WHAT???? you have never heard of him?"..he said, "aaahhh..nope never heard of the guy". Obviously, if we would have run into a member of the stinking Beach Boys you would have known the name!! But since the person that walked by me was just Robert Plant! from Led Zepplin!..of course you wouldn't know!! I can honestly say it's the only time I have seen somebody famous that completely caused me to stop and stare. I'm over it though . . kind of . . haha. . I wonder if he remembers me?!