Creme De Menthe Parfait w/Chocolate Mint Garnish

Today's Joy: Seafood Fest at Todd's.
Reader, just got home from another fun gourmet evening at Todd's. I am stuffed! This time, we prepared and sampled 7 different kinds of fresh fish: sea bass, grouper, red snapper, tuna, white fish, salmon and trout. Most were new to my palate except the salmon, white fish and tuna. Each fish was prepared in a different style, most with homemade sauces and fresh herbs.

Side dishes to accompany the fish included: a delish french potato salad made with white wine(recipe forthcoming), white asparagus and the rich deviled eggs with caviar pictured below. We finished all this decadent seafood fabulousness with creme de menthe parfaits, made with Mint Meltaway ice cream, chocolate syrup, creme de menthe liqueur, whip cream and fresh sprigs of chocolate mint. A-mazing!!


Deviled Eggs with Black Caviar


Fish Fest on a plate: (clockwise from top) tuna steak, steamed red snapper, crusted grouper, grilled trout with lemon, Chilean sea bass & Cajun-fried grouper

Honey Dijon Salmon w/Dill Cream Sauce

Cedar Plank Chilean Sea Bass

Trout with Lemon

Today's Joy: Rainy Days.

Reader, once in a while I love a good rainy morning. Yup, really enjoy it when I can traipse outside in my wellies and shoot photos in the garden between downpours. We even got a few sun showers today and a rainbow or two! Nothing quite like late spring rainstorms: when everything's in full bloom and it feels like summer will roll in any minute, bringing with it a perpetual warm front that will last until October.

Then followed that beautiful season... Summer....Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood.

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Here are a few of Aunt's gorgeous irises & delphinium after a good soaking:

Quote courtesy of The Quote Garden.

Today's Joy: Season Finales.
Reader, tonight was the be-all, end-all season finale of Grey's Anatomy! Two hours of delicious torture!! There was a shooter in the hospital, bent on revenge, and he was gunning for McDreamy! (And anyone else dumb enough to admit they were a surgeon.) Meredith found out she was pregnant! Owen finally chose between Cristina & Teddy! And poor Alex took a bullet and then dragged himself into an elevator! Un-be-lievable!

Add to that, the well-written (if overly-bloody) exit of several of my least favorite secondary characters (almost everybody from Mercy West) and it was a rousing success. Aunt had a late meeting so I DVR'ed the whole spectacle for her and then we watched it again, sans commercials. Whew! Talk about emotionally exhausting!

Okay, I know it's just a show. Yes, it's completely unrealistic and stretches credibility with increasing frequency over the last couple seasons. But, I don't care. It's my guilty pleasure and I have a lot of time invested in these characters! Besides, I love every over-dramatic moment. Here's to your guilty pleasure, Reader. May it bring you much furtive joy! ;-)

I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that He didn't trust me so much. ~Mother Teresa

Today's Joy: Taking It Back to Prayer.
It was not a good day, Reader. It started out stinky and got progressively worse. Due to a miscommunication, I found myself sitting alone outside work at 6 am when I didn't need to be there until 7. Certainly inconvenient, but, as my visiting friend was flying out this morning, it seemed doubly so. We could have spent that precious hour having breakfast together. As it was, I left before she woke up and didn't get to say goodbye.

Then, in the afternoon, I went for a follow-up to one of last week's job interviews, got completely lost, drove around for over an hour looking for the new interview location and almost ran out of gas. I finally had to call my perspective contact and, over garbled cell phone reception, ask to reschedule. I felt utterly defeated. Sometime overnight, it seems, I had lost all of my time management and directional skills. Add to that an abnormally intense & painful rush of monthly hormones, which caused me to entertain very un-Christianlike thoughts about the drivers in front of me, and all I wanted to do was come home, eat chocolate and put on my jammies.

The only thing that kept me from being in tears was returning to prayer and handing it all over to God. Don't get me wrong, every moment felt like a struggle today. But without that simple, basic act of asking for help, asking for solace, praying for patience and the self-control not to honk my horn at pretty much everyone on Route 176, I would have felt even worse!

“Things don't go wrong and break your heart so you can become bitter and give up. They happen to break you down and build you up so you can be all that you were intended to be.”
-- Samuel Johnson, English Author

Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats. ~Voltaire


Quotes courtesy of The Quote Garden.

Today's Joy: Showing 'S' A Good Time.

What a blessing today has been, dear Reader! Took my visiting friend out to see all the critters at our farm and a few of my favorite country back roads. Also stuffed her full of homemade food and lemon cake. Now, when she leaves for the Ukraine in the morning, it will be with a warm send-off.

Her visit has been such a joy. I'm so grateful for it. And to my wonderful family & friends who've made her welcome and will see her safely to the airport tomorrow while I'm hip-deep in an early morning inventory at work. She's been here for just over 24 hours but somehow, we managed to fit a whole visit into that time. Isn't it amazing how time can swell and contract to fit what we need, how the knowledge that every moment is precious gives each experience a fresh sharpness and vitality? God loves the mindful! Find a moment today to savor, Reader. Find that joy, that tiny triumph or that breath of peace and live every inch of it. Choose to do more than go through the motions. In the end, what you focus on makes all the difference.

Godspeed to you, my traveling friend! Wherever you are when you read this, I know it will find you living the moment.

Photo: S, Just Before Leaving for the Ukraine, May, 2010.

Today's Joy: Texas Is In Town.

Reader, I am so excited to have one of my dear friends from Texas up for a visit this week! She's on her way abroad for an eastern European missions trip and called last week to see if she might drop by en route. Of course, I said YES! It's so wonderful to have her here. Almost like being back in Dallas. While I'm very happy to be home, I do miss all the great people I met during my stay in the Lone Star State.

I love it when God gifts us lovely and unexpected moments we never thought to pray for! Just proof that he knows what we need to fulfill our hearts. What surprise blessings has He granted you lately, Reader? What needs has He fulfilled that you didn't even realize you had?

Photo: My dear friend, S, at the Grapevine Botanic Garden, Grapevine, TX, October, 2009.

Today's Joy: Dinner with the Family.
Aunt, Aunt Chef, Uncle & Cousin were all out showing horses on this lovely Sunday, Reader. So, as they were all pooped from being fabulous all day, I came home from work and cooked them 'Breakfast for Dinner'. I love to sit down for a meal and listen as they recount their adventures from the day.

Today's show highlights included an upset in the usual placings, one runaway Belgian draft horse (no one was hurt) and Uncle looking very Chippendale-esque as he un-harnessed his horse. (He gets in trouble for dirtying his good white show shirts, so rather than get something on it, he simply removed his shirt and proceeded to un-harness the horse bare-chested in his black bow tie, show trousers and boots). Oh, how we laughed!

With any luck, I will be able to attend the next show, Reader, and will have photographic proof of the mischief they get in! Hope your weekend was lovely!