Autumn Skillet Supper: A Keeper from the Recipe Box

This dish has been a quick favorite of mine so many years I can't even remember the magazine this recipe came from. Mixing the flavors of apples, cabbage, sausage, and vegetables provides a hearty meal in forty minutes.

Autumn Skillet Dinner
2 TB olive oil
1 small onion, sliced
8 small potatoes, scrubbed
4 cups shredded green cabbage
2 cups 1-inch pieces green beans
1 tart apple, peeled, cored, and sliced
1/2 cup apple juice
1 pound Polish sausage, turkey sausage, or any other sausage you enjoy, thinly sliced
Seasoned salt to taste
Heat oil in a large skillet, saute onions 5 minutes.
Add potatoes, cabbage, green beans, apple, apple juice, and sausage slices. Mix ingredients. Cover tightly and simmer over low heat 30 minutes or until potatoes are easily pierced. Season to taste with seasoned salt. Makes 4 hearty servings. Add some hearty bread and it makes a meal. Enjoy!

A Busy Week-end: Saturday Road Trip, Dog Baths, and a Visit from a Skunk

Saturday we took a ten-mile road trip to Trout Lake Campground. We have always loved this drive and location, but it is often filled with campers and/or hunters. This lake and campground are off Highway 20 then north about five miles. Climbing up the steep mountain road the landscape turns quickly to a deep forest. We had the campground to ourselves. If you look close at the lake shore you will see ice. That is not a reflection, but thin ice that was melting after a cold night. Of course, dogs being dogs our two found all kinds of old fish and whatever else to roll in. They were just happy as could be as we held our noses and got them back in the car. We are glad we have a dog gate to keep them in the back end!I studied unique views of trees on my trip yesterday. I tried to capture them in pictures. I especially loved the way the green moss hung on the tree branches. The first picture on the bottom shows the work of a woodpecker, and the tree on the bottom right was just holding on to all the branches on the bottom close to the ground, black and dead as they could be. It looked like it had been spray painted with gray paint.

As we left the campground we found a place heading down that mountain that gave us a photo image of Sherman Pass. JEJ took a moment to enjoy the view. It was a peaceful lunch and drive and we were pleased that not another person was in sight. We loaded up our stinky dogs and headed for home.

Today we bathed those two much to their dismay. I think dogs like to carry those odors! A few hours later our quiet Sunday evening was disrupted by Annie and Shelby- the two dogs that were bound and determined to continue to stink. They had a bad encounter with a skunk that involved JEJ herding them into the garage, me mixing up the skunk odor removal stuff, and more baths and cleaning up. As JEJ loves to say, " You gotta love them or it just doesn't work." Once again our two clean dogs are resting close by, drying off with still a hint of skunk lingering. I hope our evening will calm down now!

Sunday Scribblings: Laughter, Learning, and a Friend Named Money

The topic of Sunday Scribblings this week is Money. It is only fitting that I deliver a tribute to my dear friend T. Money. A few years ago she gave me a birthday card with this quote on the front:
“You have a wonderful way of making people happy just by walking into a room” .

I could say the same for her. We met serving on a school district committee in the late ‘80’s in Kennewick. We hit it off immediately. At the time she was a primary teacher, but she had taught music. After I moved to middle school she joined me teaching language arts. She has since moved to the high school level.

We loved to learn together when we lived close. T. is very intelligent and had a way of making educational theory practical and teacher friendly. Together we read professional books, went to workshops, did fun road trips to conferences, and presented workshops together.

She has always wanted to make learning the best experience for her students. She is an inspiration to our profession in the way she reaches out to each student she works with whether she has ten students or a hundred. She is a talented performer, composer, writer, and crafter. Time spent together may include singing with the guitar, writing goofy poems, stamping, or creating a friend timeline that has all roads leading to a favorite hangout. We spent a month once in north Idaho participating in the Northwest Inland Writing Project. For both of us that experience was life changing. When we were stressed out I pulled out recipes and baked. T went for a walk to think. Not only did a night owl and morning person have to learn to adjust schedules, but we worked our tails off and through thinking and our own writing learned much about ourselves as teachers and friends.
T. has been there for me through the best of times and the worst of times. She helped me decide on adopting my dog Lucy. She loved my dogs like they were her own. She celebrated with me when I got my new job and moved away. She surprised me and traveled to my Dad’s funeral and was always ready to listen when my first marriage dissolved.

If I could pick one word about my friendship with T. it would be laughter. We love to laugh together. We are able to take a simple activity like bowling and turn it into a running gag. We were known to "get shushed" when we would explode in laughter. When you have a good friend you can say certain words and burst into laughter. Nobody else gets it but the two of you.

I wish we lived closer. Visits are the best though because we pick right up where we left off and the conversation and laughter begins again.

Thanks T. for years of laughter, learning, love, and friendship. I hope the best is yet to come.

You can find other Money Sunday Scribblings here.

Homecoming Week!

October moved into November on Thursday. It was Spirit Week in conjunction with Homecoming. Because we are a K-12 school everyone participates in traditional festivities. The football game was held this afternoon under beautiful sunny skies in Inchelium. In the middle of the week Halloween was squeezed in. Yes, we actually did do some learning along the way also.
The Inchelium Hornets didn't win the game, but it was a great gathering of community members and graduated students. I got to watch three of my former students ride in on the truck as part of the Homecoming Court. I was out there snapping pictures with all the proud relatives. Now that the day and week is all over I think even the students are ready to get back to a more "normal week" on Monday.

The Original Perfect Post Award

I want to thank Pamela at The Dust Will Wait for selecting a post of mine for The Original Perfect Post Award for October. She selected one entitled Do I Enjoy Rain? from October 21st which you can preview here. My siblings and I do an assignment each week and this was one my brother had assigned. It was a favorite of mine because I tried to combine music and photos that I liked into a video slide show. I am glad Pamela enjoyed it also. Please visit Pamela's blog. She is another eastern Washington blogger that uses photos and original writing to tell the stories of her life. I always know when I don't want to do housework on a Saturday that "the dust will wait" thanks to Pamela. You can see other Perfect Posts at

http://www.petroville.com/ and http://www.suburbanturmoil.blogspot.com/.

Sibling Assignment # 42: Story of the Spirit

This week Silver Valley Girl asked us to tell a story about ghosts or spirits. Soon you will find my siblings' posts here and here.

I have this wood sign hanging right by the wood stove where it is visible every day. I love this collection of words because it reminds me of walking in the Spirit. When I thought of spirits during this Halloween week I thought of the Holy Spirit. The complete verse that uses these words reads like this: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. "- Galatians 5:22.

As I sat in my small church last Sunday the fruit of the Spirit was apparent in the room. We prayed for people that had exhibited love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. We also prayed for those people still searching for peace in their lives. It was a moving experience.

This verse ends with the following words: "If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit." As people left church that day they were walking with the spirit. It was a blessed day.