Salsa Fresca, Valentines and More

We made halibut tacos the other night and topped it with the most delicious salsa fresca, I had to share.  Plus, I just love pictures of beautiful, colorful produce.  And when my kids are included, even better!  The salsa recipe was given to me by my friend Paul, who learned it in an Allen & Peterson cooking class.  The bell peppers were an excellent addition, and Teagan LOVED the stuff.  She just ate it off a spoon and asked me to make it the next night.  See below for the recipe.  Here she is with some of the vegetables and sampling the halibut.

Salsa Fresca

2-3 tomatoes, diced

1/4 each yellow & green bell peppers, finely chopped

1 jalapeno seeded & finely diced

1/4 of a large onion, finely chopped

2 T. cilantro, chopped

2 T. lime juice

1 T. olive oil

salt & pepper to taste

For the halibut, I just made a dry rub out of chili powder, cumin, coriander, paprika, salt, and pepper, coated the halibut in olive oil and a little lime juice, coated it with the rub, and cooked in my cast iron skillet at high heat till done.  Served on warm corn tortillas with salsa fresca and sliced avocado.  Yum!

For Valentine's Day, Teagan made hearts with pencils for "arrows" since they weren't supposed to bring candy.  Although lots of the kids did bring candy.  I guess it probably would have been worse if they hadn't told people not to bring candy.  Here she is after completing all of the valentines and laying them out to dry.  And here is Aidan with THREE suckers in his mouth after the party at his daycare.  He is a glutton for sweets!  Plus some photos of Teagan after her hair cut the other day, and making a bracelet with some beads she got for Christmas. She loves to make stuff.

Staple crazy lady!

Here is a quote from someone related to me.  Kooky, no?  I just couldn't help it, this was so funny!

I am really excited to use a complete box of staples.  I know this is very strange, but I have this funny excited feeling when I finish a strip of staples in my stapler and then put in the new strip from the box.  It gives me this little high to know that I will use an entire box all by myself.  I think it is because I always felt like staples were one of those things that you bought, but NEVER would use all that you bought.  That you would lose the box before you ever finished it, and then buy another, and then find the first one.  And you would have enough staples to last a lifetime in your house.  But I guess it is different at work.  Still, I only have 7 strips left in my box.  1,470 left to go, I've used 3,530 (which includes the strip I just put in my stapler).

I have lots of good posts brewing in my head, I just don't have the energy to get them down on "paper."  If this cough would just go away, I might feel a little better.  I'm stalling bedtime, too, and I need to get the kids to sleep.  They don't do anything I want them to unless I ride them all the time. Sigh. Good night and Happy Valentine's Day this weekend!

Semicolons are a beautiful thing; please do not abuse their usage!

I love grammar.  I'm not very good at naming all of the various components, like there's a split infinitive, or that's a dangling participle, but I have a natural grasp of it.  I just love love love technical writing.  I try to avoid being technical on this blog, because I can stand some improvement in the creative writing arena.  However, I have been working on some documents written by a coworker who "adores" semicolons.  I don't have a problem with this; I, too, love the semicolon.  I do have a problem with his constant improper use of the semicolon.  How can you express adoration for a punctuation mark that you are completely unable to properly use?  I recently provided the following guidance to him, and I'm hoping to see a reduction in frighteningly inaccurate semicolon use:

The key to proper semicolon use in a sentence (as opposed to its use in a list of items) is that it should only be used to split two complete sentences; if you read the portion before the semicolon separately from the portion following the semicolon, they will form two independent, complete sentences. If either side of the semicolon does not form a complete sentence, do not use a semicolon in that location. Check out http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/607/04/ or http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/semicolons.aspx. As long as they are properly used, go forth and pepper your text with semicolons!! ~T

Another of my tech editing pet peeves is unnecessarily complicated technical writing.  Keep it simple and straightforward and I guarantee you will be much more effective at conveying your idea.  Believe me, complicated sentences do not make a person seem any smarter...quite the contrary!  There is nothing more satisfying to me in technical writing than creating a well-read, rational, easy to follow bit of text without a lot of complicated sentences or jargon.

Stepping down from the soap box for now.  Until next time....

Go Holly!

I just want to say that I am so excited for Holly Brooks, who will be skiing for the US Olympic Team!  She worked with me at Weston Solutions a few years ago, and I was always impressed with her drive and dedication as a skiier.  She acted as our Weston Wellness coordinator, and, as you might expect, she did a fantastic job.  I will be glued to the tv as she races her way to Olympic glory.  I've added a link to her blog in my favorites on the right side bar, so go wish her well if you have a chance!  Alaska has also contributed skiiers Kikkan Randall and James Southam (who is married to an old co-worker of mine) to the US Ski Team.  Good luck to all of the Alaska competitors in this year's Olympics!