THIS is a great story about the kindness of a complete stranger that saved a woman’s house from foreclosure.  I have no other reason to share it other than that every now and then it’s nice to be reminded that there are still good people in the world.

Yummy!  Oooh, the self-restraint it took to take the pictures…

I wasn’t sure how these were going to go over - we don’t make a lot of fish because I’m pretty picky about it.  Having a fisherman husband from Iceland spoils you.  Between the char he’d catch in the ice-cold Þingvallavatn to the unbeliveably fresh halibut we ate for 6 months after he went to Alaska, I’m just picky.  And I’m OK with that.  You would be picky, too.

At any rate, I recently bought some frozen fish filets - flounder, I think? I laid them across wire racks and then sprinkled on chipotle pepper and garlic powder on them and let them thaw while the rub settled in.

Meanwhile, I made a simple pico de gallo from 4 red tomatoes, 2 yellow tomatoes, an onion, a bunch of garlic, some cilantro, kosher salt, and some lime juice.  I love lime.

After I baked the fish, I shredded it in a bowl and added a little more lime juice, and then assembled the tacos.  I softened the tortillas with the cheese on them to melt it, and then stuffed them nice and full of the fish, a little sour cream, pico de gallo, and some Boston lettuce.

The pico de gallo was so pretty and so tasty! I loved what the yellow tomatoes did to the appearance.

Last night after Anja’s 2nd swim meet, Isak and I participated in a haunted house.  I was on the floor in a black room, and he had killed me and was kneeling next to me; the only way for people to see us was when the flash of a camera went off.   It was pretty creepy, but a lot of fun.

We got home very late, around 12:30am, and I got Isak in the shower to clean off all my blood and gore, made him dinner, took a shower of my own, and finally collapsed, exhausted, in my bed at around 2:00am.

At 5:00am, B startled out of sleep and said, “What is that?  Is that water?”  “I’m sure it’s nothing,” I replied, “just the toilet running.”  Doubting me, he said, “I don’t know…”  Irritated to have been woken up, I said, “So then go check on it.”

As he walked out of the room, I heard “splish splish splish.”

“Splish splish splish” is not a good sound to hear at 5am.

I was up in an instant, and as soon as my feet hit the cold tile past the rug our bed is on, I made my own “splish splish splish”.  I looked down and saw the water quickly moving into my bedroom, and grabbed my camera bag off the floor the instant before it, too, got flooded.  I was very confused, and didn’t quite know what to do except get towels and try and sop up some of the water before it got any more into the rug.

B, meanwhile, was identifying the source of the flooding which happened to be the hot water heater in our utility closet.  He is a quick thinker, and fortunately knew exactly what to do and turned off the two lines going into the heater.  The water, however, was now flooding our hallway, our bedroom, the bathroom, and Anja’s bedroom, and had gone in far enough to get under and behind our dressers.

I used all of our towels, from big huge fluffy towels to small bath towels to hand towels, the towels hanging in the bathroom, as well as the ones still in the laundry, and that still wasn’t enough.  Fortunately, though, since B had turned the water off it wasn’t going any further, so I started pushed the water into the bathroom with the towels so some of the water would drain into the bathroom floor drain.

Meanwhile, B went to check on the situation in the utility closet and when he opened the door was met with a closet full of smoke:  the heater was shorting out.  And we were standing in a pool of water.  He ran to the fuse box across the house, and the fuse had not blown so he turned it off - thank goodness for the recent electrical panel upgrade that was done in housing a few weeks ago that included a clear labeling system for all the fuses in the house.

I’m a heavy sleeper, and I probably would not have stirred from my sleep until the fire alarm went off.  Since the heater is in a closet, that would have meant the fire alarm wouldn’t have sounded until there was already a good amount of fire.  I’m feeling very lucky today to be able to write this. Please, please, check to make sure your smoke alarms are functioning and while you’re at it, label your fuses in your fuse box, too.

It still smells like electrical smoke and the more I think about it, the more thankful I am that we are okay.

Late one night, I took it upon myself to color in one of Anja’s (many) drawings in Photoshop.  Don’t worry - she loves it and has given me the OK that it is acceptable.

It reads:

I am Grayson.  I lie a lot.  Oops, got to lie.  Good luck, I am going to lie about I did not eat cookies, OK.  OK.  OK.  Thanks.  Don’t tell your friends, OK.

This one was brought to me today.  It is, as you can tell, her feelings.

I guess I won’t be buying any more white cheese.

I will preface this by saying I am decidedly NOT a food photographer.  While I would like to be one, I cannot take the time to take a photo because if it looks good enough to take a picture, I can’t wait long enough to stage a good one.  So I snap and eat and upload and share and here you have tonight’s dinner: Egg and chorizo tacos!

This is so easy, relatively quick, and did I mention it is goooood?

The ingredients: 2 chorizo sausages, 3 eggs scrambled with some milk, and some frozen pepper and onion stir-fry blend.  Corn tortillas to facilitate getting the inside into your mouth, and cheese and sour cream to rocket this from “yummy” to “even-this-is-better-with-all-this-cheese-and-sour-cream-even-though-it-kicked-ass-before.”

I took the casings off the chorizo and chopped it and browned it in a hot pan.  Add the eggs and scramble into the chorizo.  Add some of the pepper and onion mix - I added about 2/3 of a cup, but I don’t do measuring unless I’m baking.

Next, fry your tortillas - CORN tortillas!  Heat up some oil in a small pan until it’s really hot.  I don’t know how to tell you how to tell if it’s hot enough, but I wait until it looks really hot and then wait another minute.  Then put the tortilla into the hot oil.  I press down lightly in the middle or else it bubbles up and doesn’t cook crispy enough.

Flip over when it starts feeling just a little bit firm.  It should be lightly brown at the edges.

Once both sides are done, drain the oil as much as you can, and then place on a paper towel and fold over.  I put the tongs on it to make it keep its shape.

Once it’s cooled enough just so that you can handle it, start stuffing it full of the chorizoey goodness and top generously with shredded cheese and sour cream.  It’s light sour cream, because that makes everything all better.

This photo does not do my dinner justice.  I know.  And I just don’t care.  Because it was goooood.  As you can tell, I had already eaten one before I got around to taking the picture, and still I couldn’t take the time to put together a nice picture because I needed to get it in my mouth.  Now.

Please don’t ask me how South Beach is going.

I know you’re all looking forward to me reminiscing about Joey, but aside from singing “Step By Step” at work the other day, my life is more or less NKOTB-free.  However, we do have some new kids that moved in down the street that we met today.

Why would I be blogging about them?  Because I’m still laughing about how it was that I met them.

I was making some chorizo and eggs and peppers when I hear some kids saying “Hi!” and look out the kitchen window to see two little girls sitting on the windowsill.  I was a bit confused but figured it was one of the kids that Anja has had over a few times and that I was just blanking on the face.

But then in she walks in our house behind Anja with her sister, right down the hall and into Isak’s bedroom.  “Wow!  Is this your playroom?  This is great!” After explaining to her that she can’t just go into Isak’s bedroom when he’s not there, she walks out into the hallway and just stands there.  Mind you, the first I’ve ever seen her was when she was on my windowsill 5 minutes earlier.

I sent her and her sister back outside and explained that right now, we weren’t playing inside the house.  (it’s amazing how quickly the amount of kids in our house increases…we went from just Anja to Anja and her friend Kyle and these two new girls and the other girl down the street all wandering around in different directions through our tiny house in a matter of about 5 minutes).

The doorbell rang a few minutes ago and it was New Girl asking if Anja could come out and play.  Except that Anja wasn’t here.  So she walked in and right down the hall on her way to Anja’s room.  I explained again that she can’t just do that, just walk into our house like that.  At that point, Isak asked her if she’d like to watch TV, to which she said, “Yeah!” and flopped down on the sofa and put her legs up on Isak’s lap.

I feel like we just adopted another stray cat!