To those of you who gave me your input regarding the photos,  I do appreciate it and I thank you immensely!  The pictures that got the most votes were the first one of Sampson as a small puppy winking and the other one was the picture of Sampson peering over the wall. 

My idea is to have a tote with one picture on it and a T-shirt with the other picture on it.  I would have Sampson’s website address on the item and my friend Dawn gave me an idea to have the T-shirt/tote say, “Do you know Sampson?”  and list the web address.  I’m hoping this will get some attention regardless of whether I get to meet with an agent or not. 

I’m not exaggerating when I say that anywhere we take Sampson, someone wants to keep him and take him home with them.  I picked him up from daycare yesterday and my trainer said, “My brother was just making out with your dog.”  He wouldn’t be the first and he won’t be the last.  People just love this dog!

In the meantime, I will be revising the website and the book and putting the book up on the website, so when I do finally get the items, everything will be ready to go.

So what do you think?

There’s nothing quite as peaceful to me as walking in the woods during winter, while snow crunches under your feet but the rest of the world is quieted by the blanket of snow provided by mother nature. 

We are lucky enough to live on a cul-de-sac that ends with a giant soccer field and hiking trails that branch off from it.  Since I had today off and was trying to get as much done as possible, I decided to forgo the dog park and take the dogs up to the trails.  I had done this last week and let them go off leash and was very pleased with the way Delilah reacted, and I thought the more I can do this, the better she will be.

As I said, the street ends in a cul-de-sac so ALL the snow that the plow moved ended up right at the entrance to the park, snow about 8 feet deep and about 5 feet wide, but it did not deter us! 

I noticed right away that there was a woman inside, climbing the path to the field; I also noticed she had a dog so before I let my dogs out I hollered out to her and asked if her dog was friendly and if she minded if my dogs were off leash (hers already was but I wanted to be polite.)  She said no problem, so out they jumped and made quick work of the huge snow bank.  They got to the woman and her dog much quicker than I did, but everyone got along wonderfully.  As we walked up we chatted a little bit and she told me she had another dog somewhere in the park and that most people who walked their dogs up there, had them off leash. 

We didn’t stay together too long, as she needed to head home, so the dogs and I headed off.  People had been up there hiking so certain trails were well packed.  The dogs did really well, running ahead and sometimes off the path but always returning to me when I called.   We did two loops around and then headed home, it was an enjoyable part of my afternoon, me and my dogs and the quiet of the woods.

You know you’ve got a great new recipe when your husband says, “You said this was cube steak, didn’t you?”  “That’s the best cube steak I’ve ever eaten.” 

I love to cook and bake.  When I am baking I ALWAYS use a recipe, not so much when I am cooking though.  I tend to cook along the lines of what combinations I think will work well together.  So tonight I had the cube steak  and I wasn’t sure what to do with it, so here’s what I came up with.

I took the beef and pounded it with my meat tenderizer.  Then I quickly ran it under water and shook it off, dipped it in flour and then an egg wash and placed it in a frying pan with a little bit of oil.  I cooked it for 4 minutes on each side, transferred the beef to a baking dish and wiped out the frying pan.  I place the frying pan on the stove and added about a cup to a cup and a half of beef stock and about 1/4 cup of red wine (I happened to have a Merlot on hand so that is what I used.) I brought this up to a boil and added about 1/2 cup of chopped mushrooms and 1/4 cup of chopped onions and let it simmer for 5 minutes.  While it was simmering I took a little olive oil and a little bit of flour and mixed it together in a cup, and took about 3 to 4 small spoonfuls from the beef/wine mixture and added them to the cup and mixed it up, then added the flour/beef stock/wine concoction back into the pan and stirred it well.  I poured the whole thing over the beef in the baking dish, covered it with foil and baked it in a 350 degree pre-heated over for half an hour. 

I served the cube beef with fried potatoes and sautéed asparagus.  After dinner was over my husband said, “Now I wish I was taking lunch tomorrow.”  Usually I make enough dinner for us to have small lunches the next day which saves us money by not buying lunch.  If you try this, please let me know what you think.