I was on a Salmon kick a while back, as you all may recall. I bought a lovely piece of salmon and actually wanted to cook it that night, but didnt get to cook it till about a week later. I'm glad I had the foresight to put it in the freezer first! So here is the account of my adventures with the salmon.
I decided last Friday night that I would cook the salmon the next day because I got off work in the afternoons on Saturdays, and would have plenty of time to make it then. How hard could it be to make a piece of fish!? So I remembered to set it in the fridge Friday night to let the thing thaw. I bought some leek to go with it because I like the taste of leek. So when I got home Sat afternoon, got the fish out and started to wash it. And then something reflected in my eyes, and I thought to myself, ARE THOSE SCALES I SEE???? And I looked again, and it was! The fish was not descaled!!! Nasty nasty nasty. I used a knife and went against the scales to get rid of it. It was all over the place. Then I chopped up the leek and stir fried it up first so I could put it on top of the fish later. I had thought about baking the fish instead of pan frying it, so I turned on the oven at 375 degrees. Then I thought, well, why dont I just pan fry it a little, at least on the outside first. I tried putting the whole slice of fish in my pan, but it was too big, SO I had to take it off and cut it into half. I started frying it up and thought, wow this looks pretty good, maybe I dont need to bake it afterall, since the oven hadnt reached the temp yet. So I turned the oven off, and let the fish fry instead. And then I flipped the fish over, and cooked the other side, and I flipped it back over to cook on the other side. And it didnt seem like the fish was being cooked very quickly. I was told fish cooks really quickly, so I was ready to eat by then! Then I thought, what the heck, I'll just bake it again, so I turned the oven back on and waited it to heat up. But then it took so long to heat up that I thought, SURELY my fish would be cooked by then, so after awhile, I turned it back off. But the middle of my poor little fish didnt seem to want to cook! It still looked really orange! So I cut up my fish into smaller pieces to hurry it up. FINALLY after about an hour after I started cooking, my fish was done. And you know what? It took me 10 mins to eat it up because I was so hungry by then. It's so NOT worth all the work I put into it! I think the next time I have a salmon kick, I'm going to the Japanese restaurant and ordering it there. Let someone else deal with the cooking.
I watched the Passion of the Christ on Sunday. They showed it at church to kick start 3 weeks of small group in preperation for Easter. I really didnt want to watch it, but I felt I needed to. So I went. It starts out with Jesus talking to God in the Garden of Gethsemane. Everything was in Arabic I think, so there were subtitles. I had someone sitting on either side of me, but all of a sudden I felt like I needed to be alone when I watched this. Like I needed to it to be personal, and needed to feel the pain for myself. So when Dad called for our weekly chat, I took that chance and moved back a row which had noone sitting in it. I held it pretty much together until they started whipping him. They used a cane thing first, but the tears really came when they started using the whips to torture him more. I couldnt bear to watch it, I had to close my eyes. Throughout the whole movie after that the recurring thought in my head was, Stop beating Him!!! Just stop beating Him!! The Roman soldiers were relentless in the beatings. Even when he was carrying the cross and walking the streets, they beat Him. Every few seconds I would a soldier beating him. But the kicker wasnt a torture scene. The kicker to me was the scene with Mary. As she was watching her son carry the cross to be crucified, she had a flashback. It was when Jesus was a little boy, and as he was running, he fell, like all little kids do. She dropped everything, and started to run to him. When she reached him, she picked him up and said Here I am! Here I am, to comfort him. Back to the present, right at that moment, Jesus fell because he was so weak, and Mary sees it, and is stunned into motion. She runs to Him crying and says, like she did when he was a little child, Here I am, Here I am!! THAT was when I started bawling. I dont think there was a dry eye in the audience after the movie. You just dont know what to say or how to react after watching a movie like that. It is a very hard movie to watch, and I dont think I will watch it again. But I think it is a movie Christians should watch, at least once. It is a good reminder of the suffering of Christ for our sins. And He really suffered.
I am going to see the lawyer today to start my GC process. I am nervous and excited at the same time. But I have confidence in her, because she's done so much of these things. I would appreciate prayer for this whole process to go smoothly and without a hitch.
To Mom, Faith and Ai, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!! I hope you all have a wonderful year ahead, filled with God's blessings!
Ok, gotta start getting ready for work. Talk to you all later!