Three Beautiful Things 02/08/18: The Deke's Vacation, Organizing Taxes, Cooking Projects

1.  I talked with the Deke. She's having a great visit in Eugene and is trying to figure out when she'll return to Kellogg, but she's not quite sure yet. She has spent time with friends she's known for quite a while and she's spent time in some of the places we enjoyed in back in the olden days, like both 16 Tons locations, and she's made new friends and acquaintances and has enjoyed yakkin' with people. It's been fun to have the Deke tell me all she's enjoying and it's made me very happy to know she is having such a good time.

2. The most productive thing I did during the day was go through my 2017 taxes folder to see what documents we have and what we still need before we file. I also reviewed Mom's documents and read up a little bit about filing a tax return on behalf of a deceased family member. Mom's stuff looks to be in good order, and I might be able to fill out and submit her return as soon as I muster up the energy to do it. The Deke's and my situation is a little more complicated because of our having lived in two states in 2017 and we don't have all of our income records on hand yet. We will. It's still early. But, at least I have a better idea of what's what.

3. I returned home from buying some groceries at Yoke's and having a couple of short pours of strong ale at Radio Brewing and discovered the internet service was down. I messed around with this and that, trying to figure out of I had a problem with my devices. I asked Christy if her service was out. It was. So, I knew it was a provider problem. Since I couldn't mess around on the World Wide Web, I decided to go to work in the kitchen.

It was time to get another meat stock going, so I tossed carrot greens, celery greens, a coarsely chopped onion, sprigs of oregano and a couple of beef soup bones into the crock pot along with water and now this will bubble away for a few days.

I also opened up the eye round roast that's been thawing and salted it on all sides and put it in a zip lock bag with sprigs of oregano. On Friday or early Saturday morning, I'll brown this roast on all sides and put it in the dutch oven with water, chopped aromatics, and mushrooms, carrots, onion, and potatoes and braise the meat. I've never done this before so it's a real kick to be trying something new.