Three Beautiful Things 10-12-2022: Seattle Plans Taking Shape, Goulash for Dinner, Debbie is Settling Into Her Job

1. I finalized my arrangements to travel to and stay in Seattle for three nights, starting Oct. 27th. Bill Davie will play at the C & P Coffee Company (5612 California SW) at 7:00 on the evening of the 27th and I look forward to seeing and hearing Bill and seeing Diane.  In addition, I hope to meet some of the people I've joined online to listen to Bill over the last couple of years and possibly seeing some longtime Whitworth friends. Who knows? There might be other surprises in store. 

Plans to see other people are falling into place and I'm leaving some time open to do a few things in Seattle on my own. 

2. Tuesday night Debbie told me she'd like me to make a ground beef dinner for Wednesday's dinner. She gave me some general sense of what she'd enjoy and I jumped all over it today and had a blast making a goulash.

It was simple.

I cooked up a couple pounds of ground beef for about ten minutes and added chopped onion to the meat. I let the onion and ground beef cook together for just over five minutes and then I added diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, a chopped red pepper, Frank's hot sauce, four cloves of chopped garlic, oregano, fresh basil, garlic powder, and water. 

I brought all of this to a very slow boil, put the lid on the Dutch oven, let it simmer for about a half an hour, and then put about 12 oz of rotini into the pot and simmered the pasta until tender and then just let the whole dish sit for a while before we dished up. 

It worked. 

3. Debbie arrived home today tired (to be expected) and encouraged by how things are going in her classroom. Her teaching instincts are impeccable and so her challenge is to trust her instincts while also meeting the requirements of the school/district/state regarding what she must do with her students. She's figuring that out. 

I enjoy cooking dinner and having some kind of relaxing beverage ready for Debbie when she arrives home. Today, I bought a bottle of Merlot and we both enjoyed a taste or two of wine before plunging into the goulash and it paved the way for a relaxing evening.