DIY sausage, dachshunds, head healing, and chocolate cake. What in the world are they doing in the same title? Perhaps nothing in your world, but they’ve been main events in the Philo family’s world since Hiram and I returned from vacation a couple weeks ago.
Upon arriving home, we became aware that while we were out galavanting, the family at home had been doing stuff.
As in facilitating the imminent arrival of Long John, the dachshund pictured above. (If you’re interested, the slipper behind the dog belongs to our son-in-law. If you’re not interested, you’ll want to skip this parenthetical explanation.) My daughter and her family lost their dog to old age not long ago and planned to wait a few months before getting another one. But then they saw an ad for Long John, a 3-year-old rescue dog up for adoption in the next town over. They went to meet him and changed their minds. He’s been here for a week now. As of this writing, he is joined to my daughter at the hip. Both the grandkids are convinced the dog’s devotion is in the process of transferring to them any minute.
Hiram and I have been doing stuff as well.
The most challenging stuff required patience rather than conscious effort as we waited for our bodies to heal––me from a split chin and him from a tooth extraction. I’m pleased to report that my stitches are out and I’m doing fine. Hiram’s glad to be past the first step in the several month process of getting a dental implant. Until that’s done, the dentist created a sort of false tooth retainer for him to wear. It makes Hiram feel like he’s in junior high again––self-conscious about how it looks and worried about tossing it in the garbage after school hot lunch.
Writing stuff is taking a big bite out of my time these days too.
I’m almost halfway through the first revision of the See Jane Stop, Drop, and Roll! manuscript. In other words, I’m almost halfway through the “this-is-absolute-trash-and-anyone-who-starts-to-read-it-will-stop-after-the-first-page-it’s-so-bad” phase of writing. Every session of revising leads to me craving sour cream chocolate cake. You’ll have to read the book to find out why.
In other stuff, I decided to take a big leap and make my own sausage seasoning.
The idea’s been banging around in my head for a while, and it surfaces whenever Hiram and I use our Kitchenaid food grinder to turn pork loins and/or pork butt roasts into ground pork. (It’s a good substitute for expensive ground beef.) Since ground pork + seasonings = sausage, I took the metaphorical pig by the snout and gave this recipe for sage sausage a try. It went over well with everyone, so next week I’ll try out a recipe for Italian sausage seasoning. I thought about hiring Long John to be my taste tester as a ploy to gaining his devotion, but fear the grandkids might resent me for that.
DIY sausage, dachshunds, head healing, and chocolate cake are things I can handle. Ripping a happy family apart by bribing a dachshund? Well, that’s the kind of stuff I wouldn’t touch with a Long John sized pole.
