Recipe for Janee's Tuna Salad in Cucumber Cups

I like these stones!

These are hors d'oeuvres that I made for a party that we went to this evening. They are hollowed-out cucumbers filled with my fabulous recipe tuna salad. We're going to fill tomato halves with it for the church lunch tomorrow.

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Tuna Salad in Cucumber Cups, Enough for a party of 20
This is a very different sort of tuna salad recipe -- very vegetable-licious and no pickles! You may not make this with pickles.

Mix the following in a small mixing bowl. Do NOT measure any of these. These measurements are just approximate.):

Two small cans of chunk light tuna packed in water, well-drained
One stalk celery, finely chopped
One large carrot, finely chopped
1/2 small onion, finely chopped
1/4 bell pepper, finely chopped
1 t parsley (dried or fresh)
1/8 t pepper
1/8 t salt
1/4 - 1/2 C mayonnaise (Do NOT measure. Just scoop out some till it looks right.)

Cut 4 medium cucumbers into 1 1/4" slices. Again.. do not measure, please. With a melon-baller, scoop out the seedy centers from these cuke chunks, being careful not to go all the way through the bottom.

Spoon the tuna filling into the cuke cups. Garnish with olive pieces or green onion... or get creative, but do garnish them! Enjoy!

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Today was a good day. We started it by Jack going for his speed walk and my doing my Wii workout. We showered and then went to the railroad show at the fairground. We were both disappointed in this show. There were a few train layouts that were nice, and a lot of train parts and components for sale. But .. $7 a person? Hardly worth it.


We came home and assembled the tuna cuke cups and went to the party. It was a Thanksgiving in March party, with great food and even better company, and everyone loved our cuke cups! :)

Contest Photos

This is my photo of the day for today. :) I liked the water on the formerly parched lake bottom and the tree reflections. I took this at Agua Caliente.

Here are the 3 photos I entered in the photo contest. This one got "honorable mention":

This one made it through the first 2 rounds of judging:

This one, which I love so much that I use it as my desktop background, made it through the 1st round, but was dismissed because the lighting is "too harsh."

I have to learn to laugh at this. I used to do photo contests all the time and there were many that I didn't win. I'm not sure why this one was so important. Maybe it's because the photos were "real," printed images, and not "just" online submissions. Maybe it's because this one is once a year. I don't know. I do know that I really wanted to win.

Today we had choir practice again, and our concert is coming together nicely.

After choir, Jack and I worked on building the podium for the choir director. It turned out great, with a carpeted top and a little edge around the top, so that she'll know when she's close to the edge. Fun project!

We went shopping and laid in supplies for dinner tonight and for the pitch-in we're going to tomorrow. Tomorrow promises to be a big day, so I'm off to bed!

I shot this photo at the Petroleum Museum in Midland, Texas.

Can you even imagine how good the photos in the contest were, with my not winning with even one photo? Jack did have a winner. I'm bummed about it, because I worked hard -- choosing, printing, matting, labeling -- and thought that my stuff was great. One never knows what an individual judge looks at, they say. If you love it, it's great, they say. "Platitudes," I say. I wanted to WIN! Nuts.

While putting away some clothes in the laundry room, I reached under my jammies and was stung by a bee which had thought my jammies a comfy place to rest, I suppose. And it hurt a lot! My hand is still sort of swollen where he stung, and it's sore, but I think that I'm going to survive.

Choir practice went well. We're rehearsing for our show on Sunday. It's a benefit for the Smile Train -- a charity which sends and trains medical personel to repair cleft palates in poor children. What a great thing it is to sing for such a wonderful cause!

Jack and I went to celebrate his happy photo win at the Claim Jumper, where we dined on a sumptious feast. I love that restaurant, with its varied menu, great food, beautiful presentations, and neat ambience.

Reflections of palm trees in the lake at Agua Caliente Park.

Today I took a couple of big steps. One was to cut mats for our photos for the contest (tomorrow!) with Jack's mat cutting equipment. The process is pretty easy, and I was pleased with how good they looked. We put the photos in plastic bags and they all look very professional.

The other significant thing that I did was to install my Seagate backup hard drive. It's going to protect my files in case my HD takes a dive, and we all know that it's not a matter of *if*, but *when*. I still remember well the feeling that I had back in 2002 when I got that black screen with but a few words of white: "Hard drive not found." Yikes! The really sad part of that story is that I had NO backups at that time. I lost 2 years of digital photos, including baby photos of grandchildren and puppy photos of Maddy.

We went grocery shopping today, significant only because we went to 4 different stores, chasing bargains. At least the stores are all pretty close together! We're getting the food put together for the party we're having a week from today -- St. Patrick's Day!

Hiking Pima Canyon

This photo is one that I shot downtown in Tucson. This palm tree was in this dark courtyard and I wasn't sure how it got enough light to live!

Today the Hiking Club hiked up in Pima Canyon as far as the dam. With all the rain that we've had, there was plenty of water in the canyon. We had 24 crossings of the rushing stream. The stepping stones were well-situated, though, so it was doable.

The hike was beautiful, with lots of green, small flowers blooming along the path, and perfect weather for the morning. While it was in the low 40's when we left, it got up to the low 60's. Lots of wind, and some cloud cover, but it was good for hiking!

We arrived home in time for Jack to have a rushed shower and then we hustled him off to his PT appointment. He's getting his shoulders worked on, to hopefully relieve the pain that's been dogging him for several months. And it rained! When we came out from there, it was pouring.

We stopped at Jones Photo to pick up the prints that we'd ordered. Tomorrow, we'll mat our three favorites to enter into the contest. And then we were off to Sweet Tomatoes for a delicious dinner!

Yellow and Red

What a neat day this was! My cousin Tom had invited Jack and me to join him at the Arizona Inn for a luncheon at which he was speaking. It was an alumni gathering for American University. The people were interesting, the food was great, and it was wonderful to see Tom again!

We worked some on photos for the upcoming contest, and got them sent off. I am getting 18 of them printed, and then I'll have to choose *only* 3 to enter.

I think that I spent an hour and a half on the Wii today. We finally got a wireless nunchuck and that helps me with boxing and Kung Fu. Who would ever have dreamed that I'd enjoy Kung Fu and boxing?? LOL!

This is the rock wall beside my Auntie Dots' driveway in Connecticut. In the summertime, it's so green and lovely there.

Today was good. We went to church where today I sang with the choir, and that was fun.

Next was the ballgame! We changed clothes and then picked up John and headed over to Hi Corbett Field, where we saw the Diamondbacks challenging the Colorado Rockies. It was in the mid 50's, there was wind and rain, and just a bit of sun, but we had a good time. The hotdog and Cracker Jack contributed to my good time! :)

This evening, we had friends over for dinner of smoked turkey breast, sauteed veggies, and mashed potatoes. We had a nice time and lots of laughs!