Out With the Old . . . In With the New!

I get inspired all of the time.  By people, places, things I see, things I read, things I dream about.  I say get inspired, some people say copy.  Whatever.  Potato, Potahto.

Georgia inspires me.  I don't have her talent, her eye or her drive, but I wanted to copy her anyway.  I needed a change in my house.  I can't afford to do anything big that is on my list so I had to scale it down.  I figured I've had the same shower curtain in the bathroom for nine years now.  I was DUE for a change!

Here is the old look.

Don't pay attention to the messy shelves on the left.   That's a project for another day.  But the shower curtain and the rugs.  Been there, done that, tired of looking at it.

I went to one of my favorite places, Bed, Bath & Beyond.  Ron doesn't get why I salivate in there so much but whatever!  I needed him on this shopping trip.  I was there to pick out a new shower curtain.  His job was to figure out what rugs matched.  Remember, I'm the color blind one.   Just remember to blame Ron if I don't match!

Here is the new shower curtain, up close so you can see the pattern.  I love it, even though it is still wrinkled i the picture.  The curtain and the new hooks I got to go with it.

 You know Benny is the inquisitive one.  The minute this curtain went up, Benny had to check it out from behind, in front, underneath, all around.  Benny bomb!

He wasn't so crazy about the rugs and right now he's still jumping over them instead of walking on them, but he'll get there.  He doesn't like change.

But I do!   We went out with the old . . . and now we are in with the new.  My new bathroom fluff!

I Do NOT Like My Neighbors

HA!  Right away you are thinking I'm talking about my neighbors across the street, aren't you!  Well they need to be a blog unto themselves.  But that is not the direction I am going with this post.  I'm talking about a neighbor that is either newer to the neighborhood or one I just noticed recently.

We have skunks.

Ok, I think skunks are kinda like in the cockroach family.  They are EVERYwhere in this world.  But it's one of those animals that you don't see.  You might smell it once in awhile, or see one smooshed in the middle of the street, but you don't see them running around often.

A couple of months ago, Ron and I were sitting on the porch about 10:00 pm while he was having a cigarette.  I happened to turn around, and coming from the alley across the street to the alley on our side of the street was a mother skunk with four or five babies following in a line right behind her.  WTF!  That was something I have never seen!  And that was something I could have lived a lifetime without seeing . . . in MY neighborhood.

So there ya go.  That was just a fluke, right?  They were just passing through, right?

I haven't mentioned this lately, but I'm a bit anal retentive with a touch of CDO.  In case you didn't know that already.  My night time ritual is going around and making sure the windows are closed and locked and that the doors are locked.  I also give the neighborhood a once-over through my windows, making sure there is no police activity currently happening in front of my house.  I can't TELL you how many nights I look out the windows on my way to bed and see skunks!  Right by MY house!

I have seen them walking down my driveway, in front of my garage and searching for grubs or whatever throughout my yard.  I am very careful with the cat food I put outside, making sure I bring it back into the house before it's dark.  I want to attract all of the neighborhood cats but not the neighborhood skunks, raccoons, rats, mice, slugs or whatever.  Cats only.  I put signs out but none of the animals seems to read them.  But, I digress.

I don't think it's the cat food attracting the skunks.  I think they just love me and my yard.  What the heck!

I keep screaming to Ron every time I see a skunk outside and last night, they were right next to his car and I MADE him get out of bed to look!  I'm sure he believed me but I was starting to feel like I was making this stuff up.  And, since I don't know how to use any settings on my camera other than the "macro" setting, here is the best shot I got of two skunks in my yard!

  

Um, I added the arrows to make sure you could see the white stripes in my back yard.  I first caught these two from the bedroom window.  I ran downstairs with my camera and tried to take the picture out my dining room window.  I know enough to know that I wasn't going OUTSIDE to try to take this picture!  I sat on my window seat with Benny.  He saw the skunks through the window and he seemed to be a little too excited about getting out that window to go meet these interlopers.  I was afraid I would lose Benny through that window if I were to open it to get a flash shot of my skunks.  So this was the best I could do.  I know, I suck.

So there you go.  I do NOT like my neighbors.  More than just the ones in the house across the street.

Public Service Announcement # 4

This was just too important not to share.  Learn from my experience.

When you are cutting the grass in the evening, you should probably do it with your mouth closed.  Just sayin'.

The bugs seem to be more prolific at dusk.  As I've mentioned before, when I'm on the riding mower, I have my Nano playing LOUDLY so I am singing along loudly and badly while probably air drumming on the steering wheel.

I came out of a turn, through the healthiest part of my yard and ended up with either a mouthful of bugs or one big one.  I'm really not sure.  And, I don't want to think about it too much to be honest with you.

So there you go.  My public service announcement # 4:  When mowing the lawn at dusk, KEEP YOUR MOUTH CLOSED!

Ugh.  Extra protein today.  I wonder how many Weight Watchers points I ate in bugs today.

Cooking 102

OMG!  Another cooking story!

For this one, I need to go back a few lifetimes ago.  You know I love to tell a back story.

I have posted previously about my friends Ruth and Jeff in Ripley New York.  Being from Erie Pennsylvania, Ripley was just about 30 minutes away so we were almost like neighbors!  We all met at a club where I used to tend bar while Jeff was in the band that played on Saturday nights.  Ruth would come in to support the band and Saturday night by Saturday night by Saturday night, the three of us got to be great friends.

One Saturday, Ruth couldn't get a baby sitter for their boys so she stayed home.  I closed the bar up at 3:00 am and Jeff had the great idea that I should follow him home for breakfast!  Ok, I thought that was probably not a great idea following a married man home.  I had visions of waking a wife up at 4:00 in the morning and getting chased out of the house with a frying pan!

But, just as Jeff predicted, Ruth was happy to see me, even at that ungodly hour of the morning.  She got up, had breakfast with us, then I headed home and they went to bed.  That was the first late night/early morning breakfast of many that we've had during our time at that club.

One Saturday, the three of us headed back to Ripley and Ruth left to take the babysitter home.  That left Jeff in charge of breakfast.  Hey, I never said we had award winning breakfasts!  It was just FOOD at 4:00 in the morning!

This one particular Saturday night/Sunday morning, Jeff decided to show his cooking skills and bake us a frozen pizza for breakfast.  Winner all the way!  Hey, it wasn't my house so I wasn't paying that much attention.  He threw the pizza in the oven and we were sitting at the dining room table waiting for the buzzer.  I'm not sure what came first, Ruth coming home from taking the babysitter home or the smoke alarm going off.  Yeah, there was a LOT of smoke.  I guess Jeff didn't read the directions that you need to remove that piece of cardboard from the pizza before baking it!  Did I mention that there was a lot of smoke??

I wouldn't swear to it but I really don't think that stopped us from eating the pizza.

The best part of this story is the fact that Ruth and I have been able to bust his chops about his breakfast/pizza making skills (or lack thereof!).  He's gotten ribbed about this at least 100 times over the last 20 years!  It's always a good go-to joke.

Fast forward to present time.  The other day, Ron made US a frozen pizza for dinner.  We used one of the cool pans that Phil got me just for pizza making.  I don't think Ron believed me when I told him that he could cut the pizza on the very pan he used to cook the pizza.  He handed me the knife and said to cut away.

I gotta tell you, that was the most difficult time I ever had cutting a pizza.  This pizza did NOT want to cut through.

Eventually, I found the problem.

While he didn't set the smoke alarms off, he did bake up one piece of cardboard.

So, we had a soggy bottom pizza.  As you can see, we still ate it all!  And before Ron threw away the evidence, I asked Ron to hold on!  I told him I needed pictures!! 

Jeff, this one is for you!

Cooking 101

Maybe the title of this post should be "Shopping 101" instead of "Cooking 101".  We all know I suck at both of them!

On Thursdays after work, I do my weekly grocery shopping then head to my Weight Watchers meeting.  Part of healthy eating would be really good planning. I still suck at meal planning.  Oh, I make plans I guess it's the follow through that I sometimes suck at.

I do try.  I look around at what's on sale this week, try to figure out if it is something I can make after work for dinner, if both of the guys will EAT it, then I try to plan meals around it.

This past Thursday I was at Sam's Club.  I remember looking at the packages of  portabella mushrooms.  There were four of five huge mushroom tops in each package.  I know I handled about every package they had in the case and thought I picked one out.  I have been thinking of those portabella mushrooms ever since Thursday.  The meal I planned around them was the mushrooms were to be grilled in the George Foreman grill with a little olive oil.  I had cut up some sweet potatoes for baked sweet potato fries and I was sauteing some onions as well.  (Hey they so GO with the mushrooms, right??) I was going to call this dinner.

I like to prep everything ahead of time so that at the proper time, I just turn the frying pan on and turn on the George Foreman grill and dinner is ready in 10 minutes.  Tonight, the sweet potatoes were cut, seasoned and in the oven.  I had all of my onions cut up and seasoned, ready to be put into the frying pan. Last up was to prep the mushrooms then I could sit and relax for awhile before finishing everything up.  That was the plan.  So much for a good plan!

I couldn't find the damn mushroom ANYwhere.  They were NOT in the fridge.  I looked in the cupboard, they were not in there.  I even looked in both freezers.  No portabellas.  Ron is usually really good when I bring a car load of groceries home, he puts everything away while I eat my late dinner.  I asked Ron and he did NOT remember unpacking any portabellas.  WTF!  What was I supposed to do for dinner?

I don't change courses on the fly very well.  I had NO clue what the heck to do with my sauteed onions and sweet potato fries.  Ron and I went through the freezer but couldn't agree on what our plan B should be.  So I defrosted some apple sausage and some White Bass fresh caught by Ron last weekend.

I ate the sausage, Ron had the White Bass.  It wasn't grilled portabella mushrooms but I guess it was ok.

Once I come home and log my receipts into my checkbook, I throw the receipt out.  I wish I could look at it to see if I even BOUGHT the mushrooms.  We were in my car today and it doesn't smell, so I know the mushrooms aren't in there.  I could have left them in the cart at Sam's Club or I could have put them all back in the case and not bought any.  So much for my planned dinner.

Cooking 101.  Instead of offering classes on that topic perhaps I should sign up to TAKE a class.  Hopefully, Shopping 101 goes with it.

C.D.O.

If you know me, you know I have a bit of an obsessive-compulsive side to me.  Some people call it O.C.D. but I prefer C.D.O., since that's in alphabetical order.  The way it should be.  See what I mean??

Ron should have learned in all the years we've been together about my C.D.O. and the fact that you should never teach me anything new.  I will obsess about it. 

His latest toys are the cameras.  I won't say how many of them there are or where they are all located, but know that Ron has gone high tech and we now have infrared cameras in and around the house.  And yes, they do record once they detect movement.  Hey, one of our neighbors just got broken into last week.  I know it's not safe anywhere, but he's doing what he can to keep us as safe as he can.

The cameras.  That would be ONE thing but then Ron had to show me that I can LOOK at what is going on from any camera angle from ANY computer.  They all have their own web links!  I follow one of the links, then I have my own log on and password and for REAL, I can't get enough of it!

I'm just going to tell you about my two favorites.  One is trained on the front door.  Ron calls this "front door security cam" but I call it my "kitty cam"!  I have learned to strategically place the cat food bowl on the front porch so that now I can just pull up the camera (even from at WORK!) and see what is going on at the cat food bowls!  OMG!  You know how much I love reality TV well this is reality TV to the Nth degree!

So, I watch my kitties, make sure Hemingway gets his turn at the food bowl, see them napping on my porch, it's Nirvana for me.

I consider my kitty cam to be entertainment.  Now for my obsession.  The garage.

Did I mention that these cameras are infrared?  That means that they will pick up what is going on during the day time AND what happens even in the DARK!  It's amazing!  My newest obsession though is watching the inside of the garage.  At night.  Like right now.

Do you have any idea what YOUR car does alone in the garage at night?  I do!  And I can't . . . stop . . . WATCHING!

Right now, I see my car.  In my garage.  Sitting there.  Doing nothing.  Amazing.  Freakin' amazing.  This is 100% better than anything that is on cable right now.

Ron should have learned by now not to show me any new fun toys.  I have been known to sit here waaay too long watching my car.  Sit.  In the garage.  THIS is entertainment, people!  I don't know if I honestly expect to see the house ghosts roll the windows up and down on the car (they've done that before, I believe) or see a mouse run across the floor.  I don't really expect to SEE anything happening in there.  But I can't look away!

C.D.O.

You WISH you had an exciting life, like me.

And my car.

In the garage.

Play Ball!

Last night, Ron and I met up with our friends Cher and Marcie for a night at the Lake Erie Crushers game!  And, we had a great time!

I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you haven't been to All Pro Freight Stadium to see our Lake Erie Crushers, GO!  If it's been awhile since you're been there, GO BACK!  It really is a gorgeous field with players that are out there giving it their all.  It's an intimate stadium where there is not a bad seat in the house.

If you get the cheap seats in the lawn, you will STILL have a great time and on a budget to boot.  Take a blanket, take a chair, just take your butt over there.  Trust me, you won't be sorry.  This is such a gem in Lorain County.  Not much to me is worth driving into Cleveland for so this is perfect for the baseball lover in me to get to go to a REAL game.

Do these people look like they are having a great time?  You betcha!  Lawn seats!

A bunch of the little kids spent a good part of the night just rolling down this hill over and over.  I have a feeling that a lot of kids got a great night's sleep last night. 

Can you feel the excitement with the Crushers on the bases??

They had something going this inning but it wasn't enough.  It took the Crushers to the 8th inning to put away the Road Warriors away.  The final score was 6-3 Crushers.  Go team!!

The best part of going to the ball game was hanging out with our friends Cher and Marcie.  I laughed so hard last night, I almost peed my pants!  For real! 

Ron was one lucky guy getting to spend his evening with us three ladies.  From left to right is Marcie, Cher and me.

We switched up places for this shot of Cher, me and Ron.

Then the three peas in our pod and my personal favorite photo, Marcie, Cher and Ron.

We just kept passing the camera around and snapping fun happening!

And here is another cute couple!  Me and Stomper, the mascot of the Lake Erie Crushers!!!  You have to love anyone who's job it is to shake hands, have your picture taken and hug little kids!   Lucky mascot!

That last picture is when Stomper takes all the kids that want to go out onto the field to sing the 7th inning stretch.  That guy's got a great job, I'm telling ya!

I had a great time.  It's always a great night at the ball game.  

Morning Walks

When you take a break from blogging, it's hard to know how to come back. Especially since there is not much that has been blog worthy since I've been gone!

I thought I'd come back with a picture blog. Here's the story:

Mike and I in our Weight Watchers journey have decided to try to walk together in the morning before work for our activity points. It's too hard to stay motivated AFTER work to go walking, so we're setting our alarms and walking early in the a.m. That kinda blows but at least we're exercising and I don't have to walk alone.

I carry my camera on me during these walks and have snapped some pretty interesting pictures. At least I think they are interesting! These pictures are in no particular order and were taken on different days during a time span of a couple of weeks.

You have to admit . . . walking early in the morning can be interesting.

Walking early in the morning.  Yes, you never know what you will see.   The deer on Burns Road was my favorite picture until I saw the condom on the sidewalk.  Mike now knows what to expect while we are walking and something cool like that is in our path.  I WILL stop and take a picture of it!  Hey, anything for a blog.

15 Years

March 22, 1925 - August 12, 1997

15 years ago - and it feels like yesterday.

We miss you, Mom.

Sunday Adventure

Ron and I took a little ride yesterday into Elyria.  Ok, I wanted to make sure that if I did have to go for jury duty that I could find the building where I needed to be as well as the parking lot I needed that is like five blocks away from the parking lot. 

(By the way, Day 1 of jury duty and I do NOT have to show up yet.  One day down, fourteen more to go!)

So, as long as we were in downtown Elyria, I wanted to go to the waterfall behind the police station.  I've taken pictures there before and posted them, but it's really such a pretty place that I have more pictures to post again! 

This is the upper falls.  It was just a beautiful day yesterday.

I am standing a good 20 feet above the top of the falls here.  I happen to look to the right and was SHOCKED to see a giant fish!  Keep in mind, I'm like 20 feet up and I swear that fish was at least 18" long if not longer.  I know it's kinda hard to guess the size of a fish from so far away but trust me, it was HUGE.

 
My little camera amazed me by capturing this shot!  I leaned over the edge of the railing, turned the zoom on and hoped I caught the fish!  I believe it's a carp but I won't be offended if anyone tells me I'm wrong.  The next shot even captured a couple of coins on the rock next to the water.  Almost looks like the carp is looking for the money.

I think the picture will get bigger if you click on it.  One coin is on the crack almost even with his eye and the other one is even with the stick jutting out of the water.  I thought it was cool that I captured this! 

I saw a total of three huge fish.  This guy that was hanging by the edge of the rocks and there were two more that were over about 20 or 30 feet away from the falls.  The two of them would appear and then dive out of sight.  Then back up for my photo op and then back down. 

These two were easier to see in person as the photo really didn't come out so well.  But you get the idea.  Finally, we headed over to the other viewing platform to get  a shot of the upper and lower falls.

Then, looking to the left, down the river.

It was just such a pretty day. 

As I was standing here in the corner taking pictures, a fly landed on the railing.  As an homage to Mark, who is the BEST bug picture taker, I have "The Fly".

I know Mark would have zoomed in close enough to see the fly's toothy smile, but I at least got a shot in.

This is just one of my favorite spots in the area.  It's beautiful to sit there and just look at the waterfall, and every time I'm there I have my camera.  It's a fun place to shoot.  Go on over.  Tell the carp I sent you!

And I Still Miss Him

This is my Dad and today he would have been 88 years old.

I have been thinking a lot about my family the last few days.  Mostly, the family members who are no longer with us.  For example, my Dad.  Being the youngest as well as a daughter, Dad and I had a special relationship.  Was it always good?  By definition, heck no!  Dads and daughters sometimes butt heads!  But, on the other hand, a Dad and his youngest daughter always have a special bond that can't always be explained.

Dad fought all my monsters, protected me from loose dogs, killed spiders in my bedroom and came all the way over to my apartment to load (and unload if necessary!) my mouse traps.  Dad fixed what I broke and started to explained things to me that I needed to know.  He gave me my first tool box complete with tools.  Craftsman tools, of course!

One of my favorite Dad stories was a little thing we did whenever he wanted to get away from Mom some evening.  That meant he didn't feel like doing whatever was on his "honey-do" list and he didn't want to hear Mom bitch about him doing nothing for an evening.

For real, he'd go up into the attic where there was a phone.  He'd call me at my apartment and ask me to call back and ask for him.  Ok, whatever, I'll give the guy an out for an evening!  We'd hang up the phone, I'd wait a few minutes and call the house.

Mom would answer and I'd start bellyaching to her that I broke something again.  My poor vacuum cleaner "broke" more often than I can tell you!  Anyway, I'd bellyache to Mom, she'd call Dad down from the attic and then Dad would "complain" on the phone in front of her about having to fix whatever I broke . . . AGAIN!  Fine.  I'd remind him quietly on the phone to bring the pizza and in about a half an hour or so there would be Dad on my doorstep, pizza in hand.  We'd spend a quiet evening eating pizza and watching a movie and he'd get out of doing chores at home.  Win/Win!

So, walk with me down memory lane as I remember my family.

My sister Barb and her husband Bill.

The older I get the more I think I look like Barb!

Barb and Jim, mugging for the camera!

 I miss her.  She was my voice of reason, my confidant, my supporter, my friend.

I don't have good pictures of my Mom.  I didn't have a digital camera back in the day so I only have pictures of her towards the end of her life.  My Mom was really a beautiful woman, but that's not reflected in these pictures where she's swollen from the medications she was on. 

Mom and my brother Mike.  This was 1997 shortly before she passed away.

Mom with two of her favorite sons, Mike and Jim!

And here was a rare sight.  One I can only remember seeing twice in MY life.  Then again, I'm the last of six children so all of this must have happened LONG before I was born!

This is four generations of men in my family back in 2003.  Starting with the smallest, my great nephew Evan who is now a strapping young man of 11!  To the right is his Dad, my nephew Mike.  I won't give his age!  On the left is Mike's Dad, my brother Mike.  And in the middle, is my Dad.  Mike and Dad have on their Hawaiian party shirts because you can't have a bad day in a party shirt!  This was in 2003 and we were celebrating Dad's birthday.  I thought it fitting to end with a birthday pictures.

 

Happy Birthday, Dad.  I love you.

Thank You! That Was Mighty Neighborly!

Tuesday I came home from work and all was well.

A few hours later, Ron and I are sitting on the porch while he's having a cigarette and I see just to the north of my house, in the north bound lane of traffic, a HUGE groundhog.  A huge DEAD groundhog.  Yuck.  That was NOT there when I had come home from work that day.

Part of me wanted to rush over and take pictures for the Lorain 365 blog, but lucky for you, I have been working on editing my thought process!  I'm sure all of our readers there will be so happy about that.

Even though there are no pictures of this huge dead groundhog, it was a train wreck (and almost a few car wrecks!) in the street.  North bound cars were swerving to avoid the hit and every time a car went by, I couldn't do anything but watch it go by, waiting for a direct hit.  I could NOT look away.  As much as I was telling myself that I did NOT want to see that groundhog get flattened, I just couldn't look . . . away.  It was horrible.

Finally, Ron suggested I leave my post on the front porch and go into the house and quit watching for the inevitable smooshing of the groundhog.  Fine.  That was probably a good idea.

Into the house we went and upstairs to the office.  I turned on m computer, turned on the TV and guess what?  All I could see is that damn groundhog!  I had such a good view of it from out the office window!  Again, Ron had the good idea of shutting the blinds on the window thus forcing me to QUIT LOOKING but that would have been too easy.  Besides, there is a cat perch on the window ledge and the cats like to get up there and look out which is why the shade is up.  I didn't want to close it on the cats!  (Besides, I was still waiting for that smooshing.  Ugh.)

Then one of the neighbor kids stepped up and took care of it. By kids I mean teenager, or at least he looked like a teenager to me.  You know the older you get the younger they look.  Anyway, he grabbed a long stick and kinda rolled that groundhog off of the street and over into the tree lawn across the street.  I can still see him there, but he's not as mesmerizing to look at now that he's not in the middle of the street.

So thank you, neighbor!  You saved me from putting a spot light on that ground hog so I could watch all night long until someone hit that poor thing again!

Then there is tonight.  It's now a group sport, coming to look at this groundhog.  First were three kids, maybe preteens.  The boy I think was trying to look macho in front of the two girls.  He actually took a picture of the poor dead animal and then proudly proclaimed "this is now my facebook status!".  Can you say "ewwww!!"  The two girls tried to poke it with a stick then ran screaming. 

Then, there was the father and daughter who were so fascinated with this poor rigor mortis filled dead groundhog that he actually had to pull over in the alley and get out to go LOOK at the groundhog with his little girl.  Ah, it made my heart warm that little family moment.  By the way, he also took pictures of the dead groundhog.

Why oh why did I pick NOW to start editing my brain?  I so should have gone out to take a picture and post it on the blog.

Hmm...it IS still light outside . . .

Share and Relish, Fresh Lake Erie Walleye

I know I am so far behind in posting recipes!  My friend Georgia is much better and keeping up the recipe sharing.  Please make sure you go check out her delicious looking Be-Well Soup and the rest of the good food she's posted!

Ron and Larry have been out on Ron's boat fishing most weekends.  The guys have been catching the best of what Lake Erie has to offer; perch, white bass and my favorite, walleye.  Here is a picture of one of the walleye that they recently caught.  This baby was our dinner Friday night.

From fresh caught walleye to beautiful fillets.

On the top left is one of the fish cheeks.  I guess it's a delicacy.  Ron and Larry got to eat those since they are the ones that caught the fish!  Fair is fair.

I took the filets and cut them into pieces about four inches long.  I was baking half of the filets and frying the other half.

Let's start with the baked fish.  I filled one bowl with milk (2% milk because that's what we drink!) and I filled one bowl with Panko break crumbs.  What I found out later is that Panko break crumbs are really made for deep frying.  I should have stuck with a bread crumbs or crushed corn flakes as a coating.  The panko were ok in the baked version, but next time I would use something else.

Anyway, here are my two bowls.

Real simple, I put the filet into the milk then into the Panko to coat it.  Since my baking sheets are all rusted and crappy, I cover them with aluminum foil before baking anything.  Once the filets were put through both bowls, I lined them up on the baking sheet.

I then melted two tablespoons of butter and drizzled the butter over the filets.  Then, baked at 400 degrees for 25 minutes, until filets flaked apart easily.  Here are the filets ready to go into the oven.

Since I didn't think to make this dinner into a blog until I was in the middle of making dinner, I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked.  And, we were all drooling so much, so as soon as the food hit the table, we were chowing down!  I could have taken pictures of four full bellies, but that would not have looked as good on the blog.  Trust me, it was a fabulous dinner!

The second half of the fish was cooked the good way.  Fried in Crisco (or lard!)

This time I needed three bowls.  From left to right, flour with salt and pepper in it, three eggs whisked, another bowl of Panko bread crumbs.

Easy peasy here.  Coat the fish filets in each bowl, going from left to right.

I placed all of the filets on a dish until I had all of them breaded.  In a heavy cast iron skillet, I heated up about 1/2" of Crisco.  Here is the fish just placed in the hot oil.

Fry until both sides are golden brown.

I wish I would have made the time to take pictures of the finished product but like I said, we were in too much of a hurry to eat.  You gotta believe me when I tell you, the fish was AWESOME!

I had also cooked some halushki and Ron made some corn on the cob.  I need to make both of those things again and show you how to make a couple of our favorite things.

For now, fresh walleye from Lake Erie.  It doesn't get much better than that!