Ever been in one of those situations where you know the ingredients you can use for dinner, but can’t quite figure out how to put them together? Or maybe you’re bored with the same old things in your menu rotations?

In yesteryear when the dinner funk descended, I would begin browsing cookbooks in the mid-afternoon. If I found something that sounded good and used what I had in the house, then I had to determine if the dish could be cooked in the amount of time left after my search. Yes, things were slow back then. No Food Network, no You Tube cooking videos, no Google recipe search. Only cookbooks and handwritten recipe cards.

But I’ve discovered the endless supply of recipes on Google. Yeah, I’m probably late to the party, but better late than never, right? The fabulous thing about Google recipes is that you can find really tasty healthy dishes on sites like www.eatingwell.com and delicious decadence at www.epicurious.com. Of course, Food Network has its own site where you can find recipes from all the shows.

But I like to play a kind of Google Recipe Roulette when I’m bored with my rotating menus. It’s a simple game. First you choose your main ingredient, which for me is the protein source–chicken, fish, beans, tofu, etc. Then I think about vegetables I have and whether I want to do a stove top or oven dish.

For example tonight, I wanted to something with shrimp and pasta, but it turned out I only had five frozen shrimp left from my bulk purchase. Not quite enough for the two of us. So I’d add some scallops, also from a bulk buy. And since it’s hot as blue blazes here in Florida this week, I wanted something rather light and quick to cook. Maybe pasta. So here’s the roulette part.

Enter shrimp, scallop and pasta in the Google search box and see what comes up. Tonight I scrolled through several options before settling on a nice dish with broccoli, red peppers, white wine and garlic I found at www.poorgirleatswell.com. The dish was delicious and exactly what I was in the mood for. Check out this site for great recipes on a budget. Poor Girl breaks each recipe down into cost per serving which is helpful, and she thinks out of the box. I liked her min-mart taco salad idea, too!

So when you get stuck in that what’s for dinner besides take out, try a little Google Recipe Roulette!

Every seven years the first day of summer, my birthday and Father’s Day share June 21. Here in Central Florida it will be a scorcher of a day to welcome summer. It’s also one of those mid-decade birthdays for me, but I’m not saying which, and I’m thinking of ignoring it completely. And it happens to be the fourth Father’s Day since my dad passed away. I’m feeling it–all of it.

Dad’s been in my thoughts more than usual for the past several weeks. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because I went water skiing with my son, Jonathan, and his daughter, Alex, last weekend. Jonathan looks so much like my dad behind the wheel of the boat. I helped my grand-girl Alex learn to ski. She’s eight, just like I was when my dad taught me how to water ski. I also took a turn on the lake myself after about a five year hiatus. I just kept telling myself that Dad skied until he was in his mid-sixties, and I’m not close to that yet.

The exhilaration, freedom, and power of gliding across the water behind a powerful motorboat can’t be matched. I love it, just like my dad always did. My brother sent these photos of Dad in his prime, ripping up the water at Kingsley Lake near Starke, Florida.

Beautiful!

Cliff Elliott cutting to the outside

Of course, I remember watching scenes like these from the back of the boat during those long beautiful summers of my childhood. I remember being proud that my dad was so strong, so athletic and so capable. But it wasn’t until I became an adult that I appreciated the man he was.

My dad, like my father-in-law and so many depression era children, worked hard to give his children a better life. My dad began working at Simmon’s Company, famous bedding manufacturers, when he was seventeen as a factory floor sweeper. When he retired, he was operations manager of one of the company’s largest plants. His hard work planted his family firmly in the middle class suburbs, far from his own rural, back-breaking, tenant farm history. My husband’s father did the same through a career in the Army. Without our dads’ vision and hard work, our own family wouldn’t be enjoying the life they have now.

Sadly, I didn’t allow my vision of my father to expand beyond my own childlike needs. Even when I became an adult, he was my  dad, my children’s grand-daddy and very important to us. At his memorial service, I realized how important he was to others in his life. In the filled-to-capacity hall, man after man, person after person, stood to share what Cliff Elliott had done to change their lives. The Viet Nam vets my dad hired when no one else would–there were so many at the service that day. The neighbors who relied on my dad for help and advice. The children we played with, now adults, who looked to my dad for an example, the many men and women who’s lives he touched and changed by simply doing his job, being who he was.

I realized that Dad was the kind of man who built this country. That his life and work, though seen as ordinary in the social history of this nation, had actually MADE the social history of his nation. Dad’s contributions,when added to the millions of other men like him–like my father-in-law, like your dad, and your grand-dad–brought whole generations from grinding poverty to security.

Following their example, my husband has built a life for us beyond the wildest dreams of the early days of our marriage. When he was out of work in the recession of the 1980′s, my husband built a business instead of waiting for someone to give him a job. That  business that has earned profits for twenty plus years now and operates from two locations that we own. I’m so proud of him and the work he does.

Let us show our fathers and husbands how much we love and appreciate them during our private celebrations. Let us be mindful of the foundations they have laid for us with their hard work and example. Let us be thankful that they’ve graced our lives.

I love you, Dad.

Sunday morning a bird became trapped in our pool’s screened enclosure.  I’ll admit the screen needs some maintenance.  Our screen’s battle scars include a tree tear, squirrel nibblings, and even a three cornered tear in the roof from an angry cat. Despite four hurricanes trailing over us in 2004, we didn’t experience enough damage to call in the insurance company. So we’re waiting out hurricane season 2009 to see if we get a new screen or not. But, back to the bird. 

The little Carolina wren alerted us to his plight by bumping into the window several times. The poor thing was already frantic by the time we noticed him. I opened the screened doors and waved my arms in the direction of freedom, but he simply flew back and forth, ever closer to the hole through which he most likely entered, but never quite finding it. 

Finally, I went back inside, leaving both doors open hoping for the best. A few moments later, I glanced through the sliding glass doors to see the wren walking out the door. Once outside, he immediately dove headfirst into my herb garden, chirping happily as he hid in the dewy parsley. 

Which made me think of some of the other tiny, fragile things in my life that I try to manuever and manhandle, sometimes to the their sad demise. Like ideas.

Ideas–specifically story ideas–beat at the confines of my brain just like that poor trapped bird. And, it seems the more I work at them, trying to push them in my direction, the more frantically they flutter and fly until they become exhausted. I’ve learned that if I watch the idea as it makes itself at home in my brain, if I study the flight pattern and gently nourish it–maybe with some research or day-dreaming–the Idea Bird relaxes and grows confident. And then one day, when it’s ready, it walks right out of my head and marches across the keyboard and onto the page.

Oh, this sound so sweet and wonderful, doesn’t it? 

But the trick is, that once the idea is free on the page, then I’m the one who’s trapped, beating my wings against the screens of good storytelling, compelling plots and dynamic characters. And that takes work. Hard work. But eventually we walk through the door together, with our feathers in place, our hearts beating at a normal pace and our breathing steady and calm.

The story is free of its cage and flying out in the world. Just like my little Carolina wren.