Christmas songs - by Emma

(In Chinese, if you couldn't tell...)

Too much chili

Tonight we had a ward party and chili cookoff. I made a fairly straightforward and standard (for me, at least) chili, but this time made it in a roasting pan, covered it, and cooked it at 425 for an hour. It was pretty tasty. Before we left for the party, I had a big bowl of it, and most of a bag of tortilla chips.

When we got the party, I put my chili on the serving table, and they told me my chili couldn't be in the contest, because I was one of the judges. I only wish I had known that before I ate the pre-festivities bowl. I am now stuffed. Eating so much chili while trying to pick a winner will do that every time, I guess. I would say over stuffed, but I must not be really, since just just stuck something in my mouth. Maybe I'm just a glutton.

There were many different flavors, the two I liked best were both disqualified, but that's ok. I just should wait until I get there next year, before I start diving in to it. I was still up to the challenge. Like I told my friend Rich tonight, "I've been preparing all my life for this moment..."

A few Christmas traditions

But first, a blurry picture of a piece of Thanksgiving pie. Pie that's now a slightly distant memory for that got any of it.

One of our family's traditions is to put up the Christmas tree on the day after Thanksgiving. Usually this means I set up the tree, and put lights on it, and then we wait days or weeks for the kids to clean their room before we put ornaments on the tree.

A couple of years ago, Sears had a sale in January where they were getting rid of their 6 foot tall trees for $5. I bought two of them. We have hundreds of ornaments for the tree, more than enough to fill both trees. Sometimes we end up helping the kids put ornaments on, but this year, we just handed them the ornaments one at a time, and let them put the ornaments where ever they wanted to. The kids seemed to enjoy it, and did a pretty good job.

We also hang stockings, every year one or two seem to disappear. Last year, I got a 'mass quantity' sized Christmas stocking. This year we've lost a few more stockings somehow, and we haven't yet replaced them, so just the obscenely large one is up right now.

Another tradition we have is to send out Christmas cards. We've tired keeping in touch with family and old friends, sometimes we don't do such a good job. Sometimes it's kind of hard to keep up with where everyone is. Lately we've done a picture of the family with the card, we haven't taken a picture yet this year. The kids have been helping with a little family message the last couple of years, we haven't talked about creating this one yet, either.

The last couple of years, we've done Christmas cookies for neighbors. (And cards.) The kids kind of like going out delivering plates of cookies. I haven't started cookies yet this year, cookies are a lot of work, I haven't decided if I've got the time and energy for it yet this year.

Thanksgiving Dinner by the numbers

(In no particular order)

51 - rolls - Emma ate most of them
25 - pound turkey - Tara's Mom
11 - Adults
11 - Kids
10 - pounds of potatoes
7 - Kinds of pie - Apple, Berry, Pumpkin, Butternut Squash, Banana Cream, Chocolate, and a sugar free chocolate/banana cream
6 - cups of gravy
5 - Dishwasher loads
4 - hour nap - for me anyway - before 5 hours of late night work
2 - plates of leftovers for latecomers on Friday
2 - spoonfuls of horseradish in the potatoes. I don't think anyone really minded or noticed. Except for me.

(OK, so it was a particular order)

That's not a cough to truck has, but it is on it's deathbed.

I've shared the fist sized hole in the muffler before. I've tried taping the thing twice with metallic duct tape. The first time, the tape fell off, but it was quieter for about a mile. I tried a second time, and really wrapped the thing up nice so the tape wouldn't fall off. I taped all the way around the muffler and thought I had it done up, and drove off. After a mile, it started sputtering and complaining again. Turned out that the exhaust pressure blew a hole right through the tape. (But the wrap job around the hole stayed...)

I got an inspection on the truck recently. It didn't pass. The follwoing is needed for the truck to be road worthy again:

• 2 back tires
• Windshield
• Serpentine Belt
• Fix the oil pan leak
• New muffler
• and they didn't say it this year, but there is a suspension arm that is wearing out
• I also put the truck in four wheel drive yesterday before the 'blizzard' started, and some very loud sound happened just before it engaged, then it slipped out, and then back in again. Not a good sign.

So, I don't want to spend the money on all of that, really. The truck has over 235000 miles on it. The registration on the truck expires on Tuesday. I'll be parking it in the driveway Tuesday night.


That begs the question - "What do I do with the truck?" I have several options I on the table right now: (In no particular order)

• Create a greenhouse of out it - in the driveway
• Bury it in the front yard up to the bed - put a lawn chair and BBQ in the bed
• Start 'Car-henge' by burying it standing up
• Demolition Derby
• Sell it
  
• Watch "Red" to see what they did with a truck. I hear that's really the way to go, but I don't know what my parents are talking about yet, because I haven't seen the movie.

Any other options?

The Great Utah Blizzard of 2010

We had a so called blizzard last night. On Monday night, the National Weather Service started in on a blizzard warning, and called the thing a storm unlike one we have seen here in many years. Or something like that.

People reacted 'with caution'. Or over-reacted. The storm came in, snowed for about an hour, and basically blew out after that. As you can see from the picture above, I spent a very long time digging out from this storm. I'm exhausted from all the work.

It did give me an excuse to tell my 'delivering newspapers in a blizzard' story from when I was eleven. I told it several times leading up to the storm.

Halloween 2010

Tonight is trick or treating night in Provo. This afternoon has been kind of rainy, which is actually a good thing. We went to one of the grocery stores in town, which was giving out candy and balloons, while we waited for the rain to stop. We also picked up a few things at the store while we were there.

After it stopped raining, we went down one street, then it poured down rain on us. They got about a dozen pieces of candy. Not too few, not too many, no crazy sugar high & sugar crash tomorrow. When we got home, the ids were all soaked. They seem to be ok with what they've got, so we are rolling with it.



When we got home, the "stew in a pumpkin" I had made was ready to eat. Really, stew in a pumpkin is always kind of nice.

Seems I've got a

I found this today while walking up to the truck. It's a fist sized hole in the muffler. It looks like it's been there for a little while. The thing's been a little noisy, ever since our trip in August, but until now, I hadn't found the problem. I haven't looked all that hard, either.

I'd have to guess it happened on the way to the trip, when we had all the problem. Must have been something on the road I drove over and threw up onto the thing. There is a slight crease in the muffler, as well.

I'm going to try to patch the hole with metallic tape. Think that will help it pass the safety inspection?

John does not know how to make caramel apples

Tonight I tried to make caramel apples. Caramel was on sale as the store, I didn't take into account the fact that I would have to unwrap all those little squares when I passed up the little container of caramel for the little cubes. Thank goodness for all the cheap labor that lives at my house. I also got too much liquid in the caramel when it was melting, and the stuff just slipped right off the apples. Here are two I tried coating while the caramel was too hot.


The girls appear to be better at getting toppings on their apples that I am. Maybe we will think about letting them eat them tomorrow. Or something. Caramel apples can be messy.


It was also pumpkin decorating night here at the house. Tara and I didn't have the energy to carve pumpkins today, so we had the kids draw the faces on instead. This appears to have been a perfectly acceptable substitute. Sorry about the blur. It was darkish in the room.

Election Time

It's election time, and what does that mean? It means that there is all kinds of noise out there right now. Utah has Early Voting, which means I could go out right now and vote, or any time in the next two weeks, really. ("Come early, and come often!")

I have know for a little while who I've intended to vote for, except for our State House race here. I'm not someone who votes for the same party all the time, I'm happily unaffiliated. I vote for who I want to vote for. (Everyone should, really.)

Anyhow, in the State House race, I've been trying to figure out which of the candidates to vote for. One of them has said some things that bother me, until recently, I hadn't heard all that much from the other. One said something about his website that ticked me off. One had a political party call me one evening on his behalf. (Why did they call me? I'm not a member of their party. Actually, maybe that's why.) One is being supported by one or two people who I don't think match well to my political philosophies...

Anyway, a week or so ago, I poked through both of their websites. A couple of days ago, I did it again. I think I'm ready to go at this point, I've got my mind made up.

So all those phone calls can stop. The flyers in the mail can stop. I like Early Voting, because then when they call in the evenings, I can just say "I already voted.", and they hang up.

Book Review

Final Crisis
Greg Cox

This book is a comic book novelization of the DC comics 'event' from two years ago. As opposed to the previous book I read, which took several months, this book only took me a couple of days to read. I couldn't find it around here anywhere, I think the book buying tastes of my local library have shifted a bit in the last little while. Iended up buying the book on Amazon.com. Amazon is great.

Anyhow, the book starts out pretty violent. Heroes die. Villains prevail. Heroes become villains.

Then the book picks up speed. Dead heroes come back. The Earth is doomed. More heroes die. Some villains help out. There ends up being more than one major villain. And in the end, Superman, and his alternate reality Superman doppelgangers, all team up to save the day, just in time.

I hope that's a spoiler free review. I thought the book was pretty good, although I got the feeling that the author was carving out side pieces of the story to keep the book a normal size. I don't know that for sure, having not read the comics as the story unfolded, but that's the idea I have in my head.

Oh, and Batman dies, sort of. I hear they are bringing him back right now...

Food

I found this monstrosity of a turnip in my garden this evening. I had planted turnips, rutabaga, and parsnips early in the spring, nothing really came of it, so I assumed either I planted at the wrong time, or the quail got to them.

I ended up planting cantaloupe in the place of these plants, during the early summer, the cantaloupe plant started growing, but then eventually stopped. I thought this was kind of weird, we never got any fruit of the plant. Some blossoms, but nothing else. This evening I went to pull the cantaloupe plant out of the garden, and there was some sort of thing growing out of the base of it. I thought this was kind of weird. I dug it out, and it was a huge turnip. It had grown right through the base of the cantaloupe plant.

I also found half a dozen onions underneath the broccoli. It's like finding money on the street, except I was the one that put it there, and it's food. I guess it's time to make a stew. Stew with fresh vegetables.


I also got Emma to help me make an apple pie yesterday. I need to learn how to make pie crust.