A few goals

Last year, I ignored making goals with the turn of the year. On purpose. I don't know why, it just seemed like a good idea at the time. Kind of like majoring in Mathematics in college. The year before instead of making what I called goals, I created an 'unfinished project' list, some of which I never finished. I think it's finally time to get back to it. I've got some things I need to do around here, and need some motivation to get it done. Having said all that, here's the long awaited 2011 goal list:

1. Do something significant I've never done before. Right now I've got my sights on a demolition derby with the truck, but I don't have all the correct approvals in place yet. (More on that another time.)
2. Go somewhere I have never been before. You know, show up, look around, go home. Eat good food in between.
3. Read twelve books. I've got quite a list already, some of the books are really quite big. I need to get back into the habit again.
4. Do twelve small projects around the house. There are more than twelve available, no need to list them here. If I remember, I will try to take 'before' and 'after' pictures.
5. Walk 200 miles. Walking from my desk to the water fountain doesn't count. I figure the walk has to be at least a half mile to count it. Frankly, I'm not even sure I can do this in a year at this point. Every time I try to start walking regularly, I'm thwarted by my ankle. So far this year, I've racked up a grand total of 2.5 miles. At this rate, I'm gonna be a bit short, but then again, it's been cold and snowy as well. My progress can be followed at runkeeper.com
   

I think that's more than enough. We'll have to see what happens.

Tara's new scarf

After the frenzy of hat making was over here, Tara told me she wanted me to make her a scarf. I figured if I was going to make her a scarf, I was going to make a Dr. Who scarf.

I have this vague memory as a kid of watching Dr. Who on a little black and white TV. I don't remember a lot, but it was the forth doctor, with his curly hair and ridiculously long scarf. Maybe it's a fake memory. Maybe I just spent too much time as a kid watching my Dad's oscilloscope.


Anyway, I finished the thing today. It's over twelve feet long, and seven different colors. Hopefully it keeps her warm, and if she ever ends up in a room with a deranged computer in control of a high powered laser, she can use it to distract the computer and get away.


I think Emma *might* want one as well, but she hasn't yet come right out and ask for one. This one is clearly too big for Emma.

For now, I plan to get working on the dozen books sitting around waiting for me to read.

New family rule - "Don't water the fake Christmas tree"

This morning early, Ruth and Lily had one or more cups of water (we suspect more), of which one or more got spilled (we suspect more) by Lily and or Ruth (we suspect both) into or near (I suspect into) one of our Christmas trees.  Tara called me this morning explaining that there was a large puddle of water over there, and all the presents the Grandma and Grandpa Payne brought were soaked.

We ended up opening these presents tonight with the girls, I hope they don't get any bright ideas in a day or two.  All the presents ended up being ok, lots of boxes were wet...

Lily and her giraffe puzzle

Kate and a new reading light

Adam and trucks

Mary and a bracelet weaving kit

Emma and a wooden dragon sculpture - some assembly required.

Ruth and a crocodile game

And finally, my Mom made all the kids sweaters.  The girls really like them...

More Christmas stuff

We've been a little bit busy this week.  Hopefully things settle way down in the next seven days so everyone around here can relax.  Normally we give out Christmas cards to people with plates of cookies every year.  This year I don't think we are going to make it.  I haven't had the time or energy to focus too much on it, and lots of the people around us are about to leave town for the holidays.  I don't think I will get around to mailing out Christmas cards, either, sorry everyone.  We have the cards, I'm just too lazy to deal with them right now.  I think we will maybe do a limited Christmas plate distribution in a couple of days, the girls really like going out and delivering plates of stuff.

Every year, the University has a Christmas party for employees.  Well, their kids, really.  The thing always has a playland, with all kinds of games, a craft area, doughnuts, Santa, and performances from singing and dancing groups.  The girls like this thing every year, but there are so many people there every year, it's kind of hard on the parents.  This year, I took the girls early so we would get there before all the crafts were done.  The girls really like the crafts.  This was the best picture I could manage.  After crafts, they ate (a lot) of doughnuts, we did one thing from the playland, and called it good.

I've been busy since about Halloween making hats for the kids, and all their cousins.  Here is a small sample.  (I wrapped a large pile of them before thinking about taking a picture.)  I still have a few to go, it's been taking up a lot of time...

It wouldn't be Christmas without (obligatorily) fuzzy pictures of the annual school Christmas concert.  I think we are less fuzzy than we have been in the past, but it's still fuzzy, none the less.  Mary and Kate were in the choirs this year.

Emma's performance at the house was a warmup to the performance at the school today.  I only got one of the songs, the phone didn't have enough charge to do more.

Note:  Dear Verizon, I don't know if it was Google or you that did it, but I really would like a zoom feature back on my phone's camcorder function...

New Suitcoat

This is not the start of a talk for church...

Several months ago, I was called to serve in the Bishopric. I may not have mentioned it here before, but there it is. I was called on a Tuesday, and put in the Bishopric 11 days later. The Sunday before I was put into the Bishopric, I wore a white shirt, sleeves rolled up, no suitcoat, just to give myself one last chance before I wore a suitcoat every week.

Anyhow, I quickly came to the realization that owning only one suit, and no extra suitcoats was eventually going to be a problem. I've been fairly busy at church every week, and have only been able to get the suit cleaned once since being called. My suit was starting to look like it really needed to be cleaned.

I've have a new suitcoat or two on my "buy" list for several months, but didn't really look forward to shopping around for one. There are also deals every once in a while, I kind of wanted to get a better bang for my buck. Last week, Men's Warehouse had an online clearance sale (found out about it from slickdeals) on suitcoats. I went online, added a few to my cart, then went out grocery shopping with Tara without making the purchase. I figured that I wasn't completely confident that buying a suitcoat online was a good idea, and wanted to let it sit for a couple of hours to see if any suitcoats were still available. (Usually things on slickdeals start selling like hotcakes. Letting a purchase mature a bit usually isn't the best plan when you find things on slickdeals.)

Anyway, one of the suits I had added to the cart was still available. It arrived in the mail yesterday, and fits pretty good. I wore it tonight. It's lighter weight that the suitcoat I already had, which is good, because I still bake inside my suit on Sundays.

Turns out that shopping online for suitcoats may be a viable alternative after all. Or maybe it's just that "You're gonna like the way you look"...

Adam mows through a meatball

Keep in mind - these meatballs are bigger than his fist, and this is his second one. The first one was "gone in sixty seconds"...

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.