We be Lenders and Borrowers

We borrow things sometimes. Sometimes we are slow to return those things.

Things I know we have borrowed and are in our possession:

• Drew's mitre saw
• Drew's router

If there is something else, you had better tell me so I can get it back to you...

We also loan things when people ask, generally. Unless I don't think it is a good idea, then I say no. We generally loan these things out and forget about it until we go looking for that thing again. This can sometimes make it hard to get those things back. Case in point - my old electric scooter. It is lost to time. (It is unclear what happened to the thing, which was taken apart, after Tom moved out of the 200 South apartment...)

Things that we know are loaned out:

• "Mouse" sander and pads - I suspect Tom had this at one point, but his memory is hazy
• "Smallville" seasons 1 and 2 - Tom has this, and is still working his way through it.
• An adult bike - Missy has this, it wouldn't bother me at all of she keeps it and gives it a good home.
• Several muffin tins - This is suspected to be in a box with Missy and Steve's stuff.
• Zoo Tycoon 2 - This is also suspected to be in a box with Missy and Steve's stuff.

Why the post? Because I was going to sand the benches today. I want to have the benches completely done so we can use the big table for Thanksgiving dinner. I looked all over for that silly sander, and finally asked Tara if she had seen it. She reminded me that it was loaned out this summer. If Tom can't find it, I will have to call Drew to see if I can borrow his orbital sander. (Taking back his saw and router at the same time...)

Ono? Oh Yes!

We had plans to go to a play tonight, Tara got her niece Briana to babysit for us, but this morning the people that were going to go with us bailed out. Tara found someone else to go, we were going to dinner before.

This morning I took the minivan into the dealership to get it looked at. The check engine light popped on while we were on vacation, but it didn't go away on by itself, so I decided it was finally time to get it looked at. They ended up replacing some sort of vapor mechanism in the emissions system, and looked over the rest of the car. They also found that the serpentine belt was missing a number of teeth. The dealership was clean out of belts, and a new one will be in middle of next week, but thanks to the factory warranty, I got it all replaced for free, and got a car wash out of the thing.

In the middle of the afternoon, Tara ruined my going out to eat dream by reminding me that we had parent teacher conferences this evening. Anyone care to guess where I would rate meeting with teachers against going out to eat? We hurried through the conferences, the biggest concern brought up by the teachers was that Kate might be reading a little too much, and went to Bamboo Hut. I always get the ono chicken and something else (katsu chicken, usually), then decide I could have had a double portion of ono chicken. Not that there is anything wrong with the katsu.

Steve brought the truck down. I can now get an oil change and get it reregistered. And drive it around. And help people haul things around. First I need to vacuum out the dog hair and kibble that got spilled behind the seat. Looks like they had a good time with it.

The play we saw on campus tonight was a student written play called "Houseboat Honeymoon". The premise? A couple gets married, head for their honeymoon on a houseboat, his completely insane family arrives at the same houseboat for a vacation at the same time. Hilarity ensues.

End of Travelogue.

Another award

We had our annual ward Fall dinner this past Friday. (No Halloween activity this year.) If you remember, last year I won an award for my pumpkin dessert. This year people were supposed to bring a chili or a soup. Tara is co-chair of the activities committee now, and they decided (or were told) to have prizes for the stuff.

I decided Thursday night to work on the soup for the prize. The chili was good, but as a base, I used some chili I made and froze a month or so ago. (Tara couldn't tell I did this, so I guess I pulled it off.) I added some chicken wing sauce to the chili, not enough to over power the chili taste, but enough to just barely tell it was there. It was my little secret, but now you all know.

To make the soup, I started with butter, olive oil, 3 types of onion, and 3 types of bell peppers, I sweated these in the pot for a while until the entire house smelled like butter, onions, and peppers. I added plenty of spice, most of which I have forgotten at this point. (I was just tossing things in, not worrying about duplicating the recipe. Then I added water, beef bullion, potatoes, carrots, and spaghetti squash the pot and let these cook for a little while. Eventually, I browned up some cubed London Broil steak, and tossed those in. Then I let the soup simmer for a while.

It was very good soup. I was full well before we ever got to the church. Then I won the best soup prize. No golden soup pot, just candy. (There was no where near enough time between the decision to have prizes and the activity to think up with a 'golden pot' prize, much less find one...) I poured the candy out on the table for the girls to mow through. They seemed to appreciate it.

Not sure how to top this and last year at next years dinner...

Election day

On Tuesday I ran the polling place down at the elementary school. We show up at 6am to get things started and get ready for the polls to open at 7am. Normally what I do is get one machine going, then work on three at a time, then get all the rest going. They are nearly always all ready by 7am, but this election they gave me 21 machines to work on. There was no way all those machines were going to be up and running by 7am.

By 6:30am the line started queuing up outside the door. I had something like 8 or 10 machines going at 7am, and we had hundreds of people come in the door all at once. It was insanity. It took me until nearly 8am to get all the machines going because of all the people trying to vote.

By about 9:30am, order had been restored, we got rid of our lines, things stayed busy, just no waiting. (All our machines were in use at once more plenty of times during the day.) I fully expected to have insanity rear its ugly head again by 6pm, but at about 6:30pm, things went completely and totally dead. We did over 1500 voters Tuesday, only about 100 of them in the last 2 hours. We have early voting out here, a couple of the poll workers got bored and counted up the number of early voters for our polling place, 800 people early voted. I guess it works to get the lines down on election day. (Although it would have been nice to start out with our normal 6 voters right at 7am...)

By late afternoon my back, calves, and feet just out and out hurt. Normally I get time to sit, but not this election. It took me about 3 full days to feel like I could walk normally again. My biggest consolation of the day was at the end, when I was reconciling voters to votes, and they balanced. It saves a lot of time when the numbers balance...

7 Years old

Mary is now seven. (Her birthday was Friday.) We let her open some presents today, tomorrow we are having cake and ice cream. (For those I haven't invited, and you see this tomorrow, come on over...)

Some pictures from the opening of the presents:

Less excitement than the Webkins she got from Grandma Payne a couple of days ago, but excitement none the less...

Lily makes plans for later.At least she seems to enjoy what she is getting...The vultures descend.

Semi Annual "Daylight Saving" rant

OK, it's that time of year again, where I normally go off about fiddling with clocks. (OK, so it is not normally this time of year, but a few weeks back. It's all really silly.)

I am going to spare everyone the normal rant this time. I have something else to talk about.

I have been using my cell phone for a couple of months as an alarm clock. It can sometimes make a pretty convincing argument about my needing to get up out of bed sometimes. Last night I didn't worry about setting any clocks back. I had the alarm on my phone, and figured it would ring at the appropriate time just like any other morning. Unfortunately for me, my phone is more like a computer, and less like an alarm clock. The alarm went off at 6:30am, not 7:30am as I expected it to. It set the time back, but also set the ringer back. I didn't know cell phones worked on GMT, but they must. Or there is a bug in the software on my particular model...

I still think we shouldn't be switching to Daylight "Saving" at all...

The truck is running

This morning, Tom came over, and someone from my ward who works on cars came over, we diagnosed the problem with the truck. The distributor had lots of evidence of water, it looks like the ignition module had gotten water in it. The guy from my ward went home after he helped us figure out what the problem was. He thought the part would cost potentially a couple of hundred dollars.

Tom and I took it down to AutoZone, they tested the thing, and it had a failure. We got a new one which only cost $40, and a new distributor cap, and put everything back together. The truck started right up. Looks like I didn't mix up any spark plug wires.

Tom's car has a expired registration as of today. He needs to replace his windshield. He borrowed the truck to have something to drive around until he gets his car back on the road.

Thing 1 and Thing 2

At one point while we were in Florida, we talked about just getting shirts and making everyone "Things" (From The Cat in the Hat) We thought about having Thing 1, Thing 2, Thing 3, Thing 4, etc. The girls were not all that excited about the idea. Tara and I still did it, Tara made the shirts.

Wizard Kate

Kate had a "Harry Potter" themed costume that Tara made. They ended up curling her hair the night before. She was impressed by the costume Tara made for her.

Rock Star Mary

Mary wanted to be Hannah Montana for Halloween. This is the hair that would not stay on. You can't see the shoes that broke or the skirt that Tara made to go with it.

Snow White

We also had a Snow White in the house. I guess there was a little confusion at the school until Emma's teachers realized it was her. Is was a good disguise.

Princess Ruth

Ruth wanted to be a princess this year for Halloween. Tara used a costume she made a year or two ago, it was just a little bit big. (It had to be pinned up in the back.)

Ruth made a little Halloween house at her preschool. All the girls enjoyed eating it.