...and good riddance!
Here's hoping that 2009 will be a much better year!
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Catching Up
There's a lot of stuff that's happened that I just haven't had time to write about until now. So, I guess it's time to get caught up.
We had a rather quiet Christmas Eve. Richard just wasn't up to playing Santa this year. I'm not sure if it was the last minute jitters or what. Anyway, we tried to make pasties which turned out OK, but the crust recipe was not that great. We had a friend over and watched TV until about 9pm.
On Christmas, we tried the pasties again using Richard's favorite pie crust recipe. This time they turned out very good. We also had dinner in the evening at Richard's daughter's house. His oldest son and his family were also there. The food was great! The drive home was a bit nerve-wracking. There was heavy snow and wind around Altura, MN and it didn't get much better until we got close to Rochester. At least we made it home before the ice/sleet started.
We woke up on the 26th with a nice coating of ice on everything outside. It took some scraping but with warmer temps, we were able to get most of it off the driveway and sidewalk.
Yesterday, Richard decided he wanted to render lard. It ended up being a lot more work and a lot messier than I thought it would be. At least it smelled good when it was cooking. Richard also baked fresh bread and sugar free cinnamon rolls which were delicious. Our friend Mikey came by in the evening and we watched the movie "The Water Horse". It was a decent and entertaining movie so I give it a thumbs-up.
On Christmas night, we also watched "Hit Man" which isn't exactly a Christmassy show. The movie started out really good and interesting, but it fell into typical Hollywood kill-them-all type action movie. So, I give it a thumbs-down.
Speaking of thumbs-down, President Elect Obama, NBC Today Show, and Rev. Rick Warren all get one from me. Obama for choosing Rev. Warren to give the inaugural invocation, NBC Today Show for having Rev. Warren talk about Christmas on their Christmas morning show, and Rev. Rick Warren for being such a big fat liar. His repetition of the right-wing mantra that "Marriage has always been between one man and one woman in every culture and country for the past 5000 years...bla bla bla..." is a big lie. He should know better from all the studying of the Bible that he's supposedly done. The Bible is full of polygamists. Jews practiced polygamy well past the birth of Jesus, and most Muslim nations (and some others) still practice polygamy to some extent. Also, the Netherlands in 2001 allowed same-sex couples to marry. Other countries have also legalized it. So today, no one can say that "marriage has always been between one man and one woman."
We had a rather quiet Christmas Eve. Richard just wasn't up to playing Santa this year. I'm not sure if it was the last minute jitters or what. Anyway, we tried to make pasties which turned out OK, but the crust recipe was not that great. We had a friend over and watched TV until about 9pm.
On Christmas, we tried the pasties again using Richard's favorite pie crust recipe. This time they turned out very good. We also had dinner in the evening at Richard's daughter's house. His oldest son and his family were also there. The food was great! The drive home was a bit nerve-wracking. There was heavy snow and wind around Altura, MN and it didn't get much better until we got close to Rochester. At least we made it home before the ice/sleet started.
We woke up on the 26th with a nice coating of ice on everything outside. It took some scraping but with warmer temps, we were able to get most of it off the driveway and sidewalk.
Yesterday, Richard decided he wanted to render lard. It ended up being a lot more work and a lot messier than I thought it would be. At least it smelled good when it was cooking. Richard also baked fresh bread and sugar free cinnamon rolls which were delicious. Our friend Mikey came by in the evening and we watched the movie "The Water Horse". It was a decent and entertaining movie so I give it a thumbs-up.
On Christmas night, we also watched "Hit Man" which isn't exactly a Christmassy show. The movie started out really good and interesting, but it fell into typical Hollywood kill-them-all type action movie. So, I give it a thumbs-down.
Speaking of thumbs-down, President Elect Obama, NBC Today Show, and Rev. Rick Warren all get one from me. Obama for choosing Rev. Warren to give the inaugural invocation, NBC Today Show for having Rev. Warren talk about Christmas on their Christmas morning show, and Rev. Rick Warren for being such a big fat liar. His repetition of the right-wing mantra that "Marriage has always been between one man and one woman in every culture and country for the past 5000 years...bla bla bla..." is a big lie. He should know better from all the studying of the Bible that he's supposedly done. The Bible is full of polygamists. Jews practiced polygamy well past the birth of Jesus, and most Muslim nations (and some others) still practice polygamy to some extent. Also, the Netherlands in 2001 allowed same-sex couples to marry. Other countries have also legalized it. So today, no one can say that "marriage has always been between one man and one woman."
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Monday, December 15, 2008
Lights
On Saturday we had temps above freezing, so I decided to put out a few outdoor holiday lights. Initially, I wanted to splice two rope LED light strings together and make one long string. I worked at it for probably a half hour and couldn't get it to work. So, I just used two electrical chords for them...they were supposed to be easy to splice together ;-)
After seeing the way the lights looked on Sat. night, I decided I wanted to change them. So, on Sunday I re-did the lights outside and added a few more strings of lights. I'm happy with this second attempt. I would have taken a picture, but the temperature fell like a rock from about 37 degrees on Sunday morning to 5 below zero Sunday night. By the time night came it was just way too cold to attempt taking pics outside.
Today, there was a beautiful pair of sundogs and a ring around the sun. Of course, I was at work and didn't have my camera. It was quite impressive though.
Richard went back to work today. It's going to take him a little while to get back into the routine of working after being off work for almost two months.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Back to Work
Richard saw his doctor today and got the OK to go back to work. He's going to start working again next Monday. He was really happy!
We ended up getting about 6 inches of snow overnight. I managed to escape our neighborhood between swipes of the snowplow. After I left, Richard said the snowplow really filled up our driveway. He was able to handle the snowblower and get the driveway all cleaned out...and then of course the snowplow came back. Fortunately, the snowplow driver saw Richard was out there, took pity on him, and cleared the end of the driveway.
We ended up getting about 6 inches of snow overnight. I managed to escape our neighborhood between swipes of the snowplow. After I left, Richard said the snowplow really filled up our driveway. He was able to handle the snowblower and get the driveway all cleaned out...and then of course the snowplow came back. Fortunately, the snowplow driver saw Richard was out there, took pity on him, and cleared the end of the driveway.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Waiting for the storm
It sounds like the first major snowstorm is on its way. It's supposed to start this afternoon and we may end up with 6 or more inches of snow by tomorrow morning. It will be interesting to see what happens.
On Saturday, I decided to write a holiday letter. I wrote a rather lengthy one which ended up being quite negative and depressing. We would have had to have sent out a warning and a couple of Prozacs with each letter if we would have gone with that one. Sunday morning, I had a brain wave and rewrote the letter so that it's much more positive and shorter. Richard was quite happy with the second letter (I never even let him read the first one).
Saturday night, we went to a fun local holiday party. The food was great and we had a nice time visiting with people. We stayed until midnight, and for some reason Richard and I both woke up feeling hung-over. We both drank diet pop though, so I'll blame the way we felt on the weather. Even despite feeling like I was going to get a migraine, I still wrote the good holiday letter and we worked on getting most of our holiday cards ready to be sent out.
We went out in the evening to Beetles Bar and Grill. The roads were slippery in spots. The 19th St. bridge was like glass and the area around Civic Center Dr. and Hwy 52 was just as bad. We got to dinner and back OK though. I'm just glad we didn't have to travel far. By this morning, the roads weren't all that bad...but now the next storm is bearing down on us as I mentioned at the beginning of the post.
On Saturday, I decided to write a holiday letter. I wrote a rather lengthy one which ended up being quite negative and depressing. We would have had to have sent out a warning and a couple of Prozacs with each letter if we would have gone with that one. Sunday morning, I had a brain wave and rewrote the letter so that it's much more positive and shorter. Richard was quite happy with the second letter (I never even let him read the first one).
Saturday night, we went to a fun local holiday party. The food was great and we had a nice time visiting with people. We stayed until midnight, and for some reason Richard and I both woke up feeling hung-over. We both drank diet pop though, so I'll blame the way we felt on the weather. Even despite feeling like I was going to get a migraine, I still wrote the good holiday letter and we worked on getting most of our holiday cards ready to be sent out.
We went out in the evening to Beetles Bar and Grill. The roads were slippery in spots. The 19th St. bridge was like glass and the area around Civic Center Dr. and Hwy 52 was just as bad. We got to dinner and back OK though. I'm just glad we didn't have to travel far. By this morning, the roads weren't all that bad...but now the next storm is bearing down on us as I mentioned at the beginning of the post.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
What Can I Say?
Today at work we had our annual "Goodie Day." It was nice, but it was done on a smaller scale that what's been done in the past. Only two departments were participating together this time instead of the whole area. I took a plate of shrimp/salmon roll-ups that I made. Before the end of the day, all but one piece had been eaten. So, I guess it turned out good. There was an over abundance of sweets, so I'm glad I took something else...there were plenty of good things for me to pig out on though.
Speaking of treats, we figured out that Weezer isn't able to chew his favorite dog biscuits anymore. He was just carrying them around in his mouth and hiding them. So, we need to start giving him softer treats. The dog food that he eats is small enough that he doesn't have to do a lot of chewing, so we don't have to change dog food on him. I guess that's just another adjustment we have to make now that 3 of our 4 pets are elderly.
This evening was the first time I've ever gotten what I'd call a bad fortune from a fortune cookie. I didn't even read it out loud after we'd eaten for reasons that I'm not going to explain here. Once we got in the car, I told Richard what it was and all he could do was moan. This is one fortune that we know is going to come true within the next few months. It something though that I just can't share with certain people.
Speaking of treats, we figured out that Weezer isn't able to chew his favorite dog biscuits anymore. He was just carrying them around in his mouth and hiding them. So, we need to start giving him softer treats. The dog food that he eats is small enough that he doesn't have to do a lot of chewing, so we don't have to change dog food on him. I guess that's just another adjustment we have to make now that 3 of our 4 pets are elderly.
This evening was the first time I've ever gotten what I'd call a bad fortune from a fortune cookie. I didn't even read it out loud after we'd eaten for reasons that I'm not going to explain here. Once we got in the car, I told Richard what it was and all he could do was moan. This is one fortune that we know is going to come true within the next few months. It something though that I just can't share with certain people.
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