I do not understand...

How Betty can make a rule that someone has to post everyday when she posts once a week...

Different Strokes

Helen told all about her marathon cooking for giving.  There was a time when I would have cooked all sorts of food for a family gathering.  In my old age, I try to be more practical  and cook what gets eaten.  I do not enjoy cooking as much as I once did and I hate having a ton of leftovers.  George does not eat leftovers.  Yesterday, I had a chicken and dressing casserole that I made Sunday and put half in the freezer because I love turkey and dressing but just barely tolerate ham.  All my family would much rather have ham. I made mashed potatoes and for the first time ever bought a package of brown gravy mix.  George really wants brown gravy on his potatoes but I was not cooking anything to make a gravy from.  The mix was terrible.  I did not see if George used it or not but I just asked him and he said no.  I don't think anyone ate any of it.  I made sweet potatoes with marshmellows from canned sweet potatoes [2 cans because you have to have plenty].  I love real baked sweet potatoes but I did not think anyone else would want them.  I threw away most of the sweet potatoes.  I guess there was plenty.  Then I had green beans [2 cans].  Not sure if they ate much of them but I put what was left in the fridge as I will eat them or can reheat them for George.  They ate lots of ham but there is lots left.  It will be eaten as leftovers.  In fact some of them had ham last night and for breakfast again today.

I made 3 pumpkin pies.  One is gone.  Me, Robert and George all love pumpkin pie so the other 2 will not go to waste.

My bread did not go over as well as usual because it looked weird, but still most of it was eaten and some of it went home with jr.

I did all the cooking and all the cleaning up, except I got George to slice up the leftover ham and put it away. When you only have guys, you get to do must of the cleaning.  Between the birthday party and turkey day, there was lots to clean up.  Oh, and the kids all loved the cake.  I think Robert and Emmy both had cake for dinner last night.

They all stayed here last night except jr, but now they are gone shopping.  Greg was taking the little kids and I suggested the big kids go along.  It worked for me, maybe for Greg not so much.

Now they are back.  Both girls and Robert got new shoes.  They already had plenty of toys, but Robert and Emmy needed new shoes. Robert's are light up shoes with Velcro straps so he can put them on himself.  Greg got Emmy shoes, too.  That was nice of him.

I think they may have gotten something for Lane's truck also.

Hannah already has her regular clothes off and is putting on one of her princess dresses and we are watching Tangled.

Family

Yesterday was turkey day, so we had ham.  I made bread from Helen's recipe and it was good.  George got yeast so it made good bread.  The cinnamon roles were great, but when making out the dinner roles, I thought it would be nice to make parker house roles, you know, the ones with the fold in the middle.  But, I got rid of all my muffin tins because I hate cleaning them, so after rolling out the dough, I decided to cut it in strips and fold them.  It worked not at all.  Everyone complained about the weird shaped roles that the ham did not fit on. 

And, next Thursday the little girl will be 5, so we had a surprise birthday party.  Remember when we had a surprise party for Debbie.  This went the same way.  She would not blow out the candles, and it took her a while to even get into the presents.

Robert, on the other hand said, 'I like birthdays.'  He helped me decorate and set up the presents while  Hannah was outside.  He was a little concerned that it was Hannah's happy birthday and she might get all the presents.  He kept asking, 'for Robert?'

After a while the presents won her over.  She got no less than 2 princess play dresses with crowns and a real kids camera.  

Robert got LOTS of trucks.

 Both girls got an 'I am the favorite' shirt.

We went to the store with this on.  Daddy said we had to change, but Grandma put leggings on her and she looked beautiful.

Everyone had a great time.  The big girl played at the neighbor's house most of the day, so this is the only picture I got of her.  She looks so grownup now.  It makes me want to cry.

 

Happy Birthday Erin Marie

My Calendar

Last week Helen was playing with blogger and changing her design around. I like my blog the way it is and do not see that any of their designs would be an improvement. I like for the actual blog post to be the main feature of the page, with everything else as just side dressing. That means that all the things around the post need to be low key. However, as you can see, I now have my Google calendar at the top of the page right under the header. A year ago when I got my new laptop, I took the calendar Helen had made for us and put the birthdays and anniversaries into my Outlook calendar. I took me several hours to get this all entered, but since then, Outlook reminds me of all these days. I really like this reminder feature. This morning, I was thinking maybe I could have outlook send reminders to the sisters of all these dates. But, while I was trying to figure that out, I found that I could export my Outlook calendar to Google mail. After I did that, I found instructions on how to make my Google calendar a part of a webpage. I really just wanted to put my Google calendar on the blog and have it stay at the top of the blog. Well, actually, I wanted it in the left margin, but that was not a ready option with the design I have. Anyway, now, we will have our calendar of days at the top of my page all the time. Maybe I will find something else I want to add, not that I have figured out how it works.

News on the net

I do not watch the news on television much anymore.  Instead I read on the net.  I favor Google news over many of the more popular news sites because it seems to be more diverse and relies more on text than video.  One of the things I most like about net news is reading the parts I want to read and skipping the parts I do not want to read.  Video is just someone reading the text to me.  I would rather read for myself, or not as is often the case.


Anyway, there are three net news sites I often go to, Christian Science Monitor [good articles that do not try to impose their religion into the news], NPR and The Guardian.  The Guardian has an article about  the stupidity of Republican Presidential candidates that ends:

• Obama sold the nation on hope and has presided over despair. It's because the Republicans have been so dysfunctional that he still has a shot. It's because he has delivered so little that their dysfunctionality may not matter. The stakes are high, the standards are low, and the choice is paltry.

The full article is here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/20/gaffes-republicans-herman-cain-rick-perry

Other good real news sites are CNN, Reuters, and Associated Press.  Much less likely to try to impose their politics into the stories.  And, the local paper from the area of the event, whatever it might be, is nearly always likely to contain more real news than any of the network sites, in my opinion.  And that is what I like about net news, my opinion can control what gets my attention. 

Photo of the day

Mama.

Baby, eating on my fruit trees.  There was mama and twins, but not our twins, eating my trees this morning.  I would not even need a new camera when they come right up to the yard.

This is our crane with a frog in his beak.  He usually flies away when he sees me taking his picture, but he could not fly away with his food and he would not give it up.  He kept walking along the bank try to get farther away from me, but he did not fly off.