Welcome to Twenty Ten

This is the start of a new year and also a new decade. The year Twenty Ten has great promise for us all, as our President gets settled into office and is able to use his influence to create the great changes that he has promised to bring us. There have been some economic stimulus plans, such as “cash for clunkers,” that were a huge success. Now we need to see some serious, lasting jobs created and help for Americans to keep or buy homes, and a new approach to our health care.

Christmas at Home

Looks like I’m the only one who won’t be gathering with the family at the homeplace this year. Everyone in my family lives within an hour or two of my mom’s house except for me. It is a 14 hour drive to get to mom’s house, door to door, which is a long hard day of driving, and to be honest, I’m not up for that long of a drive in one day. I would need to stay overnight at a roadside motel to get some rest and not take the chance of an accident due to driver fatigue.

The cost of gas has risen so that just paying for gas up and back is cost prohibitive. It costs $70 to fill the tank and I estimate it would take 3 tanks to get there, one tank to visit locally and then 3 tanks back. That is a lot of money for gas that could be better spent benefiting my family instead of some Arab sheik.

So we are staying home this year and I guess we will get everyone on the video cam sometime around noon to exchange Christmas wishes among the family.

Merry Christmas to all!

Turkey Day

Last week I bought a huge frozen Butterball turkey to enjoy on Thanksgiving. We took it out of the freezer and put it into the refrigerator to defrost 3 days ago. It is still as hard as a rock and I guess we will have to soak it in the kitchen sink or figure out how to use the microwave to finish thawing it out before we pop it in the oven today. I think the turkey is too big to even fit into the microwave. This will be an interesting problem to solve, with physics and logistic coming into play.

Looks like dinner will be in the evening rather than late afternoon as originally planned. LOL

Boo!

Last year we had a lot of kids come to the door for trick or treating. I was concerned that we night run out of candy before the night was through, but we managed to squeak by with just a few pieces left over at 9:00 pm, and we turned off the porch light at 9. I don’t think that kids should be roaming the neighborhoods after 9:00 pm, and it appears that most of my neighbors believe the same thing.

This year we bought an extra bag of assorted candies from Sam’s Club. If we have any left over by the end of the evening, at least this is candy that we like and can enjoy eating ourselves over the next couple of months.

Here it is 5:00 pm and we already have kids coming to the door! They are very young kids with their parents, and I’m sure they will tucker out quickly. It is fun to see the imaginative costumes that are being worn this year.

Happy Holidays

This time of year is for holidays and family things, no matter what your religion or lack of. It’s the season to be merry. It’s the time to be generous and grateful. This is when you realize that family means everything and friends are to be treasured.

So Merry Christmas to my friends and family. If you celebrate other holidays during this time of year, I hope that your choice of celebration is wonderful for you, too.