respublica

This must be the season

For the last week or two I have been getting annoying robo calls on my phone. I don't answer them and go back later and delete or block. I block the caller when I've checked the number online to make sure it wasn't a real person or entity we know.

But it is really really annoying and now a daily occurrence.

Christmas Cactus

We have a Christmas Cactus plant and it is just beautifully filled with blooms right now. It has grown rather large and this article may help others who believe after the blooms have faded it will be time to re-pot it into a bigger container. This is helpful.

These plants bloom between November and January, thus the name. But being in the cactus family means learning a bit about when to water, what type of light, etc. This may be helpful there. 

We enjoy ours

 

This is the MOST absurd thing I've read this week

The article begins like this: "There are a number of ways you can tell you're getting older, especially when it comes to your personal fitness, aches and pains notwithstanding. In a new video on powerlifter Mark Bell's YouTube channel, legendary fitness coach Chris Hinshaw shows off what he believes to be the definitive gauge of longevity.  "This is the decider of whether or not you're still in the game."

So this power lifter has decided how we can gauge our longevity by doing a feat no one in their right mind would even consider. He says, "This is the decider of whether or not you're still in the game."

So what is this decider? You must begin by standing barefoot on the floor. Then raise one foot into the air. put your sock and shoe back onto your elevated foot. You're not allowed to bring that foot back down to the ground until the shoe is on, with the shoelaces fully tied. "You have to do it in one move," says Hinshaw. Then, switch feet and repeat on the other side.

The link to this story has a video of a late 30-ish year old guy trying this. Which leads me to believe anyone older than this will never be able to complete it.

The leaning sign

A couple of weeks ago I posted a picture of a fallen sign next to the Collinsville American Legion's exit drive. It had said exit only and was placed too close to the edge and was hit several times by cars leaving. Eventually it was hit for the last time, leaned way over and had to be replaced. Recently a new sign replaced the old and was also placed too close to the edge and it wasn't long before this one was hit.

And here we go again. Leaning and waiting for the next hit. I am kind of obsessed with this kind of thing since I once turned into a misplaced sign and wrecked the side of our car.

Oven Door messed up?

After a day of Thanksgiving cooking as well as a few past cooked dinners I realized just how badly our oven door needed cleaning. This is not the easiest job around the house since the streaks are usually baked on grease splatter. Over the years many products have been touted as the best way to get that glass door clean, some the strong kind that needs rubber gloves, others too weak.

Which meant I perked up when I read a story this morning coming from the famous household advice giver, Mrs. Finch. She claims the most amazing way to clean an oven door perfectly and safely is by using a Finish Powerball dish washing tablet. This is a hard type of tablet unlike the squishy types most often seen for dishwashers. Spray the glass with water, rub the tablet around the surface, wipe clean.

Since I have some of these Finish tablets I am going to give this a try. But not today. The day after Thanksgiving I'm weary of kitchen work.

Two Additions to Tiny Town

It's getting close to putting out our Christmas village we call Tiny Town. The front yard gets filled with lighted trees, animal figures and buildings Dale has built over the years. We have a couple of houses, a store, a barn etc. These get spotlights in front of them. We always encourage people to walk around and enjoy. This was originally built and put out into the side yard of our house at the seminary, but last year we were able to make it work here in Collinsville. Over the years a couple of our lighted animals bit the dust, so I replaced them with a new dog and a cute teddy bear.

Here are the new guys waiting to get out and joy the party.

Oh, and here is Dale this morning repairing some of the houses in his workshop which is supposed to be a garage.

Turkey temperature

The hardest part of roasting a turkey, at least to me, is making sure it is done. I've long used two ways to do this. The first is poking the tip of a knife into it to see if the juices run clear. I followed that up with a meat thermometer. But, this year I decided to splurge and get one of those thermometers in which the probe goes into the turkey at the beginning and a cord attached to it runs outside the oven and is connected to a digital display. This way i won't have to keep opening the oven door to check on the progress. At least I hope so.

Actually the hardest part of the turkey is getting it ready to put into the oven.Those suckers are heavy, cold and slippery. Dale removes it when done I'm happy to say. I do put some stuffing inside the bird, and the rest goes into a baking dish.

Racetrack Christmas

Our daughter was in town this weekend and we got reserved time slot tickets to the World Wide Technology Raceway's Wonderlights Christmas drive through show. This was amazing. You stay in your car and drive around the entire race track area which is filled with all kinds of lighted figures accompanied by perfect music. The music comes from the car radio tuned to 89.5 or some such which is perfectly timed to whatever scene you are driving past.

The music and lighted figures are also a nice combination of secular and religious Christmas. We will go again it was so wonderful. If you've never been to this, you must go.

 

 

 

Food advice time of the year

Yes, Thanksgiving is this coming Thursday and every newspaper, online food talk, and even local TV news people are giving advice on the best way to prepare the meal. They are also adding scary warnings about food poisoning and bacteria covering everything from the turkey to the side dishes. As someone who is more than mildly paranoid about food safety, all these warnings stress me out.

We've fixed Thanksgiving turkey for years with no ill effects, but history does not stop me from fretting over all the bad possibilities. Today I read that we should not rinse off or wash our turkey before getting it ready for the oven. I always do this, especially the inside and it irritates me no end to be told not to do it. The reason seems to be that washing or rinsing it will cover the countertops and sink with all kinds of bacteria. If rinsing moves bacteria to the countertops which can be easily cleaned, it still makes sense to get it off the turkey. So I will continue as always and give it a good rinsing off and out and then give the surfaces a good bleach cleaning.

As to the other food issues, we should all know by now to not let got foods sit out forever after a meal. Get them wrapped up and put into the refrigerator. I am so fanatical I barely wait for the last person to put their fork down before I start putting food away. It's worked for us so far. I never understood how anyone could leave cooked food sitting around for hours and even over night. Get that stuff into the refrigerator. Pie and rolls can stay out, the rest has to be put into the chill in good order.

What to get grandparents for Christmas

As a grandparent, this headline interested me. It gives advice to grandkids or their parents on what to get us for Christmas.

To be perfectly frank, none of these ideas are something we'd get much of a kick out of. Not to be rude, but kids, don't do this. Some of the ideas are:

Grandparents picture frame.  "Nothing says happy holidays to a grandparent more than receiving a picture of their grandchild already in a frame",  Nope, have those.

A scrapbook. Nope

Keychain set.  Again nope

Grandparents coffee mug set.  Oh man, we have way too many coffee mugs as it is.

There are more, but, honestly, we'd rather have wine.