Jay and I spent Thusday night (Thanksgiving) in the kitchen after I got off work, then picked up where we left off on Friday morning. We prepared our traditional Thanksgiving feast, and both of my children, Lauren and Adam, were here, plus Dylan and his dad (Keith, Lauren's fiance) and a friend of Lauren's were here to share with us. Everyone ate as much as they wanted, and we have plenty of leftovers, so we won't have to cook again for a while. Lauren has her engagement ring, and is going to be married soon. She's not chosen a wedding, so will likely go to a Justice of the Peace. We'll see.

The menu was fully traditional, using my grandmother's recipes, plus some of my own. We had turkey and stuffing (a triple recipe of stuffing, part of which went into the turkey and the majority of which was baked in a separate disposable foil pan), mashed potaotes, candied yams, asparagus, green bean casserole, giblet gravy, cranberry sauce, black olives, dinner rolls, devilled eggs, sour cream and garlic chip dip, and desserts (lemon merengue pie, carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, toll house cookies, banana bread). It truly was worth every minute of the time we spent putting it together. Jay and I also enjoy leftovers, and will be putting some into the freezer most likely.

We took a lesson from my grandmother (she never owned a dishwasher in her life) and cleaned up as we went along, so we've run the dishwasher numerous times during the preparation and clean up. We only had two loads of dishes left for this morning, which isn't bad at all. One of those loads will be the roasting pan, which is big enough to fill the dishwasher by itself.

We decided to sleep in this morning. At some point today or tomorrow, we will begin planning Christmas decorating. We just need to keep in mind that Dylan is almost two, and into everything...

No, not the kind computer users get nervous about. I'm talking about the real deal: Toll House Cookies, made from scratch. I've just made a batch, and they are all ready for company on Thanksgiving. I'm going to freeze them until the day before our feast. I'm giving a dozen as part of a holiday gift exchange at the office in the first week of December, but they will easily store in the freezer for up to eight weeks. I used the recipe from the back of the bag of chocolate morsels, but if you don't have one, you can see the recipe at the Nestle's site.

Next up: homemade banana bread. It will also go into the freezer, and all I have left to bake (for now) is a cake and two pies.

This is one of my all time favorite times of the year. Unlike some people I know, I love cooking for holidays, and the more elaborate the menu, the better I like it. It's the ultimate in creativity.

It was a bittersweet day. Yesterday, November 4, was our seventh wedding anniversary. I had to work my normal 8 hour shift during the day, but did not have to work late. I was working, and got thinking about the wedding. That led to thinking about the videotape of the wedding that we have. And that led to tears. My late grandmother stood in for Jay's mother (who couldn't be here from West Virginia) to light the candle for Jay that his mother would have lit. My mother lit the other one for me. Thinking about my grandmother made me cry, because November 4 is also the third anniversary of her funeral. Fortunately, the tears didn't last too long, so I was able to keep working.

Since money is really tight, I didn't expect material presents. Jay had some plans I didn't know about, though. He sent me an e card of a kitten (his nickname for me) holding a rose, and wrote, "I'm hoping for seven more (decades, that is." Also we got cute e cards from his mom and sister.

We planned to go out for dinner at one of our favorite restaurants. While I was in the shower, Jay went to call another restaurant to ask some questons, and seemed to take a while doing so, but I didn't think much of it. When we were ready to leave, we found that a neighbor had left his vehicle blocking the end of the ramp to the parking lot, so Jay finally went in search of someone to move the vehicle, and we were on our way. When we arrived at the restaurant, we had to wait for someone to move a van so we could park. Finally, we made it into the restaurant. I'm looking forward to a nice dinner for two...and Lauren, Dylan and Keith (Lauren's fiance and Dylan's dad) walked in! They had dinner with us, which was great fun. Dylan enjoyed fingerpainting with the cheese dip, and even ate a few chips and some of my dinner as well. And, Dylan really can sign "please" and "thank you". He wore his halloween costume into the restaurant, since we hadn't seen it yet, but it was quickly removed because it was too warrm.

At the end of the meal, all of the waiters came to our table with dessert, and announced to everyone that it was our anniversary, which was a surprise that Jay arranged. They even used chocolate syrup to spell "Happy Anniversary" on the rim of the dessert plate.

The part I appreciate most is Jay's thoughtfulness in doing these things. He told Lauren I had been a little sad because of my grandmother, and seeing her and Dylan and Keith would help me feel better, which it certainly did. None of the things he thought of past dinner, which we'd already planned for anyway, cost anything, which only made them more meaningful. I truly did feel loved, cherished and valued.

Then, after dinner, it was home to spend some quiet romantic time; we even had champagne. I don't think I could have asked for a better anniversary, on balance.

Welcome to November. Already we're beginning to plan for Thanksgiving. Menus to plan, shopping to do, baking...it's one of my favorite times of the year. This year as we've done for the last couple of years, we will have our holiday dinner not on Thanksgiving itself, but the day after. I have to work on Thanksgiving Day, but I have an earlier shift than usual, so when I get home, there will be time to do last minute prep for the next day. I am so looking forward to having family here. Lauren, her fiance Keith, and Dylan will be here, and Adam may get to come if he has time off. My parents will be invited also. Jay's family is in West Virginia, but they will be here in spirit, I'm sure. I'm thinking of doing extra baking, for Christmas gifts. By the end of the month, we'll be planning our Chistmas decorating. The girls (Duchess and Darla) have been really good about not wrecking the decorations; a well placed spray bottle helps curb their tendency to poke their noses into everything and wreak havoc in the process.

I finally did get one pesky post completed for another blog. I'd been struggling with it for two weeks. Most of my posts are much easier to write than that. I will likely be reformatting my hard drive before the end of the month.

This is thought-provoking:

For those of us who also own vehicles besides our bikes, this might prove
to be a very interesting exercise.........................

A man eats two eggs each morning for breakfast. When he goes to the
grocery store he pays 60 cents a dozen. Since a dozen eggs won't last a
week he normally buys two dozen at a time.

One day while buying eggs he notices that the price has risen to 72 cents.
The next time he buys groceries, eggs are .76 cents a dozen. When asked to
explain the price of eggs the store owner says, "the price has gone up and
I have to raise my price accordingly".

This store buys 100 dozen eggs a day. I checked around for a better price
and all the distributors have raised their prices. The distributors have
begun to buy from the huge egg farms. The small egg farms have been driven
out of business.

The huge egg farms sells 100,000 dozen eggs a day to distributors. With no
competition, they can set the price as they see fit. The distributors then
have to raise their prices to the grocery stores. And on and on and on.
As the man kept buying eggs the price kept going up. He saw the big egg
trucks delivering 100 dozen eggs each day. Nothing changed there.

He checked out the huge egg farms and found they were selling 100,000
dozen eggs to the distributors daily. Nothing had changed but the price
of eggs.

Then week before Thanksgiving the price of eggs shot up to $1.00 a dozen.
Again he asked the grocery owner why and was told, "cakes and baking for
the holiday". The huge egg farmers know there will be a lot of baking
going on and more eggs will be used. Hence, the price of eggs goes up.
Expect the same thing at Christmas and other times when family cooking and
baking happens.

This pattern continues until the price of eggs is 2.00 a dozen. The man
says,"there must be something we can do about the price of eggs". He
starts talking to all the people in his town and they decide to stop
buying eggs. This didn't work because everyone needed eggs. Finally, the
man suggested only buying what you need.

He ate 2 eggs a day. On the way home from work he would stop at the
grocery and buy two eggs. Everyone in town started buying 2 or 3 eggs a
day.

The grocery store owner began complaining that he had too many eggs in his
cooler. He told the distributor that he didn't need any eggs. Maybe
wouldn't need any all week.

The distributor had eggs piling up at his warehouse. He told the huge egg
farms that he didn't have any room for eggs would not need any for at
least two weeks.

At the egg farm, the chickens just kept on laying eggs.

To relieve the pressure, the huge egg farm told the distributor that they
could buy the eggs at a lower price. The distributor said, " I don't have
the room for the %$&^*&% eggs even if they were free".

The distributor told the grocery store owner that he would lower the price
of the eggs if the store would start buying again. The grocery store owner
said, "I don't have room for more eggs. The customers are only buy 2 or 3
eggs at a time". "Now if you were to drop the price of eggs back down to
the original price, the customers would start buying by the dozen again".

The distributors sent that proposal to the huge egg farmers. They liked
the price they were getting for their eggs but, them chickens just kept on
laying.

Finally, the egg farmers lowered the price of their eggs. But only a few
cents. The customers still bought 2 or 3 eggs at a time. They said, "when
the price of eggs gets down to where it was before, we will start buying
by the dozen."

Slowly the price of eggs started dropping. The distributors had to slash
their prices to make room for the eggs coming from the egg farmers. The
egg farmers cut their prices because the distributors wouldn't buy at a
higher price than they were selling eggs for. Anyway, they had full
warehouses and wouldn't need eggs for quite a while.

And the chickens kept on laying.



Eventually, the egg farmers cut their prices because they were throwing
away eggs they couldn't sell. The distributors started buying again
because the eggs were priced to where the stores could afford to sell them
at the lower price. And the customers st arting buying by the dozen again.

Now, transpose this analogy to the gasoline industry.

What if everyone only bought $10.00 worth of gas each time they pulled to
the pump. The dealers tanks would stay semi full all the time. The dealers
wouldn't have room for the gas coming from the huge tank farms. The tank
farms wouldn't have room for the gas coming from the refining plants. And
the refining plants wouldn't have room for the oil being off loaded from
the huge tankers coming from the Middle East.

Just $10.00 each time you buy gas. Don't fill it up. You may have to stop
for gas twice a week but, the price should come down. Think about it.

As an added note...When I buy $10.00 worth of gas, that leaves my tank a
little under half full. The way prices are jumping around, you can buy gas
for $2.65 a gallon and then the next morning it can be $2.15. If you have
your tank full of $2.65 gas you don't have room for the $2.15 gas. You
might not understand the economics of only buying two eggs at a time but,
you can't buy cheaper gas if your tank is full of the high priced stuff.
Also, don't buy anything else at the gas station, don't give them any more
of your hard earned money than what you spend on gas, until the prices
come down..

End...

Worth considering?

I haven't forgotten my blogs. It's just that there are still only 24 hours in a day, and my job has been keeping me incredibly busy, not to mention worn out. For all that I work at home much of the time, there are still expectations to be met. On Wednesday I was in the office until 7:15 PM (my shift ends at 5:30 PM, but I had documentation to complete before I could leave.) At the end of a long day, the last thing I want to do is still more typing...so my blog entries have been less frequent. But I am still here.

Dylan was here for a short time yesterday. His mother was at work, and her usual sitter had an emergency, so Dylan got to go to work with mom for a short time. Jay picked him up and brought him home, then Mom picked him up mid-afternoon. Jay unplugged one of our phones, and Dylan was carrying the receiver around...and now it is nowhere to be found. I'm confident it's here somewhere, we just haven't found it yet. From now on, Dylan only gets to play with a toy phone, no matter how much fun the real ones seem to be. He's learning new words, and progressing nicely. He, his mom and dad are invited to our house for Thanksigving dinner. We're having ours the Friday following Thanksgiving;; it seems to work out better for us. It will be the first chance I've had to visit with Lauren on a holiday at home in a while, so I'm looking forward to it.

Today is going to be a challenge, since I have to start a time-study for my job; it will last two weeks. I carry a beeper, and each time it goes off I will need to note my exact activity at that time. I last did this two years ago, and it was a pain then; I don't expect it will have changed much, except that now I have more control over extraneous noise in the environment. I do have plans this weekend to do some serious work on tasks from my To Do list. I meant to complete some of the tasks last weekend, but my ISP had a technical glitch that kept me offline for three hours, and I lost momentum for getting anything productive accomplished.

Nope, BlogExplosion is not new. But in a sense, it's new to me. I've just discovered how to use some of it's features, and I can see huge potential for spending time there. I've figured out how to make my surfing "count", and now I get credit for browsing, which I like to do anyway. (Note to self, for future reference: Read the FAQ!)

I've even submitted one of my blogs to BE. This is one moreactivity that is now going to take a permanent position on my ToDo list. I like the BlogMarks list capability, and although I've only listed one blog (thus far) on my Do Not View list, I can see how it would be useful, even though the maximum upper limit for the list is 50. After 50 blogs have been placed on the Do Not View list, you have to trade an old one for a newer one. The ability to view Surf History is also welcome, because it provides a chance to go back and Blogmark any sites I meant to and didn't as I browse.

Time for a little Humor and Trivia. . .

A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.

A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.

A crocodile cannot stick out its tongue.

A dragonfly has a life span of 24 hours.

A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.

A "jiffy" is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.

A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.

A snail can sleep for three years.

Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.

All 50 states are listed across the top of the LincolnMemorial on the back of the $5 bill.

Almonds are a member of the peach family.

An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.

Babies are born without kneecaps. They don't appear until the child reaches 2 to 6 years of age.

Butterflies taste with their feet.

Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds. Dogs only have about 10.

"Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt".

February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.

In the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.

If the population of Chinawalked past you, in single file, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.

If you are an average American, in your whole life, you will spend an average of 6 months waiting at red lights.

It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.

Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors.

Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.

No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple.

On a Canadian two dollar bill, the flag flying over the Parliament building is an American flag.

Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.

Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.

Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.

"Stewardesses" is the longest word typed with only the left hand and "lollipop" with your right.

The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.

The cruise liner, QE2, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.

The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.

The sentence: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter of the alphabet.

The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Fallsfroze completely solid.

The words 'racecar,' 'kayak' and 'level' are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left (palindromes).

There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.

There are more chickens than people in the world.

There are only four words in the English language which end in "dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous

There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order: "abstemious" and "facetious."

There's no Betty Rubble in the Flintstones Chewables Vitamins.

Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.

TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.

Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.

Women blink nearly twice as much as men.

Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks; otherwise it will digest itself.
...Now you know everything

We had Dylan over for the night last Sunday. He is a delight, but it does take both of us to keep up with him. He is not "hyper" active, but is very busy. So much to see, touch, hear, taste...and get into. He is beginning to form simple, two word sentences such as "shoes, bye-bye." (When his mother and uncle were small, they would see me reach for my shoes -- I hated shoes then, and hate them today -- and they would say, "Mommy, I want to go..." because they knew I was going out. They generally went most places with me.) So, Dylan comes by his association of "shoes" and "bye-bye" honestly.

He climbs, and is totally fearless. He climbed onto the couch in the living room and from there onto the card table in the center of the room (we don't have a coffee table, so we just put the card table where a coffee table would go), then walked to the center of the table, looked at me, and said, "I jump". Next thing I know, he's launched himself straight into my arms. He repeated this exercise five or six times before he lost interest.

Bedtime here is not as much of a challenge as his mother finds it to be. She describes getting him to bed at night as "a nightmare." I suggested she put into place a simple, predictable bedtime routine for him, and be consistent. He gets playtime, then "PJ time" here. When the PJ's go on, activity levels and noise and light levels start decreasing. He sleeps in darkness in a quiet room, with little problem. I told his mother that babies are very much creatures of habit; they like knowing what comes next, and they like routine.

The house usually looks like a cyclone's hit it when he leaves...but I find I really don't mind the mess. I'm mellowing with maturity. His mom never gets upset by the messes, and good for her and for Dylan. She continues doing a superlative job of nurturing him, despite having had some very serious barriers early on. He is without question one of the most absolutely secure children I've ever known.

As has happened in the past, I have decided to create a new blog to contain a specific type of content that has outgrown this space. I have written tutorials here and elsewhere on the web (The Handicapped Computerist) for some time now. Rather than having to dig through an ever-growing list of posts on my several blogs searching for a particular tutorial, I've created The Teaching Tree, a blog whose focus is (naturally)focused on how-to's, tutorials and related resources.

While I will still be posting tutorials here from time to time, they will be found mainly in the Teaching Tree. The Tree will eventually include links to others' tutorials, as well as reviews. So if you write them, I'd like to hear from you! Drop by and sit with me under the branches of the Teaching Tree often! We may both come away more informed as well as entertained.