It's A New Day

Get Your Christmas Crafty On

I know, I know...the holidays are upon us and there are sooo many things to do. But that doesn't mean you can't find a few minutes for a little crafting fun, especially when the inspiration behind it comes from an online class. The beauty of those classes is you can fit them in whenever it works for your schedule. Get up early, watch while you eat lunch or wrap up your day with a little learning...it's available when you are. Both of these classes are filled with holiday ideas and, best of all, they're FREE!

Even a non-scrapbooker will get plenty out of this first class: Fit-To-Be-Scrapped Holiday Newsletters. Sign up and you'll get a streaming audio message, class handouts and access to a gallery full of projects past participants in the class have posted in this self-paced class you can start anytime. What are you going to learn? How to take your holiday newsletters out of the ordinary and make them clever and memorable. We all have people we only correspond with at Christmas, why not make the letter you tuck into your card something different. I only skimmed the class materials after enrolling and already I have an idea for a fun twist on this year's newletter. You'll need to register at Big Picture Classes then enter the promo code letters2011 to get this class at no cost.

Jessica Sprague has a cute holiday-themed class running next week and she's offering it free as a way to give back to the crafting community. Her ideas are always clever and fun and she's generous with digital papers and elements you can use for her class projects and  again for anything else you wish to make afterwards. I hope I'm dealing with the ceiling man on Monday, December 5, when the class starts but that's OK; I'll download the class materials and do it when I can get to my room and supplies. You'll find all the details to sign up, including the access code that makes it free, here.

The season is busy but there's always time for some fun crafting, especially when it's free.

Crops

Given the title, you're probably expecting me to write about a scrapbooking retreat, but that's not the case. Right now I'd need a crop to get any pages done as all the scrapbook supplies are still packed away. Next week, the ceiling man says...again.

The crops I'm talking about are the growing kind. Just call me Farmer Sue.

The pepper plants didn't produce much during late summer but they really perked up once the hot and humid days were history. The branches of both plants were just loaded with pretty little peppers. I see jalapeno poppers in our future.

This is the second year for the lemon pepper plant. I put it in a pot when Dr. Dale gave it to me a year ago last spring and protected it over last winter. We got a few peppers off it last year but it has been much more productive this year. Dr. Dale swears the peppers have a subtle lemon taste when you eat them but all I got from the one I tasted this evening was HOT!!!! Far hotter than the jalapenos as a matter of fact.

There are a half dozen lemons in the basket too, a couple of which are visible. I gave the tree a severe haircut last spring as it looked rather straggly and that cut down on the amount of fruit. There are some nice sized ones and then there are some weeny ones too.

The lemon tree is in a big pot and we move it out of the pool area in the winter so it can go in the garage when the temperatures dip too low. I was prepared to let the peppers fall victim to the frost when it arrived but there are still so many green peppers on them I'm having second thoughts. And there's a third plant, also courtesy of Dr. Dale, that's just now full of little peppers that will soon turn red if they don't freeze. So they're all covered for now.

We're passing out peppers, sharing the bounty with others but it's been fun to pick such a big basket of my "crops."

Let's Talk Recipes

Call me a bored cook but I'm always on the lookout for new recipes. My AT&T home page has one almost every day, I've "liked" the Crockin' Girls on Facebook in an effort to gather more good crockpot recipes and I'm amazed at how many recipes show up on message boards and blogs I frequent on my lap around the Internet.

Fortunately, I have a spouse who's quite happy to engage in a little culinary experimentation but I know how far to press my luck. Recipes with strange ingredients or things I know he doesn't like never make it to the print stage, and I often mention that I saw a recipe for such-and-such, would he be interested in trying it. And he almost always says yes. In fact, he commented just the other night that contrary to the stereotype of people getting more and more set in their ways as they age, we were getting more adventurous in our eating.

And with all experimentations, there are a few misses. You know...the ones where the printout goes into the trash instead of the recipe box. That would be the pork roast and white bean one I made a couple of weeks ago. It wasn't that there was anything wrong with it; it just tasted like plain ol' pork and beans. If I wanted that, I'd have bought them in a can. Still, we didn't starve.

This one, however, was a hit:

It's a copycat recipe of Olive Garden's Pasta e Fagioli soup, one of my favorite when I go there. In fact soup, salad and breadsticks is my go-to meal when the restaurant choice is Olive Garden. And we're coming into prime soup-making time; there's just something so comforting about a bowl of hot homemade soup on a cold night.

The recipe, which you can find here, was a pretty good duplication of the soup especially with some of the helpful suggestions found in the comments section. To start with, I substituted ground turkey for the ground beef to make it a bit more healthy. That's pretty much standard in my kitchen these days for soups, spaghetti sauce and chili. And I used spicy V-8 juice instead of the plain...and more of it too. I'd guess twice the amount called for in the recipe; I just eyeballed it until the mixture had a soup-like consistency. Even with the spicy V-8, I thought it was a little bland when I tasted it so I upped the herbs and added 1/2 tsp. cumin and some red pepper flakes. Obviously, you can play around with this to suit your taste buds.

I put mine in the crockpot just because I had other things to do in the afternoon and that worked out fine. The house smelled so yummy when I came back in. And I heeded the warnings that adding the cooked pasta to the soup made it too thick. You could overcome that with extra V-8 or even some stock but I just served the pasta on the side and we each added it to the soup as we ladled it in the bowl.

Wayne agreed this one was definitely a keeper and I feel sure we'll be making more of it in the coming months. What have you made lately that's earned a spot in your family's dinner rotation?

The Newest Member of the Family

The guest list for Thanksgiving grew by one this year, but the newest addition didn't have a seat at the table. In fact, he had to wait on the patio while we ate.

Meet Oliver, Kayla's new puppy, who made his first trip to Grandma's house for Thanksgiving. He's part Pekingese/part Maltese, a great choice for a girl who's been wishing for a little dog to snuggle with. There's been a dog in Kayla's house since she was born but they were always big dogs. Oh, she snuggled with them too but it's not like a little dog you can carry around or hold on your lap. So when old age claimed the black lab last spring, she started lobbying for a much smaller replacement. The kids went through a rescue organization and even had to have a home visit before they were approved for the adoption.

He's a sweet little guy who's quite content to curl up on someone's lap and take a nap. Good thing as that's just what Kayla was looking for. Looks like a match made in heaven for both of them.

From Our House To Yours

My Knight in Shining Armor

It was after 3pm before I got out for my walk today. That's my usual walking time most days but I had hoped to be out earlier today as I knew the chance of rain was going up as the day progressed. But there was cooking to do and a house to clean and before I knew it, it was after three.

Ever the optimist I laced up my shoes anyway. After all, I reasoned, we'd already had a few showers and last night's forecast promised a gap between the morning rain and the front expected to arrive in the evening. Surely this gap would last long enough to get my walk in...right? I even checked the radar and it showed the first line of storms was still in Alabama. Just for insurance I grabbed my umbrella as I headed out the door.

Obviously if I got my walk in without any rain, I wouldn't be writing about it. I did get most of it in, however, before I popped open the umbrella. Walking in the light rain wasn't bad for a few blocks; the temperature was warm and the rain smelled good. And then it started raining harder.

I was still three or four blocks from home when I saw a familiar car approaching. My knight in shining armor had come to my rescue. He'd been in the shower when he heard the downpour and he jumped out, threw on some clothes and headed out to find me...driving barefoot no less. And it's no small feat that he succeeded since I have multiple routes I take around the neighborhood.

I've been wet before and likely will be again but I was glad to hop into a dry car for those last few blocks home.

It's Satsuma Season

It's been six weeks or so ago when one of my neighbors hollered at me on my afternoon walk. He's the same neighbor who generously filled my pockets with satsumas a year or so back, introducing me to their sweet goodness. My satsuma tree is so loaded with fruit I'm having to prop up the limbs, he said at he pointed to the tree next to his house. Even from the street I could see the tree sagging from the weight of the not-yet-ripe satsumas. I'll have plenty to share, he promised.

I'll be holding Mac to that promise but before he could deliver, one of Wayne's golfing buddies fixed him up with a sackful of satsumas. In fact, he took Wayne home with him after the round to pick them fresh from the tree. See that stem there on the right? There were three satsumas hanging from it.

We can't grow regular oranges in this part of Florida...the winters are too cold, but the satsumas seem to like it here. And while we're running almost 20" below normal in the rainfall category this year but that doesn't seem to have adversely affected the fruit; they were as sweet and juicy as ever. And everyone seems to have an abundance of fruit. Johnny's tree was loaded too and he was happy to share with all his golfing buddies.

So we're enjoying a little fresh-from-the-tree goodness these days and loving it...thanks to some generous neighbors. Next spring I'm going to make good on that promise to have a tree of my own.

It's Not Too Late

Things are busy at my house. The turkey is thawing, the first three trips to the grocery store have been made (and who knows how many more there will be before dinner is on the table on Thursday, and there's chopping and baking and planning going on too.

Despite all this flurry of activity, it's not too late for some Thanksgiving crafting. And I have the cutest idea for you...well, the folks at Bella Blvd Studio do.

It's a Thanksgiving mini album you can assemble ahead of time then have your guests complete while they're waiting for the last-minute touches to be put on the meal they're about to enjoy or as they're relaxing afterwards. Each person can simply fill in the blanks to record their favorite food, person and memory as well as list five things they're grateful for this year. Just think was a great keepsake this will be as the years go by.

And it couldn't be easier because the talented folks at Bella Blvd Studio have done all the work for you and made it available as a free download. That's right...FREE! You just print out the really cute pages (and there's lots of options to choose from), mount them to some chipboard, add some binding rings and a few pretties and you're good to go. They've even included photos and step-by-step directions. Not a scrapbooker? No problem...skip the chipboard and you'll still have a tangible memory you can treasure forever. I told you it couldn't be easier.

You'll find it all here so hurry on over. And if you're pressed for time, just print it now and let everyone fill it out on Thursday. Then you can hide out from the crowds on Black Friday and put it all together then. Such a cute little project...thanks, Bella Blvd Studio!

A Non-Anista

Those TV producers...they know what they're doing. They use the finale of one show to lead in to a new and similar one. At least that's what the producers of Project Runway did a few weeks ago. I've watched that show for several seasons now, not that I'm that big into fashion but I enjoy seeing the creativity of how the designers work through the challenges given to them. I'll admit though that the winners of the last two seasons were a disappointment but that's the way it goes.

And I didn't intend to watch the new show patterned after it, Project Accessory. Call it laziness that I just left it on the same channel when Project Runway wrapped up. But then I got intrigued. It's not the jewelry and belts they're making; it's the shoes and purses. I can't get my mind around how you make a pair of high heels by hand. In a matter of hours. Without a pattern. Well, except for the one you come up with in your head. And models have to put them on and walk down the runway in them. Good thing I'm not a contestant as those poor girls would either be shoeless or crippled.

For tonight's episode contestants had to design and assemble a purse and, like the shoes, the results were pretty impressive. Oh, there was a dud or two but most of them looked like something you'd find in a high-end department store with their fancy stitching and elaborate details.

In introducing the runway, the host included a statistic that surprised me: The average woman owns six purses. Six? It's just like the shoes from several months ago; I don't come close to approaching the average. I have one purse...and I try not to carry it any more than I have to. Years (and years) ago I had an assortment of purses and I moved all my stuff from one to another depending on the outfit I was wearing. They're all gone now; that was too much work. It's just me and my no-nonsense Kavu...and it's probably three years old now.

Fashionista? That's hardly me. I'm a non-anista and that's perfectly OK with me.

 

Gobble. Gobble.

I can't believe there's just a week left until it's Thanksgiving. Rumor has it we'll be making a run to Publix tomorrow to buy our turkey so it can lounge around in the fridge for a few days to thaw out. And I scoured the grocery ads this morning to see what specials Publix was running so I'd know what else to pick up there versus saving them for the Walmart run. Now that's a trip I'm not looking forward to but it must be done. At our house the serious cooking won't start until next week.

We don't have any little people at our Thanksgiving table any more but if we did, I'd totally be making some of these:

Aren't those the cutest things? As you can see by the credit on the photo, they're the creation of the clever girls at Our Best Bites. They have some more attractive turkeys on the blog right now made from flowers and felt but playing with your food is so much more fun.

Have you figured out what their made of? Oreos, miniature peanut butter cups, malted milk balls and candy corn with a little icing to hold it all together. You can get the full instructions here. I'd offer to let the big people who will be at the table make them just for fun but I'm afraid they'd eat all the components...they're just that kind of turkeys.

He'd Turn Cartwheels If He Could

It's been about six weeks since we put in the new fancy hot water heater. I'm here to sing its praises.

Unlike it's silent predecessor, you know exactly when it's running. That's a good thing overall, I think...not that we wasted hot water but hearing that fan run is a gentle reminder of energy being consumed. We jokingly refer to it as our supplemental air conditioner as it takes in warm room air and puts out cool air...i.e., heat pump technology. That's going to be a real plus most of the year since we're in a warmer climate; we'll see how it works in the winter. The laundry room where it's located tends to be one of the warmest rooms in the house so that should help.

And we have lots of deliciously hot hot water. I notice it at the kitchen sink where I could run the faucet wide open on hot and it never was too hot on my hands. Then again, we have a new faucet there too so it might get some of the credit. All the literature on the water heater said the higher demands with house guests might require that a change to a less-efficient setting but ours assured us they had plenty of hot water. I heard it running while they were here but it didn't seem to be all that much more than usual.

It's been a good two days for the new appliance. The rebate check from our power company arrived yesterday and the electric bill showed up today. Wayne's been waiting, eager to compare our usage to the same period a year ago, and when I heard him hollering and clapping his hands, I knew it had arrived. Comparing average kilowatts per day rather than total dollars (since we've had a rate increase), the energy consumed was down a whopping 27%. Keep in mind that we also installed a timer on the pool pump which also helps but still...that's a substantial savings. It will be interesting to see if how this savings compares as we get to January/February and July/August when the bills are notoriously the highest.

Hubby, the bill payer, isn't turning any cartwheels but it's not for lack of motivation. He is, however, rocking the happy dance.

A Different Take on Recycling

New phone books are showing up on my doorstep. Three within the past few days, including a company I'd never heard of. Apparently the ad rates for yellow pages must be attractive as that's what most of these books were. It's that time of year, I guess.

I saved the real yellow pages and the outdated version, along with its competition, went in the recycle bag. Well...most of it did anyway.

I always save a section because it makes the perfect backdrop for gluing. Smear the glue right out to the edges of whatever you're working on then rip the page off and toss it. Unlike newspaper, the ink won't transfer or bleed through and you don't have to try to use every corner. It's free and you were going to get rid of it anyway. I've always kept a section of an old phone book in my crop bag just for this purpose as I hate having glue all over my work space when I attend a class or crop.

The pages work well as a work surface for alcohol inks too, and you could put them in the bottom of an old box to catch the overspray for the mists that have grown in popularity too. I've even used them with my paper drill so I could go all the way through the book cover I wanted the hole in without having to worry about damaging the table underneath.

Wayne always thinks the recycle bag fills up too quickly anyway; at least these pages from an old phone book serve two purposes before they're out the door.

Cue the Spooky Music

From the newspaper to the Internet, there's been plenty to read about the magical powers 11-11-11 supposedly holds. Numerologists claim the number "1" is an aspirational number which has extremely uplifting energy and stringing them all together just amplifies that effect. It's the perfect same number palindrome the experts say. And while I think it's cool because it will be 100 years before it happens again, I didn't put much stock in those claims of magic.

That is until tonight.

Wayne went off to a geocaching event today, one of many held across the country to commemorate the alignment of all those ones. They swap stories, chow down on some potluck and put their GPSs through their paces...at least that's what my bunk-buddy tells me; I've never been.

The organizers of get-togethers like this order a special coin that is engraved with the name of the event and the date it was held, and those who attend have the option of purchasing a coin. They're really intended as a trackable which means each coin has a unique number. You can register than number with the national geocaching organization, hide it in a cache with the intention that people will move it to a different cache, then monitor its travels to see where all it goes. But most people just save them as souvenirs of the event.

Here's the number on the coin Wayne chose at random:

What are the odds that on 11-11-11 he'd pick the coin that says 11 x his initials? I'm sure I hear the music from The Twilight Zone playing in the background.

And The Heat Is....On

I used to run. Well...jog is a better description as I was never that fast but I did get a lot of satisfaction out of strapping on the old running shoes and hitting the streets of the old neighborhood. Just like my walking of today, I had several routes to keep me from getting bored...shorter ones when time what short after work, longer ones and hills for more serious workouts on the weekends. And yes, I have a few races to my credit; I even stumbled across a photo and ribbon for finishing high in my age group not long ago.

One of the things that kept me going in those jaunts around Scenic Heights was that I sang songs in my head. We're talking the 80s here, folks. There were no fancy iPods to furnish musical motivation; you had to rely on your motivation. The key was to come up with songs with a great beat timed to the pace I ran. Like the Pointer Sisters singing "I'm So Excited." I'm so excited, and I just can't hide it. I'm about to lose control and I think I like it. Sorry...I got carried away with the memory; songs do that to me.

And that's just what happened today in the most unusual way. It's going to be chilly here tonight with a low forecast to reach 34. And while we've had the thermometer drop a couple of times this fall, none were quite this low so we haven't had our heat on. Oh, I've complained loudly on a few of those mornings when it was cooler than I liked as I crawled out from under the covers but generally speaking, we haven't needed it.

I did, however, announce this morning that given the forecast for tonight, I would be turning on the heat. My better half didn't argue; in fact, he said if I was going to turn it on tonight, I might as well go ahead and turn it right away so the furnace could keep up as the temperature dropped. I was happy to comply.

And as I did, the phrase and the heat is....on went through my head and instantly my feet wanted to take off down Cherry Laurel. That because those words are the title/lyrics to another song I used to run to. It was from the movie "The Beverly Hill Cops" from back when Eddie Murphy still made funny movies. If you're not familiar with the song or just want to hear it for old time's sake, watch this video of the original artist with clips from the movie.

 

You'll need the beat fresh in your mind so you can appreciate my twist on the lyrics to celebrate the heat really being on. You'll just have to imagine the saxophone.

The heat is on, no more cold feet.
Inside it's warm, it's such a treat.
Outside it blows, the temps are cold.
And Winter looms, it's already old
But the heat is on.

Oh-wo-oh-oh, oh-wo-oh-oh
My electric blanket I'm a-snuggling up with you
Oh-wo-oh-oh, oh-wo-oh-oh
Tell me can you feel it?
Tell me can you feel it?
Tell me can you feel it?
The heat is on, the heat is on, the heat is on
Oh, it's such a treat. The heat is....on.

Behind three layers I've had to hide.
I'm such a wimp when it's cold inside.
Those days are gone, I'm filled with glee.
No more goosebumps now 'cause the heat's on me
And the heat is on.

Oh-wo-oh-oh, oh-wo-oh-oh
My electric blanket I'm a-snuggling up with you
Oh-wo-oh-oh, oh-wo-oh-oh
Tell me can you feel it?
Tell me can you feel it?
Tell me can you feel it?
The heat is on, the heat is on, the heat is on
Oh, it's such a treat. The heat is....on.

It's such a treat.
The heat is on, the heat is on, the heat is on
Yeah, it such a treat.
The heat is....on.  

One Day on Earth

What if everyone on Earth took a photo at exactly the same moment? That was the premise behind the photography project One Day on Earth when they asked people all over the world to take a picture or film some video of the most important thing to them on 10-10-10. The result was a snapshot of mankind itself captured by people from all corners of the globe. And the subjects were as diverse as the cultures that captured them. From babies to politics, weddings to nature, 7,000 people from every country on the planet recorded what was in their hearts and on their minds using everything from cellphones to professional cinematography equipment...a world-wide scrapbook of sorts. You can hear the story behind this effort here then click on the trailer for the movie they're making from the video to see a small portion of what mattered to some of the people who contributed.

Why does this matter? Because Friday is 11-11-11 and they're doing it again. Everyone is invited to participate; you don't have to be a professional to join in. Take some pictures or break out the video camera and submit it. As their tagline says...Help Document the World's Story.

Or maybe you want to do what I hope to do...document my own story. I'm going to make a concerted effort to take lots of photos on Friday and turn them into our own personal One Day on Earth layout. A record of what life is like in Wayne-and-Brenda-land on 11-11-11. I can't ever seem to get a Week in the Life project done; surely I can do A Day in the Life one. I've even played around with a little word art I'm happy to share in case you want to join me.

Download Eleven

No great cultural diversity or social commentary for my project but I do hope to capture our world right now.

Planner Options

I had every intention of putting new 2012 planner pages on the blog by now. It was going to be the final version; five years seemed like a good stopping point. I even had all the days of the months done...but that's the easiest part. It takes two (or more) weeks of solid work to create the rest of it for this self-taught digital designer-ette.

But then the computer crashed. And while I didn't lose any files, I did invest the time I expected to devote to designing to saving those files and everything else on the old computer and getting a new system up and running. Well, most of it is running anyway. Adobe tells me my four-generation-old version of Photoshop is no longer supported and hasn't been tested on Windows7. I'm likely to encounter problems, they say, although they aren't able to tell me exactly what those problems might be.

So it appears the planner has come to a rather unexpected end after four years. I have, however, collected some resources for those of you who are interested in creating a 2012 calendar/planner for your own use or to give as a gift.

Creativity Prompt is offering a new self-paced workshop to make your own planner for 2012. There are monthly and weekly planner pages, shopping and to do lists, a page for reflections and even a place for your creative ideas like sketches, complete with white space, graph paper and dots. You get both PDF files that you can print out as is and JPEG files so you can add to or subtract from before printing to add your own personalized touch. There's even a video tutorial and step-by-step instructions. The planner is printed on 4x6 paper, a great size to tuck into your purse. The cost is $12 and you can find more information and sign up here. (And while you're there, download the free Outnumbered Journaling Cards. They're perfect for December Daily projects but can easily be adapted to other scrapbooking projects or layouts too. You'll find them in three separate downloads here...just scroll down until you have them all.)

This calendar by Andrea Victoria is designed to fit in a CD case but I'll bet you could trim it to a different size and create a book with it. Pair it with some simple pages titled To Do or Shopping you create in Word for a customized planner. The soft colors and peaceful designs are sure to inspire restful thoughts as you fill it with deadlines and busy plans for the new year. I also liked the sleek, modern look of this one by the same designer which incorporates photos. It's bigger (4.5x11) but I'll bet you could also trim it wider to allow for binding and create some supplemental pages of your own. It's early yet so there will likely be more calendar products available from Designer Digitals.

Digital Designer Crystal Wilkerson made this brightly-colored planner available as a free download on her blog last year. You'll find more photos of it here but the download button and Crystal's answers to questions about it are found here. While she designed this in early 2011, it looks like you write in the dates on the calendar part so it could work for any year. If not, use the rest of her cute forms and get the calendar from another source.

One such source for calendars might be from the folks at Windows. You can download printable calendars formatted for Excel or Word then customize them for size, fonts, layouts or colors. It looks like you have lots of options for both weekly and monthly designs, and you could put birthdays, anniversaries and other important dates into the calendar before printing it out. You'll find those calendar options here.

There are free printable calendars from IncompeTech too. Enter the size you want in the custom box and it generates your monthly calendar in PDF form, all ready to print. This source can be found here.  

There are some family organizer forms at MommyTracked too, including some calendar and to-do list options. The menu planner and grocery list would make a nice addition to a planner. These do, however seem to be formatted for 8.5x11 so it might take some experimenting with the paper size and page scaling in Adobe Reader to make them print out smaller. Check them out here.

There are probably more but these seemed either the closest to what I had created or the most easily adapted that style. You can Google printable planner or printable calendar for more options; more are likely to become available as we get closer to the end of the year.

I don't have a planner for you but I do have planner options.

The Same But Different

A little variation of a childhood learning tool.

The same: Free. The different: Two scrapbooking classes. Check out the Big Picture Classes blog for two cute projects...a mini album in a lunchbox and a family tree home decor piece. The album was designed by Stacy Julian but you'll see several other interpretations of the project by other well-known scrapbookers on the video presentation of the class. There's a kit you can buy if you want to re-create the class project exactly but like all BPC classes, you're encouraged to take the idea and put your own spin on it. Like the album, there's also a video leading you through the creation of the home decor piece designed by Wendy Smedley. You can find both classes here.

The same: Free. The different: Appetizer and drink. Outback Steakhouse is thanking veterans and active duty military for their service to our country by giving them a free blooming onion and a Coke in celebration of Veterans Day. The offer is good November 7 through November 11 which is, of course, Veterans Day. You'll need to present a Uniform Services ID card (or retired), a membership card from the VFW or American Legion or even just a picture of you in uniform. See this web page for details then take your favorite veteran out for a treat.

See...the tool still works; you learned something.

They're Just Trying To Confuse Me

Saturday nights throw my evening routine out of whack. That's because I always watch the local news at 10pm on ABC...except for Saturday. That's the night ABC carries college football and the news doesn't come on until after the game is over. Sometimes it's 10:30pm, sometimes it's 10:45pm and sometimes it's 11pm. So I flip around from channel to channel, checking back so I don't miss the start of the news but finding something else to entertain me until it comes on.

We have satellite TV, a marvelous invention to my way of thinking. I like that I can customize my on-screen guide to show what's on the channels I like to watch and skip over those ESPN or shopping channels I never watch. I can scroll to my heart's content then hit Select to pick the program that sounds interesting.

Only tonight it wasn't working. Every time I'd hit the button, it would bring up the menu used to record a program in the future. I tried it multiple times. I turned the TV and the receiver off and then back on. I went out of my customized guide and into the general all-channels one. I even had the book out. Nothing I did made any difference...the same Create Timer menu would show up every time I tried to select a channel using the guide. I could not figure out what had happened or what I was doing wrong.

Then I noticed.

While the shows in the guide were displayed correctly in daylight savings time, the clock in the corner of the screen showing the "current" time had already been reset to standard time. No waiting around until 2am for the satellite folks...they'd already fallen back.

At least it's one clock I won't have to reset in the morning.

Only 99 More To Go

We ate dinner at Felix's Fish Camp in Mobile tonight. Most Friday nights this time of year Wayne's headed off to the football game with the guys and while Pace made the playoffs, there wasn't much interest in traveling to see them. Ordinarily, the evening plans would then be dinner with the gang but we decided to head west. The Bass Pro Shop ad arrived in the mail yesterday and Wayne spotted some athletic shoes on sale for $19.99...perfect for caching shoes. And since Felix's is only one exit down from Bass Pro Shop, we thought we'd give it a try. We've never eaten there before but the rest of our dinner crew has on other occasions and said good things about it. And a parking lot filled with cars is a good sign, too.

It seemed a little odd that the hostess asked for our name before she seated us as there were plenty of open tables at that point, but she wrote it on the ticket, handed it to the girl standing next to her and off we went to our spot. Then the reason became clear. Every member of the wait staff who approached the table called us by name. How are you doing, Mr. Arnall? What can I get you to drink, Mrs. Arnall? That ticket with our name on it had been folded and strategically placed on the table so all who approached could read it. While it was nice the first time or two, it grew a little old. I told Wayne next time we should give a false name and go incognito.

The other thing that was odd was the use of multiple servers. When the salads came, each was delivered by one person and they set them down in unison. Two diners, two servers; six diners, six servers. It was a little like a ballet at the big tables with all those people circling around the chairs and then swooping the food in all at some invisible cue. I couldn't decide if it was good or bad...all I could think about was how many extra servers they had to have to accomplish it. We wondered on the way home what happened when they had a table of twelve...or twenty.

I had already planned to order the crab soup as I've heard our friends rave over it. Bonnie's theory was to forget it as an appetizer and just order multiple bowls of it for dinner. But I was intrigued when the waitress started her spiel about it. The restaurant is known for it, she said...it's on the bucket list of 100 things to do in the State of Alabama before you die. I had no idea there was such a list. And now that I do, I'm reluctantly curious about what else might be on it. Not to demean our fine neighbors but they can be a little redneck, at least in this part of it. Shoot a deer is on that bucket list I'm sure.

But the soup was good...excellent, in fact. It's reason enough to return despite the false familiarity and choreographed serving. The rest of our food was good too...well, except for the cheese grits; they were just plain grits with cheese melted on top of them but Wayne liked them.

We can now knock one thing off our bucket list of 100 things to do in the State of Alabama before we die...only 99 more to go. If I go back for crab soup 99 more times, will that count?

A Tiny Remembrance

Our little friends the hummingbirds have moved on. They didn't much care for the couple of nights when the temperatures dropped to 40 degrees; I don't blame them...I didn't either. They've headed farther south in pursuit of warmer weather.

But they left a little reminder of their summer-long visit.

I saw it in the crepe myrtle trees when I was looking out through the window. The trees are mostly bare now as they're among the first to drop their leaves. And when this time of the year rolls around, I know to look for nests in these trees. The way the trunk goes 8'-10' feet up in the air and then sending out a bunch of small branches leaves the perfect spot for a nest. It's like a little bowl with a thick cluster of leaves protects the nest from predators and the hot sun. I find one almost every year, and this year there were two.

The nest is so cute...I don't think I've ever seen one that small. As you can see from the photo, it fits in the palm of my hand. And while it's rough around the outside, it's so soft and smooth on the inside. I can't imagine how much work it took to build it and make the inside so well finished. It's deeper than I expected, too...probably close to 2". It would seem like the tiny little birds would disappear in it, even if they were sitting on eggs, but then maybe that's the idea.

Most of the time only one hummingbird was at the feeder at a time but there were occasions when we'd see two...and rarely three. Most of the twos were males, one battling to protect his territory from the other but maybe the other two and the rare threes were families. If we have a nest, we had to have babies...right? The nest was located a mere ten yards from the feeder.

I always hate when the hummingbirds leave, partly because it's another reminder that months of chilly temperatures are just around the corner. But mainly because I enjoy watching them buzz in and out or just sit on the perch with the sun bouncing off their green backs. I'll miss them but it's nice they left me a little remembrance until they come again next spring.

Let There Be Light

I thought of my friend Carol when it came time to replace the light bulb in the lamp in the living room. Of all the lights in the house, it burns the most. That's because it's on a timer so it comes on and goes off at the same time every day whether we're here or not.

Why did a light bulb make me think of Carol? That's because she's not a fan of the new light bulbs...or as Carol might describe them, the non-light bulbs. The CFLs don't bother me, but if Carol had a choice, she'd repeal the Congress-mandated phaseout of incandescents which begins next year so she could have enough light to read by.

So I did a little research and found that the EcoSmart Soft White bulbs were rated as one of the best CFLs in a number of reviews, including use as a reading light. It's supposed to be "full-color" light, not as yellow as incandescents but not as blue as fluorescents...more like daylight. And I skipped right over those 14-watt CFLs...they're only equivalent to the old 60-watt bulb and went for the big guns. There's less mercury in these bulbs too and a nine-year warranty. When's the last time you had a light bulb you used regularly last night years? Me...never.

It looks a little weird in our living room now, mostly because we've had twenty years of looking at things in the warm glow of incandescent light. But you can definitely see. In fact, Wayne says it's so bright that he has to close the door to the bedroom when he heads to bed knowing the light will be on for another hour or two. If you're going to have light then let there be light.

The Rest of the Story

My computer stories are a little like a bad late-night infomercial. You know: But wait...there's more! And there is, indeed, more.

Let's go back to last Thursday when we first bought the thing. Our salesman looked to be a college student...or if not, he was certainly someone for whom college wasn't a distant memory. He was pleasant, knowledgeable and very helpful. The last thing he said as he was ringing up our purchase was that the store puts different models of its technology products on sale every week and if our computer went on sale in the next 14 days, we would be entitled to a refund.

I'm sure they count of the vast majority of people never checking the sales ads after they leave the store; I'm not part of that majority. I was a little miffed that we didn't get an Office Depot sales pamphlet in the Sunday paper (which didn't arrive until 3:30pm...but that's another story.) It seems some weeks we hit the jackpot and there are three or four of them stuffed in our paper.

Not to be deterred, I went online. And sure enough the very same computer we boughtis on sale his week. I printed that baby out and we brought it and the receipt into the store this afternoon. We walked out with a $70-and-tax refund which covered the discounted cost of the monitor. It went a long way towards making me forget last week's frustration.

For those of you who've asked, this is the computer we ended up buying. It's quite the hoss...a fast processor, lots of memory and a huge drive for all my photos, etc. It's a lot of computer for the money. We've owned HP computers for...well, forever and always had success with them. We casually looked at other brands but it's hard to ignore a long history of good service.

I'd like to think this is the end of the story other than years of faithful service from my shiny new companion. I hope I'm right.