For-ev-er! For-ev-er!

So on Thanksgiving Day, Jeran and I were driving to our friends house for a nice small Thanksgiving dinner. We were a few minutes late getting out the door and then "we" decided to take the wrong/roundabout way of getting there. As it turns out, this led us into the path of the NEW light of death. The old light of death is a major intersection near our home where two 4= lane highways intersect. Every direction has its own green turn arrows, etc and you have to wait for a very long time if you miss the green light (which is most of the time, considering you have to wait for about 10 lights to cycle before yours is green again). That was the old light of death.

Meet the new light of death. So we are on our merry way to dinner and stop at a normal old stoplight in a averagely busy area. We were the only car in line and we waited and watched the light for the other direction, waiting to see it trn red so ours would turn green. Well we saw the left turn arrow go green, yellow, red, green, yellow, red... for about 10 times or the equivalent of 6-7 solid minutes (with some but not many cars going the other way and by now three cars behind us), before we finally decided we were not going to sit at the never-changing stoplight FOREVER! Literally. If we hadn't run that red light, we would be there still. staying alive on pumpkin pie and mashed potatoes. Anyways, it was pretty funny and weird.

We had a good dinner with all the normal fixings. Yum. It was good. Happy Thanksgiving. We got up kind of early and went to Target which amazingly wasn't too busy. I feel bad for the poor stores that aren't doing too well and may not get much help from Black Friday. Good luck, Mr. Economy!

See ya later 2008!

I can't believe this year is almost over! Really family, wasn't it yesterday when Andrew got home and we were all together for fake Christmas? To commemorate the passing year, I attempted to list all the interesting things that happened month by month but it was too boring and empty so I won't do that here. So instead, a series of random thoughts.

I bought a new CD yesterday. I have listened to it twice and I'm still trying to decide what I think of it. It is "Yo-Yo Ma & Friends: Songs of Joy & Peace". It is not quite what I expected it to be. I was expecting something more calm and relaxing from the great cellist but it is kind of a smorgasbord collection of traditional and cultural holiday songs done by Yo-Yo Ma with guest musicians. There are a few weird songs that I'm sure are some culture's traditional songs but sound disharmonious and strange to me. My favorites so far are the Dona Nobis Pacem pieces (of which there are at least 4).

I am determined not to see Twilight the movie, at least not for a year or so. I just think that the characters are undoubtedly much better in my imagination and just like happened with Harry Potter, when I later think about it, the movie actors will crowd out the imagined characters.

Did I buy a 4-pound turkey or chicken yesterday? When I bought it I thought it was a turkey, but now I think it might have been a chicken. Oh well, they are both good. I guess I could go look in the freezer. Nah. I'll let it be a surprise.

I own a turtleneck sweater. I tried it on the other day with every intention of wearing it as long as possible and made it a full 5 minutes before having to take it off because it was trying to strangle me. And it was making my head look like a melon floating in midair. Seriously. Every year when I see cute turtlenecks in the ads or in stores I think I might like them better now but every time I try one on, I get claustrophobic and hate it. Oh well. Maybe someday just the right one will come along and it will be magic.

Gap Christmas Commercials

Gap has done some great Christmas commercials with celebrities this year. They are so funny! You just have to watch them.

(I had to take out the video that was here because it kept playing on its own.)

Here's a direct link to that video and to another one of my favorites:

Gap's "Baby It's Cold Outside" commercial starring Selma Blair & Rainn Wilson

Gap's "Jingle Bells" commercial starring the Gap Holiday Cast

Crazy old Diego, he's always good for a laugh

We recently got one of those little hand-held back massager things that vibrates and much to our surprise, after massaging Jeran's legs for a few minutes, Diego got curious and we tried it out on him. At first he was a little shocked but soon after that, you could hardly get a minute to use it on your own sore muscles. Crazy cat... (I do have to warn you, this may be a little anti-climactic if you're expecting much - it's just to show how strange he is.)

Also we had to put a video of Diego being weird on our blog to be fair to Toby.

Cooking with Mindy

So I've made a few good things for dinner recently (nothing new or exciting, but still delicious).

We have the old family classic Cheesy Vegetable Soup and Breadsticks. I have not been a very successful breadmaker in my life but this batch of breadsticks that I made was probably the best I have ever made! They were so light and fluffy and delicious. Yumm. I made the dough in the bread maker using the recipe from Grandma Hatch's cookbook. For seasoning I did some with just butter, some with Garlic salt, and some with Garlic salt and Parmesan and/or Romano cheese.

I also made some really good Stir-fry. Almost ever since we first moved here, I have not been able to find water chestnuts in the grocery store. Finally I found some at this store that I never shop at. Woohoo! Stir-fry time! I found a good and easy recipe for some stir-fry sauce online (I can't remember where, but it was probably Allrecipes.com). You simply stir-fry your vegetables (carrots, onions, peppers, broccoli, sugar peas, water chestnuts, etc.) and meat if you want it (the veggies are so good the meat is not necessary in the least) and then mix this sauce through. Serve over hot rice. DE-licious!

Stir Fry Sauce

1/2 cup chicken broth
3 Tbsp low-sodium soy sauce
1 Tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp distilled white vinegar
1/2 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp cornstarch dissolved in 1 Tbsp water
1 Tbsp peanut oil (I use sesame again)
3 Tbsp minced peeled fresh ginger
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper

1) In a small bowl, combine the stock with the soy sauce, sugar, cornstarch slurry, vinegar and sesame oil. Stir to dissolve the sugar.

2) In a medium saucepan, heat the peanut oil until shimmering. Add the ginger and crushed red pepper and cook over high heat, stirring, until fragrant and golden. Add the stock mixture and boil over high heat until thickened and glossy, about 1 minute.

Suggestion: Can add some garlic and some fresh orange juice instead of all that stock and 1/4 tsp salt.

Hiking in lovely North Carolina

We have recently been hiking in two of the North Carolina piedmont State Parks, Eno River State Park (pictured above) and William B. Umstead State Park. They are very lovely places, secluded forests tucked into a busy metropolitan area offering miles and miles of hiking, biking, and bridle trails. One of the nice surprises about the area is that a moderate difficulty trail (which I would probably have classified the Wind Caves hike as) is not moderate in the least. There is very little elevation change so every "moderate" trail we have been on could be classified in two ways: "North Carolina moderate" or "Utah nature walk". Pretty accurate. The only difficult part is to watch for tree roots making the trail bumpy. I am definitely NOT complaining, just noting the difference because I find it humorous.


The leaves had mostly turned brown and fallen by this time but here and there were some nice splashes of color. At Umstead State Park, there were tons of big mushrooms. There were all sorts of shapes and colors. Here are some samples (don't worry we didn't eat any):

One Minute Writer

I happened upon a cool blog today that I may occasionally incorporate into my blog. It is http://oneminutewriter.blogspot.com and it gives you a prompt every day for something to write about. It is just like those journal jars that have the little strips of paper in it with ideas of topics to write on. So for days when I feel like I should update my blog but I can't think of what to write, I may pull up one of those questions and just start writing. To start us off today, drumrolllllllll........

Describe the first pet you remember having. (If you haven't had a pet, would you like one? What kind?)

This question has many possible answers based on how you look at it. When I was about 6 we almost had a pet mouse but it died before we could catch it. I did manage to save its life by setting off all the mousetraps hidden behind the couch with a broom. His name was Rascal and we buried him in the garden (as a kind of gross side-note, years later we tried to remember where he was buried so we could dig it up and find him; perhaps we thought we just imagined his existence. I don't remember if we did ever dig him up or not).

Since a mouse in the house doesn't truly qualify as a real pet, next I got a fishtank with some fishes in it. I don't remember the details too clearly but I know I had a fire-belly newt and a little frog and some other little fishes in there. I can't claim all the fishes as my own PERSONAL pet, so I will tell about the pet that I actually feel was my first pet.

Carmel was a golden retreiver-cocker spaniel mix. She was an adorable puppy and a surprise present for me when I was 10 or so. Carmel was very smart and easy to train, except when I had to chase her all over the neighborhood. We took a dog-training class together up the road from our house and I often had to run home to retreive her because when I would take her off the leash to practice stay or come, she always went running off towards home. Eventually we got some of those lessons down and she even learned some signed commands like sit, shake, speak, etc. I remember the days of rollerblading around the school block with her, waiting patiently while she wallowed in the gutters full of irrigation water, and picking hundreds of cockleburs out of her fur after hiking. Ahhh, good times. Here's to Carmel, #1 pet!