I snapped this picture outside of a Target, and wondered if I should try to climb the ice mountain?  I then wondered, couldn’t they share a little of their snow with us down south?

I started putting lights outside on December 1st and honestly haven’t done much after one week.  I put about 1000 lights on a holly tree.  We have 7 grapevine balls with lights, hung in a crepe myrtle.  3 reindeer with lights and a cherry tree with about 300 lights grace the yard.  We also have 2 toparies with lights on them. Last but not least we have a Christmas flag with a spot light on it.  That is it.  Here is a picture:

Told you that it doesn’t look like a lot, it just feels like a lot when putting them up.  I do admit it is a lot faster and easier to take them down.  But that won’t be until the first weekend in January.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Wind takes heat away from your body faster than when the weather is calm.  The wind chill was developed to give you an idea of how cold it feels to your exposed skin.  That is key, it has to be skin that can feel the wind.  The stronger the wind the faster the heat loss.  If there is too much heat loss then the body can get frostbite.

Remember that wind chill can only affect living things, and the wind chill becomes dangerous for frost bite at -20 degrees below zero.  Something that fortunately doesn’t happen around here too much.

So before heading out today, bundle up and don’t forget the hat and gloves, and maybe some hot chocolate!

By far and away: #1) A Charlie Brown Christmas, Snoopy and his doghouse decorations still inspire me. (I even have the show on my I-pod, and own the music CD)

#2)  Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer, having red hair growing up, I could relate.

#3)  Frosty the Snowman, I grew up near Chicago and we usually had snow for Christmas.

 Probably not a surprising list, but one that makes me think of simple times and good times.

My favorite pie is cherry, but I rarely make it because my family is into chocolate and not cherries.  By the way chocolate covered cherries are a nice Christmas candy to give! 

I bought the tart cherries and not the cherry pie filling.  Canned cherry pie filling already has corn syrup and other ingredients in it so all you have to do is pour it into a pie crust.  I like adding my own ingredients and I am partial to sugar over corn syrup.  I just use the recipe that includes some sugar and a little flour mixed into the cherries to make the pie filling.  You can buy a crust but homemade is the way I go with some flour, shortening, salt, butter, and water.

I know that by February I will make my cherry pie in honor of George Washington.  The canned cherries have an expiration date of 2010.  Mmm maybe I should of bought more.

We have a termite company that inspects our house yearly, but missed this area this past summer.  The damage was hidden until we saw that trim become flimsy.  They said the termites didn’t get into any structural wood.  They did eat some siding. 

I removed all the damagedwood, here is a picture of the trim.  It is amazing how efficient these guys are and how devasting they could be to your house if left untreated.  I had caulk, paint, and nails; so all I had to buy was a piece of brick molding ($15) and one piece of siding ($7).  So I repaired it yesterday and today will caulk and paint.  Moral of the story, keep a look out at your house for any sign of termites; then be the terminator on them.

While we had an active day here and thank goodness no one or nothing got hurt.  We did set the December 11th daily record for rainfall at 1.4″

The weather was even crazier elsewhere…. Snow in New Orleans, are you kidding?   No for the first time since Christmas 2004, New Orleans had snow.  Before 2004 they hadn’t had snow since 1989.  How exciting for them.

Then a big ice storm has covered northern New England with inches of ice.  There is a major snow storm heading into the western mountains of the U.S.

These weather events keep weather on top of every one’s mind. 

Incidentally, NOAA just released data for the month of November and showed the country was warmer than normal!  Are you surprised after all the cold air we have had?  Well as a matter of fact, the southeast including us, finished colder than normal; but the west was very warm, so the country averaged warmer than normal.  By the way, the first 11 months of the year in the U.S. have been about normal.

When I go to a buffet, which as I get older is a rarer event; I do like the fact that I can try things that maybe I wouldn’t want to try as a single order.  I try to sample a small amount, and if I don’t like it then it is nice to know that I can just let it go and get something else.  After all a buffet is one price for everything or is it? 

Read this article about a restaurant that is charging people 3% if they waste food at their buffet!  At first glance I thought wow how outrageous, but upon furhter review and during this economy, maybe I can’t blame the restaurant owner trying to save money by not having to throw out and waste food.  Granted I don’t know if any scrap of food activitates the charge or does the plate have to be more than half full.  I guess the food police can figure that one out.  I have seen that kind of waste in restaurants before so I can know understand the idea.  As you see from the article though, $26 for a buffet is a little steep for me.  I think I will just stick to the pizza buffet line.

I have seen this rule of thumb often over the years of forecasting…warm in the west cool in the east and visa-versa.  The weather moves in waves and its almost like holding the end of a rope and flicking your wrist up.  You would get a upward motion near your hand with a downward motion further down the rope.  Something like this…

~

The weather pattern looks to be shifting with a trough setting up in the west which will cool them down and we will start to ridge in the east which should warm us up.

If this pattern lasts for as long as long as the colder pattern lasted, you can kiss any snow in December goodbye.

I surprised some of my co-workers when I told them that we made it in February and it tasted like it was cooked yesterday.  They mentioned the dreaded words: FREEZER BURN. 

No, I avoided freezer burn by good wrapping.  I read that foil is the best thing to directly wrap on the food.  I wrapped the dish tightly in foil then wrapped that with plastic wrap to store in the freezer.  (The dish was too big to put in a freezer bag.)

So based on yesterday’s delicious dinner;  I am a believer for foil, tightly on the food, then into a freezer bag or plastic wrap.  This should do a good job of keeping oxygen out; which is the main cause of freezer burn. 

I wonder if I should test some food too see if it will keep even longer, like a year or two; kind of like a food capsule?  I probably have something that old stuck in the back of my freezer right now!