I am Officially the Slowest Land Mammal

A few times a year I get motivated to try to get back into shape. Like most Americans, I need to lose a few pounds. I usually start walking or take a class. Unfortunately, I always get side tracked by Monkeys, my garden, or something one of my sisters is doing. I guess my fits and spats of healthful thinking have kept me from weight 300 lbs, but they certainly have not brought me back down to pre-Baby Monkey size or condition.

Recently, I have been inspired to start again. I bought one of those step meters and thought I would see what would happen if I just worked around the house and yard all day. I cleaned house for about six hours. I spent another 45 minutes or so in the garden. I would usually spend more time in the garden, but it was cold and windy today.

After a little less than 7 hours on my feet, the pedometer says I have walked 2.27 miles. I am officially slower than a tree sloth. YEAH!!!

Check out my sister's craft blog In Stitches. She has a couple of giveaways.

Our Little Christmas Tree

Every year the day after Thanksgiving Manly Man and the Monkeys put up the Christmas tree for me. Sometimes I come home from a sister's house and find it up. Yesterday, I was on the computer and they came in to tell me to come look. Isn't it sweet?

I did a little research trying to figure out if our fake white tree is better for the environment than a real tree. From everything I read, it is basically a wash. In the future, if we decide to get a real tree, I would like to get a living tree and then plant it in the yard. Or maybe we could go to a local tree farm and cut down our own and then mulch it after Christmas. In the meantime, this little tree will last us for years. When it gets to ratty to be inside, I will save it as a deck or front porch tree and it will get many more years of service.

Church of the Latter Day Hates to Fold Socks Order

In order to get out of folding socks it was suggested that I make sock folding against my religion. My religion pretty much has no opinion about socks. So let's invent a new church. Foxymoron of This Country Life suggested "Church of The Latter Day Hates to Fold Socks Order." That might work. Now we can send notes to our spouses about how we cannot in good conscience fold the socks, as we will be committing a cardinal sin. Purist in the movement may even refuse to fold clothes on religious grounds. Everybody in the Monkey House will then have to find their own freaking socks.

Aunt Debbi's Ten Sock Commandments
1. Honor your mother and stop it with the sock antics.
2. Thou shall not throw socks on the ceiling fan.
3. Thou shall not wear your mother's pink footies.
4. Thou shall not take your socks off and leave these socks on top of the play house.
5. Thou shall not throw your socks over the fence to the neighbor's dog.
6. Thou shall not leave your socks in the kitchen.
7. Thou shall not sneak your dad's socks when you cannot find your own because you left all your dirty socks under the bed.
8. Thou shall not leave your dirty socks under the bed.
9. Thou shall not wear a mismatched (one blue/one white) pair of socks to school. The teachers think you are being raised by a pair of howler monkeys.
10. Find your own freaking socks.

Now isn't that better?

Should I worry about being struck down for this little bit of silliness?

Turkey Day Report

We had a lovely family Thanksgiving this year. All seven siblings and all of the grand kids made it to the celebration.

First we released our butterfly . This was pretty lame as the butterfly refused to fly. He just sat there on that flower.

Two cousins called pulling the wishbone. Teenage Monkey won. He won't divulge his wish - silly Monkey.

We started a new family tradition of burning a bonfire. This was quite nice, but no one wanted to stay outside until it burned all the way out.

The food was good and there was too much. Sadly, no one ate my tomato jam-cowards. Table conversation was lively with plenty of laughter.

Hope you all had a very happy holiday with plenty of family, food, and fun.

What I am thankful for on this Thanksgiving

Here they are, The Dirty Dozen Dozen. Well, there is one still in the oven so let's call them The Excellent Eleven.

I am thankful for each of these beautiful children, the people who made them, and the people who made the people that made them.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Deb

Albino Frittilary

Y'all may remember a week or so ago we found what looked like an albino fritillary caterpillar. I brought it inside and it made a cocoon. This evening I noticed some icky stuff in the bottom of the jar it was in and thought, "Oh no, did it die?" Well no, it came out of the chrysalis and here it is. It was in the jar for 17 days. The butterfly is a little lighter than a normal fritillary and a little smaller. Tomorrow morning, we will set it free.

Sorry about the blurry picture. Eventually, I will learn how to properly use a camera. I will do this when I finish all the laundry. This means my photography should improve in about nine years, IF Baby Monkey goes away to college.

Yummy Goodness

I am not a fan of radishes. They are just the wrong kind of spicy. They taste like a cold sort of hot to me. Not going to go out of my way to eat a radish. The good thing about radishes is how easy they are to grow. Throw the seeds on the ground, add a little bit of water, and in a couple of weeks I have a bunch of radishes I don't really want to eat.

If radishes tasted better, they would be the perfect vegetable to get kids into gardening. They are fast and easy to grow. Unfortunatly, I don't know of any child that will willingly eat a radish.

Manly Man eats radishes with lots of salt and pepper. However, he only eats them about once or twice a year. This does not really work out too well with home grown radishes as all of them are ready to eat at the same time. One packet of radish seeds makes about a bazillion radishes. I know, I know succession planting, but what is the fun in doing it right.

Somewhere on the interweb, I read about people in some other country eating radishes for breakfast on bread and butter. So last spring I picked a couple of radishes sliced them and put them in a bread and butter sandwich. Now this was real butter and good wheat bread. Mmmmm yummy. They don't even taste like radishes. You really have to try this. Now I can't wait until the radishes are ready to pull. Today I picked three and had my first radish/butter sandwich. Manly Man may never get another radish.

Just now, I found someone else on the Internet who eats radishes with dab of butter and some sea salt. Going to give that a try tomorrow.

Any veggies that just don't do it for you?

I can see by the first couple of comments that we are going to need to vote on radishes. Now you can go to the poll right over there on the side bar. I will not vote as I have already made my opinion clear as mud.