Wal-mart is evil.

I've been listening to the radio alot lately for the Christmas music, and every once in a while I hear a commercial for Wal-mart. After the voice is through expounding on all the wonderful things you can buy and how much money you'll save, the last line of the commercial states, "The more you save, the more Christmas you can give."

What?!! Christmas is about celebrating Christ's birth, which leads into his life and the saving resurrection at Easter. This commercial, though it does promote the spirit of giving, is basically saying that the more money you have, the better your Christmas will be. Now on the one hand I understand that with the money you save you can buy friends and family better gifts than if you had less money so, I don't know, maybe they'll like you more. But whatever happened to "It's the thought that counts." Instead of spending hundreds of dollars getting the easy gift, some bit of plastic that will break in a week or a shiny gadget that whoever it is really, really wants but isn't practical, why not put some genuine thought into it.

Commercials like this are part of what make Christmas a stressful season. People think they have to get everyone they know exactly what they want or it won't be a merry christmas. They end up spending more than they can afford, and for those of us without the funds we get stressed because we get gifts and we can't return in kind.

But hey, it's the thought that counts, right?

Thanksgiving

I realize it's late but, Happy Turkey Day!

With Nikki in TN, it was just Mom, Dad, me and Matthew for Thanksgiving at Mom's place. Since Mom had to work on the actual Thanksgiving Day I was drafted (not unwillingly) to take over. On Wed I prepared about half of what we had to eat: candied sweet potatoes, vinegar carrots, plain potatoes (peeled and cut up), and of course the turkey had been thawing since Tue. On Thur I cooked and mashed the plain potatoes, put the turkey in the oven (upside-down according to a tip from Lunds & Byerly's), cooked the sweet potatoes in the oven, boiled the corn-on-the-cob, made stuffing, and baked the biscuits.

Besides setting the table with fancy dishes and napkins and candles, Mom helped with the order of the layers for the candied sweet potatoes and what ingredients went into the carrot dish. Other than that, I did the actual cooking and all-in-all it turned out well. The hardest part is the timing, trying to get everything to finish close to the same time. There was also apple pie w/ice cream for desert but we were all too full to even consider it.

Since Mom had to work on the day after Thanksgiving Dad stayed the night in the guest bedroom. That way Mom would be able to get to bed early-ish because she had to get up at five am. I think Matthew got more of a kick out of it than I did. I see Dad all the time so it was cool that Matthew and Dad got to spend some time together, even if it was just watching movies all day.

Now that I've shown my culinary skill, Dad may expect more from burgers and frozen dinners. :) Mom asked if I could do this again next year. I said sure if she wanted me too.

lost, found, & a tasty sandwich

Church tonight ran a little later than usual so I missed my first bus which messed up the connecting to the second bus I take home. Long story short, church gets out at 7p so I'm usually home before 8. Tonight I didn't get home until almost 9:30 and Dad freaked out a little. I walked in the door and he immediately hugged me and wouldn't let go. I was surprised because missing the bus has happened before and he didn't get emotional that time. He said something about a missing kid on the news (I haven't heard) so maybe that contributed. But anyway, here I am, safe and sound.

Yesterday for lunch I made a peculiar sandwich. There's nothing quick (meaning frozen/microwavable) in the apartment so I had to do some creative thinking. I started with bologna and cheese but I toasted the bread. But that didn't seem quite enough, then I saw we have a bag of apples in the fridge. Little red and yellow stripedy things a bit smaller than a billiard ball. I thought, "Apples go good with cheese and also with Miracle Whip (ever have Waldorf Salad?)." So I grabbed an apple, quartered it, cut out the bits of core and sliced it really thin, peel and all. When the bread was done I spread a thin layer of Whip on each slice, then put down apples, cheese and one slice of bologna. Whooo-boy is that good. I don't know if I'm the first to discover it or if it's just never been named, but it's a nice variation on the old Bologna & Cheese.

looking up

I've found that the worse things are, the more I write. Things are good, maybe even great. So much better than I've ever been. Which would explain my absence. That and I've spent the past two weeks house/pet-sitting for my mom (without a working computer) while she and the rest of Messengers were in the Philippines. More on that later, the trip not my house-sitting.

Now what was I going to write about.....umm. That's the problem with having the internet at the tip of my fingers. My mind wanders and I'll think of something I want to look up and I go off on a tangent, and then it's 20 minutes later and my original train of thought has left without me. For you it'll just be a second for your eye to move to the next line, but between this sentence and the next there will likely be a real-time gap of up to 15 minutes.

Nope, can't think of it. Guess this will be a short one then.