I try to get the Christmas lights up sometime between Halloween and Thanksgiving and don’t turn them on until Thanksgiving. I like to wait for a fairly warm day. Yesterday was one such day. I went into the crawlspace for the lights and, even though they were in a gigantic Ziploc bag, they had gotten wet in the summer flooding and the inside of the bag was heavy with condensation. So, no Christmas lights.

Today was another warm day about 60°F so I moseyed on over to WalMart for some new Christmas lights. I got a string of those honking big colored C-9 Lights (24 feet long) and a string of white icicle lights (18 feet long). Those lengths are good for around the top of my porch.

Since I have two birthdays coming up on Sunday (Little Guy-7) and Monday (Big Girl-17), I had to get presents and wrapping paper too. Shrek the Third DVD Gift Pack with a beanie baby Donkey is one, but packed away until the weekend. WalMart has some nice black reusable bags for $1 a piece too. They’re a good size and say “Paper or Plastic? Neither.” on them.

Kate’s talking about Christmas Lights today too and she has a poll!

Blogs for Bush is now Blogs for Victo(R)y

Matt posts:

I am pleased to introduce you to Blogs For Victory.

Blogs For Victory will replace Blogs For Bush. Some of the more popular and blog entries have been copied over, should you want to continue the discussion there. Unfortunately, importing all the posts and comments proved to be too cumbersome.

And don’t worry, Blogs For Bush won’t be closing down. the archives will remain intact, but no future posts will be made here.

It’s a little late today as I was making the following movie:

I had the story in mind all last week, but wasn’t able to get it visualized for you until today.

So often, human beings will try to “help” or “save” something and we just don’t really think about the fact that what we want to “help” or “save” may not want or need it.

Here’s Lizzie Palmer’s tribute to those who serve.

Remember Me.

This post is timestamped 11:11 on 11/11.

The eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe;
To you, from failing hands, we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Written by Lt-Colonel John McRae (1915)

Related posts: Remember Me – 13 April 2007 and Remember Me – 27 May 2007

The first post has a heated discussion in the comments section that is still getting comments. Lizzie’s Dad left a comment there as well. The link he left to Fox News no longer works, but I saw it when it aired and saw it at the link when Mr. Palmer gave it to me.

Please help Soldier’s Angels and Project Valour-IT!

Voice Activated Laptops for OUR Injured Troops

Since I am an Army vet, that’s our Team!

To donate through the Army Team please use the link in the sidebar or this one.

With the endorsement of John McCain by Sam Brownback and the endorsement of Rudy Guiliani by Pat Robertson in the news today, we at Musing Minds ask:

Feel free to leave comments as well. You have 5 minutes after posting a comment to edit it if you wish.

Your Inner European is Irish!

Sprited and boisterous! You drink everyone under the table.

Who’s Your Inner European?

Thanks to Eugene Volokh at The Volokh Conspiracy!

On a cold and blustery day like today Tomato Bisque soup is really good.

Start with a bechamel sauce:

2 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons butter
2 cups of milk

In a saucepan melt the butter and add the flour whisking for a minute or so to cook the flour slightly, removing the rawness. Slowly whisk in the two cups of milk. When slightly thickened add a little bit of nutmeg.

Then add:

1 can of petite diced tomatoes with juices (approximate size 15 ounce)
1 can of tomato sauce (approximate size 15 ounce)
some frozen chopped spinach to taste (as much or as little as you like)
some orzo (half a cup or so)

simmer gently until the orzo is cooked through or save a little time with the soup itself by precooking the orzo.

Add salt and pepper to taste and there you go. Fabulous!

According to this NYT correction from June, 2006 – 7.8 percent of private sector workers are unionized (or were just over a year ago) and the number is 12.5 percent when adding public sector workers to the mix.

With numbers that low tell me again why the Democrats pander to the unions so completely?

Don’t forget to change your clocks back to 1 am at 2 am, unless you do it earlier.

Congress changed the dates, but now we’re set with the new ones.

Except for Hawaii, Arizona, and Puerto Rico. They don’t participate in the twice annual changing of the clocks.

Check your smoke and carbon monoxide detectors and change the batteries too.