The Elephant Song - Cool Tunes for Kids by Eric Herman

Hey--I was watching a grandkid the other evening, looking at animal videos on the net, and searched for something elephant. Up came this one of the Elephant Song. It was nice to sit here with a toddler listening to some nonsense music. Remember "Born to Add" and "Hey Food"? Ah, those were the good old days of real music.

Cookie Purity

I have learned this before, but, obviously, not well enough...
When I set out to make some delicious oatmeal, raisin, cranberry, orange cookies, that is all that should be in them--well those things along with flour, spices, etc.
I forgot today this one valuable lesson. Chocolate chips do not go in oatmeal cookies!
You spend your time blending just the right spices and chewy items for the beloved oatmeal cookies. When you reach into the cupboard for the raisins, the chocolate chips scream "grandma loves us in everything! Dump this bag in your cookies! They will taste even better with us!"
Stinkin' lying chocolate chips. I tell you, never trust any chocolate under 70%.
The cookies look great, but you can't taste the spices, the cranberries, the raisins--the overwhelming taste is the chocolate chips. Not a bad thing if you are in need of a chocolate fix (imagine that in our family), but not if you want some chewy oatmeal/fruit wonderfulness.
I guess grandma has a few cookies to eat. Maybe I can dump, er, I mean "share" some with the neighbors and/or co-workers. After all, it is the season to be charitable.
I'll make some real ones, sans chocolate chips, and enjoy them myself later. Call me Scrooge.

Wet snow, bad brakes, broken trees and it just won't start!

Arose, after a short night's sleep, to a winter wonderland. It seems that I don't sleep soundly when there is new snow at night, as it makes our bedroom too light. Mom was working, so I wasn't sleeping as soundly as I do when she is home to protect us, and we don't have new blinds yet, so the snow light shines through our window at night. Anyway, I got up, saw the snow, went outside to shovel the driveway and walks-no one else was out it-and I enjoy snow shoveling. Put my trusty old shovel to the white stuff and pushed--this was no famous Utah powder. This stuff reminded me of the concrete I spent hours shoveling as a youth-only wetter! I pushed snow, lifted wet snow, sweated a lot-adding to the moisture content of the snow-and noticed, as I got to the front walk, that a neighbor had several broken trees from the weight of the snow. Short tale-another neighbor and I spent some time with the chain saw taking down and stacking a couple of fair-sized trees (as opposed to un-fair-sized trees?). I was then going to go up to g-ma's to shovel her water, but mom told me Nat was on her way on Trax. Rats. I needed Nat's car home to fix the brakes so we could finish the inspection. I picked Nat up at Trax station, drove to g-ma's, shoveled snow, drove up to school, hit Nat's car's starter with a tire iron, started the car, and came home. The plan was to do a quick change of her brake pads, pull the rotors and take them to be turned, pull the starter and replace it. Figured I would save about 3 Benjamins doing the work--and I have done these things before, so NBD. Went to pull the front wheel and found that the knucklehead who put the wheel on last week (not me-a different knucklehead) cross threaded one of the bolts. Called the knucklehead's shop-with the newly fallen snow, they were snowed under and couldn't fix it today. OK, so I went to pull the starter--got the skid plate pulled, the bottom bolt off and looked at the top bolt-which was securely protected by the exhaust manifold, AC hose and other things I could not identify, bruised my knuckles (not my head) trying to access said 8mm bold with several tools. I then called the good ol' boys. Chris chuckled and told me that it takes his shop guys with the right tools 2 hours to pull and replace the starter on this car--two bolts, right? Well, I caved-took the Prizm in for a starter, and, heck, while you're in there, fix the brakes as well, all right? And pretend to give me a few bucks off on the job, just to make me feel better about not doing the wrenching myself. Done and done. And, it's not about the money (life lesson # 12-when someone says "it's not about the money", you can bet it is all about the money--but not this time), we can easily afford to have someone else bust their knuckles working on our internal combustion predicaments. It's about the manly pride of fixing things my own self.
Came home on wet, snowy roads, pulled into the garage, looked longingly at the wonderful two-wheeled vehicles resting upside-down from their hooks-I think George and LS were both napping--and longed for a warm sunny day riding one, having it break, and doing the wrenching my own sweet self. Ah, for the more simple things in life.
But, the stinkin' car is done, and Nat should be safe in it. And that is important. And I still have most of the skin on my knuckles. Life is good, but it would be better with a nice little ride.