Yesterday it snowed. Not TONS, but for some reason, the snow that fell was very slick. On my way to church, I took the first bend out of the neighborhood at around 20 miles per hour, which was about 15 miles per hour too fast for conditions, apparently. I slid into the curb.
After that, the front tire was wobbly and sounded horrible.
Great.
Fortunately, a neighbor (and good friend) has a mobile brake service business and he looked at it today. I drove the car 2 blocks to his house, which saved me the towing fee. I destroyed the bearing and hub on the passenger side front wheel and that wheel was badly damaged as well. My friend was surprised that the tire held any air any more. I also dinged the back wheel on the same side enough that it would cause a wobble at higher speeds, so that needed to be fixed as well. The aluminum wheel and the bearing on the front took the brunt of the collision, so the "A arm" wasn't damaged.
The cost? $320 for the bearing and hub and the two wheels are going to cost $130 each. Then I need to have the tires removed from the dead wheels and mounted on the new wheels and have them balanced . That costs $20/tire. Finally, I'll need to have an alignment done.
Wow.
That was an expensive slide. *sigh*
If I knew it was going to cost THAT much to get to church yesterday, I would have hired a limousine service to take us to church and we could have gone in STYLE.
I had a lot of fun with the Wii over the Christmas break.
Most fun for me was Guitar Hero III, and that's saying something because I had so much fun with Wii Sports; Zelda, Twilight Princess; and DDR (Or, WiiDR, as I like to call it).
I spent more time wearing out the fingers on my left hand with Guitar Hero than I think I want to admit. I know a LOT of the songs because a lot of them are old enough for even an old fart like me to remember. I remember a lot of them being played at High School dances, or on my friend's church youth group trips before the leaders reminded them that only Christian music was allowed and they replaced the tape (yes, cassette tape) with music that sounded exactly the same, but had lyrics about loving each other and accepting Jesus, despite the fact that the music made you feel like pounding someone's head in. (That's a record run-on sentence for me. I'll break it later.) My teenager likes the game a lot too, so we'll probably be getting a second guitar for a "cooperative career."
I don't love all of the music in Guitar Hero III, but I like a whole lot of it, and the music that I don't really like is still fun and challenging. I'm not great at it yet, but I beat it on "Easy" and I'm most of the way through a second beating on "Medium." I'm sure if I continue, it'll mess up my guitar lessons that I'm starting next week. I'll have to make sure that I practice the REAL guitar as much as I play Guitar Hero. That'll be the test. Oh, and I'd better practice the REAL guitar first. I don't wanna try to learn new chords with fingers that have spent their strength pushing fret buttons instead of real strings.
We'll see how the real guitar lessons go. I've tried to learn on my own, but it's taken me too long and I see little progress. When I have a weekly lesson, it should motivate me to practice. I don't want to completely suck after having paid a couple hundred bucks. I don't want a teacher to give up on me and declare me hopeless. I'm excited. I think it will be nice to be able to play an instrument that I can take along places... It's hard to drag a piano around, and who wants to sing campfire songs when accompanied by a clarinet?
It's over? What happened? I must have missed something, because there is NO FREAKING WAY that I just spent 12 days away from work.
They were heavenly, wonderful, restful, fun, exciting days! We looked at Christmas lights. We made (and ate) lots of Christmas treats. There were Christmas surprises followed by full-on tackle dad thank-you-for-the-Wii hugs. There were days spent entirely in pajamas. There were sore abs from laughing and sore arms from Wii bowling, Wii boxing, Wii baseball and tennis. (Wii didn't golf much.)
We loved spending the time together. We loved the activities, the inactivity. We stayed up late and slept in late. We rang in the new year with poppers and Martinelli's Sparkling Apple Cider. We even started Birthday celebrations for a prime, palindromic young lad.
But it's over.
It went so quickly. I loved every minute of it.
It's hard being back at work today, but it's work that makes such times possible. I'm already plotting and planning for more time away, but until then, I guess I'll get back to work and get something done.
I may or may not blog any more between now and Christmas, so I wanted to take a moment to wish all of you a very merry Christmas.
First and foremost, Merry Christmas to the love of my life. I'm not always the easiest person to live with, so thanks for putting up with me and my moods and my stress and my silliness. Thanks for loving me. Merry Christmas, darling!
Merry Christmas to my boys. It's amazing how much you've both grown up and how much you've both accomplished since last Christmas. I'm looking forward to a couple of weeks of being home and playing and spending time with you.
Merry Christmas to my family--those that read this blog and those that don't. It's been a year of change and pulling together*, and I think we're closer than we were a year last Christmas. The monthly get-togethers have done wonders.
Merry Christmas to extended family. Even though we can't always see each other, we think about you all often--especially those of you on missions and going through difficult situations. Our thoughts and prayers are with you.
Last, but not least, Merry Christmas to my friends. You know who you are, and I appreciate your friendship more and more as the years go by.
Merry Christmas, and here's hoping for a wonderful and prosperous 2008!
Tonight was my work party. It was quite a lot of fun.
In order to save money (gotta be fiscally responsible in a publicly held company), we had the party in the unfinished building that they're building next to the building I work in.
When we arrived, there were various appetizers and drinks. After a few minutes of introduction by the site executive, they served a very good dinner with an excellent pasta salad, barbecued chicken, pulled pork, and beef brisket. Delicious!
In another area, they had games like guitar hero, rock band, DDR, and foosball and table tennis going on. It was a very casual, very relaxed atmosphere.
So now the Christmas parties are over... On to Christmas!!
On Saturday night, we went to another Christmas Party--Susan's work party in the Skyroom at the Brigham Young University Wilkinson Center. The last time her work had their party at the Skyroom, we all sat at one or two tables. This time, they rented out the entire Skyroom.
It was a fun party. They hired a folk band called BrushFire to provide entertainment. They were a lot of fun. They did a mix of gospel and bluegrass and American folk music. My favorite: Oh Susanna Around the World. They played Oh Susanna in the style of different countries around the world. It was quite funny.
At the end of the Oh Susanna number, they said they had a "prize" to give away. It was a double cd-set of folk music from BYU. They would give it away to the first person that could tell them who wrote Oh Susanna.
*flashback to a speaking part I did with the Saltaires Show Chorus a few years ago*
In the last half of the 19th century, a young man appeared on the musical scene who was to give us nearly 200 songs. His name was Stephen Foster, whose poems and melodies reflect so well the time in which they were written.
*end of flashback*
So I yelled out "Stephen Foster!" and won the CD. Hooray!
The party was fun. The food was good, the entertainment was excellent, and the gifts (a Christmas bonus, Sees Chocolates, and the new Manheim Steamroller Christmas CD) were nice as well. The company was okay... Susan works with a lot of rather young people and we have a hard time relating to them. But it was a good time.
Every year for the last few years, we have been invited to Miss Giggles' Christmas party. It's been fun year after year to go, meet new and interesting people, eat goodies, and see what Christmas music box she picked out.
We're going to miss attending now that she's moving to Tucson. I'm sure we'll be invited, but it's going to be too far away to attend.
Miss Giggles said the funniest thing though... One of her "second counselors" was there at the party. She had been Relief Society President in her ward, and had gone through different sets of counselors since several of them moved out of the ward while she was in that particular calling. So she recounted the different counselors during her tenure, and ended with, "Then all three of us got deleted."
Deleted??
After a short silence with quizzical looks from some of us, she realized what she had said and clarified that all three of them were released from their callings.
This clarification was, of course, followed by MUCH laughter. I guess that's what you get when you have someone that works with computers all day talking about church callings!
We always MUST have the following homemade Christmas goodies in our home:
Spritz cookies
Peppermint almond bark
White almond bark-dipped pretzels
Almond brittle
I didn't realize it until just now, but all four items have something "almond" in them, if only in name. The spritz cookies have almond extract flavoring in them.
I made the almond brittle yesterday. We use almonds instead of peanuts because we like it SO much more that way. It takes a good long time to make, since you have to cook it to 375°, then add the nuts, which cools the mixture WAY down, and then you have to bring it back up to 395°. It's worth it though.
We also make a cheese ball with a sister-in-law's recipe and eat it with Ritz crackers, and we have all sorts of chips and dips and munchies. And then there's the list of candy and chocolate... This time of the year is FUN!
So... What goodies are on your MUST HAVE list? Tell me in your comment below.
Last night was the end of an era in our household: We went to our last Pack Meeting.
My younger son received his "Arrow of Light" last night. He received it from a "Chief" that also presented him with an arrow made by a Native American.
This ends almost 6 years of Cub Scouts in our house. Next month, the younger son will be an 11-year-old Boy Scout. There's a saga that will continue for quite some time.
I'm not going to miss it... But it's yet another sign that my days as a parent with children at home are numbered. THAT makes me sad.
Yesterday, my house smelled a little bit like it must smell in heaven all the time.
It started when I started baking. I made fresh bread dough. I love the yeasty smell of rising bread dough. I split the dough into portions just right for making bread bowls and I baked them. They turned out perfectly! They were golden brown with a chewy crust... And the whole house smelled like freshly-baked bread dough.
Then I made clam chowder to put in the bread bowls. The heavenly smells in the house changed to include the smells of vegetables cooking in clam stock. The chowder I make is very thick and creamy.
This is why I love to cook. I love the smells, the anticipation involved, and when the end result turns out exactly like you want it... It just doesn't get any better than that.
So last night, we had creamy, thick clam chowder in homemade bread bowls as we looked out at the snow and cold outside. It was comfort food at its finest. (And we have leftovers for tonight!!)
When we came back from looking at Christmas lights, I made spritz cookies in Christmas shapes. The heavenly scent in the house changed again to smell like buttery, almond-flavored cookies. Mmmmmmm.....