Happy July 4th !!!!

!!! Happy 4th of July !!!

.....

I am so glad that I live in America, it is a wonderful place to live.

Living here in Utah, I am fortunate to be able to see Army Helicopters from Camp Williams, an occasional C130 flies over us as it goes to Salt Lake. Once in a long while we get fly overs from Hill Air Force Base's Jets.

But for me the most fun is hearing the testing that goes on. This testing is awesome! It is noisy and boomy. Some of the men and women of our troops, who are protecting this great land, are practicing here at the Camp Williams Bombing Range. And I get to hear the bombs going off. Sure there is the occasional fire that gets set, but that is awesome too. I am a certified pyromaniac!

The booms we hear are sometimes even felt. I do live far enough away to avoid the window rattling. Others live so close that you can really feel the bombs and their windows come close to shattering. I could live with that, but I don't because I am further away.

I feel sorry for the people who complain about the testing when it is going on. I love it. I know that our troops are getting good training. It is for their safely as well as my own.

I also know that some people never knew they were moving to an area where actual testing, phyical testing was going on. I do have compassion for them, these people were not informed by their real estate agents. Bad, bad agents.

However, People, Please.... Please.... do not complain that the testing is going on in your backyard!~!!!! It is a great thing. It is necessary in these times. It is power for our troops to be well trained. And we, as citizens and neighbors, get to train along side them.

We train our nerves to accept the noise. We train our brains to listen. We can empathize with people who have constant bombing in their cities and towns. We can imagine how horrible it could be to have the noise as a thing to fear. Homes being destroyed, lives altered or cut short.

We fortunately have not had to endure the horrible aspects of what bombs can do to neighborhoods. But we can imagine how the sounds could affect someone in a war torn area.

We can also imagine some people being comforted by hearing the bombs near them. These people know that help is on it's way. They might be rescued from Tyranny soon.

We in American have so much to be grateful for.

God Bless America!!!!

The Day After The Power was Out

Well the power was off for only 3 hours plus a few minutes, last night- 5:20pm to 8:40ish pm. Nothing horrible about that, it wasn't cold or dark. But it was dinner time and I wasn't prepared for the power to be out.

I was thinking, if only I had put something in the crockpot. It would have been done. Now THAT would have been really cool!! But alas, no, I had not requisitioned the Crock into duty. Bad timing and planning on my part.

We easily could have gone out to the trailer and cooked on the stove or in the oven. We could have started the camping generator and used the microwave. But no, I just couldn't walk that far outside my home for dinner.

I called my friend down at 5Buck pizza to find out if they had power. She said yes they did have power, but since I live in Saratoga Springs, they were not delivering there because there was a live power line on the main road. We weren't going to buy a pizza, I was using them as an information source. They always know what is going on. But then when they said they wouldn't deliver to us- it was then I decided I wanted pizza. Always wanting what I can't have!

I used my brain and deducted that if a power line was down, it would be at least an hour before power was restored. I also want to clarify that even though buying a pizza would have been an awsome treat, I am sure we would have waited at least 45 minutes to have one delivered and since we were car-less, we couldn't go pick up one in 20 minutes. In that amount of time I could have made us a wonderful homemade pizza.

But here again lies a problem. I would have to make the dough in a bowl by hand and that would be more work than I would have wanted. I still could bake it in the trailer oven.

So now that you have the long story, I'll make the rest short.

I got the new ($2.00 Thrift Store) fondue pot out and heated hot water in it for Ramen noodles. Angel decided to have a bowl of cereal and so I made only one package of noodles, enough for Pilot. I added frozen peas into the pot as well.

So Angel was happy and nourished with her cereal. (We don't always have cold cereal on hand, but it was on sale for less than $2.00 a box. So I grabbed 4 boxes. She and Hubby love cold cereal and so they are really happy I found some Cinnamon Toast Crunch on sale.)

Pilot was happy and nourished with his Ramen noodles and peas.

I was happy that I could make a pot of soup in a pinch since I had to. I used alcohol in the burner on the fondue pot. I think I need to do a little more research on alcohol burners. But for now I am happy that I could provide.

Hubby was away at work and missed the whole thing. Poor guy, he always misses out on the fun adventures we get to have.

Pilot took a trip on Angel's bike to see if he could find where the power line was on the road. He went down our main road to the other main road- the main road to the southern part of our city. OK, the roads here are another whole story.

But back to Pilot. He saw where the line was across the road. It was near one of our wonderful neighbor's property. He said there were police cars turning traffic around. He didn't see any repair trucks and this was a good 30 minutes from when the power went out.

I called our neighbors a while later after I had made the soup and talked to their 17 year old. I asked her why they took all the power, and she burst out laughing. She told me that lightning had hit a power pole and knocked out a transformer and that a line was on the road. She said that they were outside grilling their own dinner and didn't know if a repair truck had come yet.

About an hour after I talked with her, the power came on. I wonder if Rocky Mountain Power was busy in other areas, because it really took a long time for the maintenance crew to show up. Especially since a live line was in the main road.

The poor people who lived south of us, had to back track about 2 miles or so and take another road east of here and up a farm road to reconnect with the main road. Not a fun thing during rush hour, especially here where our roads are inadequate and we have tons of road construction going on! Poor drivers.

*** My set up for the fondue pot included a spare microwave glass plate. The fondue pot did not come with instructions, but I would assume that it is OK to use it indoors. I just don't have any real experience with fondue pots. I also did not know what to use for fuel, so I used alcohol, as that is what I had. It all worked out fine, but it did smell a little. I had opened the windows, so I felt we were OK. We lived and seem to be fine today............. Me? What is fine? Am I OK...........? Am I ever OK?................... I will never know the answer!!!

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Return to Ann's Blog for the Food on Fridays carnival and find more posts that might be

anything remotely related to food.

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Check out my other posts for these meme's:

Writing from Pilots Phone

We are without power so I am testing out the Instinct phone from Samsung. So I hope this works.

We hope the power comes back on soon.

ok what do we want to type now. this is a test.

Kitchen Tips - Fun and Practical

My first tip is to always play with your food. Well, maybe not always, but have fun when you do.

Pilot brought his plate from the table the other day and said, "this is for you."

Before I even took it, I sighed and thought, "yes, another dirty dish. Of course it is for me. Whoa me, the slave of the kitchen, the cooker, the baker, the dishwasher, etc..........."

Yeah right! I am not all those things, I try to have everyone help at our house. But I really was thinking, "why are you handing me your dirty plate? Don't you know where the sink is or even better, where the dishwasher is?"

Then he handed me the plate and I looked at it. He had made a heart with some of his drippy BBQ sauce. He loves me! and was thinking of me when he was doodling in his sauce. I love that boy!

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My second tip is re-packaging milk to freeze.

I bought 2 gallons of 2% milk when it was on Pull Date Clearance from my grocery store for $.99 each. Too good to pass up. But we don't drink 2% and no one wanted to use it. So it has sat in the fridge since May 7th. I know, I can't believe it doesn't smell horrible yet!

The thing is I opened the last jug today and yes, it is just starting to turn, I think. But it can still be used for cooking and baking with no problem.

So I decided to freeze this bottle. However, when I freeze a whole gallon bottle, I find that the bottle is so big that it takes quite a while for it to thaw. I hate that.

So this time, I poured 2 cups of milk into 8 freezer quart bags. Put them in a basket and tossed them in the freezer.

Now when I need some milk, I can pull out a bag and it will thaw quickly because it is freezing flat and there is only a small amount in the bag. I can even thaw it under a warm water bath because of the freezer bag.

Don't forget to label and date your freezer foods, so that you can both identify the item and know when you froze it.

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My last tip for today is a little bit of Re-packaging.

I have these water bottles that I picked up in St. Louis over a year ago.

They were bottled in Norway. Since I have a connection with Norway, I wanted to keep the bottles. They are glass and so they are not great for carrying around.

But I finally decided to re-package some of my small pasta and rice into them. So here is what I have so far:

I have brown rice, large Acini de Pepe, small Acini de Pepe and some small angel noodles.

When I use up the Small angel-hair noodles, I am going to put barley in this one. I love to use barley, but forget to use it because it is in a solid colored tupperware container and I can't see it. So this would really help remind me of the barley.

Maybe even dried onions flakes or Italian Seasoning, the stuff I use a lot of. In any case, you can see I have finally put them to good use.


Thanks to Bloggland for helping me get to my projects!!

I think I am going to put Sea Salt for grinding in one and Black or multi peppercorns in the other that are still empty.

I will probably move them to a cupboard. But for now I want to see them. These guys are sitting on the back of my stove for the time being. They are clear and cute. And now they serve a purpose.

Thanks for stopping and taking a look. Have a great day!

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Jump back on over to Tammy's for More Kitchen Tips Tuesday!



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Hello July!!! Hello!!! Hello!!! Hello!!!

WOW~! It is July already.

Time really does fly, but am I having fun?

Not sure that I am always having fun. So I need to change my attitude or something. Because I know that if I am not having fun, it is up to me to change that. I am in charge of my own destiny my attitude along the way.

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