Military Humor

I need to take this time and thank our service man and women for what they do. I know that their are many that don't appreciate our military and what they do to keep our lives safe and free. With out our military we would not have the life that we enjoy right now. We would not have freedom of religion and of speech. The right to Vote or even to defend. I have a great respect for our military, and thank heavens that our service men and women can keep a sense of humor, in spite the danger's they face.
Thank you for making my family's, my friends and my life possible!!!

Pumpkin Pie From the Pumpkin

Ok, I now know how to make a pumpkin pie from the pumpkin. This is so cool, and very good. Unfortunately it takes all day, but worth it. This is if you are in the Martha Stewart mood. I didn't make this, my brother did and he did a very good job.

Grow or purchase “Cooking” pumpkins, such as sugar, sweet, or pie pumpkins, to make your pumpkin pie from scratch. Carving pumpkins don't work as well in the baking process, because they have less flavor and a less desirable texture.

Prep 1-3/4 hours. Bake 1 hour. Stand 1 hour. Oven at 375

Pumpkin Pie From Scratch

1 5-6 pounds of sweet pumpkin

2 cups of pumpkin puree

2/3 cup sugar

1 ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground nutmeg

¼ teaspoon ground ginger

3 slightly beaten eggs

1 5 ounce can evaporated milk

½ cup half-and-half or light cream

Method to make the pumpkin puree from the pumpkin:

Preheat oven to 375 f. Scrub pumpkin thoroughly. Halve pumpkin and remove fibrous strings, seeds, and stem. Cut into 5-inch pieces. Arrange pieces in a single layer, skin side up in a foil lined large roasting pan. Cover and bake for 1- ½ hours or until tender. Cool. Scrape pulp from rind. Place in a food processor, in batches, if necessary. Cover and process until smooth. Place puree in a 100% cotton cheesecloth- lined fine-mesh sieve. (use a double thickness of cheesecloth). Allow to stand for 1 hour to drain. Press lightly to remove any additional liquid (discard liquid). Reserve 2 cups puree for the pie. (refrigerate any remaining puree in an airtight container up to 3 days or freeze up to 6 months).

Method for the Pumpkin Pie: 

In a large bowl, stir together the 2 cups of pumpkin puree, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. Using a whisk, beat in eggs, milk, and half-and-half until combined. Pour into pastry-lined pie plate. (you may need 2 pie plate) To prevent over browning, cover the edge of pie with foil. Bake for 25-35 minutes, or more until a knife that you inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack. If desired, top each serving with Whipped cream and sprinkle with additional cinnamon. Makes about 8 servings. Or according to my mother she likes to bake the pie at 425 for 15 minutes then turn down the over to 350 for 45-60 minutes. All in honestly, I like to bake the pie at 375 for 25-35 minutes. The crust doesn't burn, and the pie isn't dry.   

Cheers Everyone!

Dangers in blogging

Staying Safe: Dangers in blogging

November 3rd, 2008 @ 10:08pm

By Nadine Wimmer

A growing number of Utahns are discovering serious drawbacks to a popular pastime: blogging. But we found some cases that may change the way you blog.

Lainie Ottley

Blogs help families share memories, but they can also make families a target for harassment, even stalking. But there's little law enforcement officers can do. It's simply post at your own peril.

A crazy birthday haircut documented on a family blog. His mom never dreamed their Mohawk memory would end up making him look like a member of the Hitler Youth on someone else's blog.

"We were really upset," blogger Lainie Ottley said. "For me, it's a huge offense."

She not only felt violated, but afraid of the association with neo-Nazis.

"Given the verbiage with the picture, we felt like it had created a pretty dangerous situation," Ottley said.

But when she called police, she learned there's not a thing they can do.

"That's some of the frustration, almost daily, when I take these calls," said Rhett McQuist, with Utah's Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task force. "Right now, the laws haven't caught up with technology."

For another blogger, who did not want to be identified, the peril came not from pictures, but postings. "We had had no idea who it was," she said.

Degrading comments turned into more than a dozen threats and insults a day posted to her family's blog. "We just felt harassed and started to feel unsafe because of what was written," she said.

She and her husband eventually hired an attorney, filed a lawsuit, subpoenaed Google and were shocked to discover their stalker was a close family member. "It wrecked my trust in people, still does. And it makes you question everything," she said.

Those tough experiences get at the heart of what appeals to most bloggers: posting pictures of your children and making them accessible for family and friends. But how much information is too much?

We surfed blogs and found first and last names, birth dates for an entire, a countdown to the family Disneyland vacation, information on a husband's deployment to Iraq and a slide show of the inside of someone's house.

All this makes it easy, in many cases, for us to go from blogsite to blogger's doorstep in a few computer clicks.

It's just not worth the risk for these bloggers. "If you're going to do it, just know there's no way to keep it completely safe," Ottley said.

Criminal investigators say to Stay Safe, bottom line, don't post pictures of children online. You should also protect your blogsite with a password.

They also say guard information like your address. We saw pictures where the house address was visible.

Finally, adjust settings on your blog that protect your identity and make you unsearchable.

For more safety tips, and for help in tracking who visits your blog, click the related links to the right of the story.

E-mail: dwimmer@ksl.com

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=4699330

This is why I took off the pictures of my nephews. I hope that you will take off personal information you might have on your blogs.

The duckling & the Puppy

You gave me a mountain

I thought that this was good reading. I don't know how verifiable this story is but I like it just the same.

Brenda was almost halfway to the top of the tremendous granite cliff. She was standing on a ledge where she was taking a breather during this, her first rock climb. As she rested there, the safety rope snapped against her eye and knocked out her contact lens. "Great", she thought. "Here I am on a rock ledge, hundreds of feet from the bottom and hundreds of feet to the top of this cliff, and now my sight is blurry." She looked and looked, hoping that somehow it had landed on the ledge. But it just wasn't there. She felt the panic rising in her, so she began praying. She prayed for calm, and she prayed that she may find her contact lens.

When she got to the top, a friend examined her eye and her clothing for the lens, but it was not to be found. Although she was calm now that she was at the top, she was saddened because she could not clearly see across the range of mountains. She thought of the Bible verse "The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth."

She thought, "Lord, You can see all these mountains. You know every stone and leaf, and You know exactly where my contact lens is. Please help me????"

Later, when they had hiked down the trail to the bottom of the cliff they met another party of climbers just starting up the face of the cliff. One of them shouted out, "Hey, you guys! Anybody lose a contact lens??"
Well, that would be startling enough, but you know why the climber saw it? An ant was moving slowly across a twig on the face of the rock, carrying it!?

The story doesn't end there. Brenda's father is a cartoonist. When she told him the incredible story of the ant, the prayer, and the contact lens, he drew a cartoon of an ant lugging that contact lens with the caption, "Lord, I don't know why You want me to carry this thing. I can't eat it, and it's awfully heavy. But if this is what You want me to do, I'll carry it for You.?"

I think it would do all of us some good to say,"God, I don't know why You want me to carry this load. I can see no good in it and it's awfully heavy. But, if You want me to carry it, I will."

Kicking Elephant

Well if the Dancing Walrus was not enough this is a Kicking Elephant!!!!
What is next a Zebra dancing the Tango??? He can be on Dancing with the Stars!!!

Jasper and The Uncooked Yeast Rolls

I have no clue who wrote this, but it is a funny story.

Jasper and The Uncooked Yeast Rolls

We have a GREYHOUND by the name of Jasper. He came to us in the summer of 2005 from the Greyhound rescue program. For those of you, who are unfamiliar with this type of adoption, imagine taking in a 10 year old child whom you know nothing about and committing to doing your best to be a good parent.

Like a child, the dog came with his own idiosyncrasies. He will only sleep on the bed, on top of the covers, nuzzled as close to my face as he can get without actually performing a French kiss on me. Lest you think this is a bad case of 'no discipline,' I should tell you that Charlie and I tried every means to break him of this habit including locking him in a separate bedroom for several nights. The new door cost over $200. But I digress.

Five weeks ago we began remodeling our house. Although the cost of the project is downright obnoxious, it was 20 years overdue AND it got me out of cooking Thanksgiving for family, extended family and a lot of friends that I like more than family most of the time. I was however assigned the task of preparing 124 of my famous yeast dinner rolls for the two Thanks giving feasts we did attend. I am still cursing the electrician for getting the new oven hooked up so quickly. It was the only appliance in the whole darn house that worked, thus the assignment.

I made the decision to cook the rolls on Wednesday evening to reheat on Thursday morning. Since the kitchen was freshly painted you can imagine the odor. Not wanting the rolls to smell like Sherwin Williams latex paint #586, I put the rolls on baking sheets and set them in the living room to rise for 5 hours. After 3 hours, Perry and I decided to go out! to eat, returning in about an hour.

An hour later the rolls were ready to go in the oven. It was 8:30pm. When I went to the living room to retrieve the pans, much to my shock one whole pan of 12 rolls was empty. I called out to Jasper and my worst nightmare became a reality. He literally wobbled over to me. He looked like a combination of the Pillsbury dough boy and the Michelin Tire man wrapped up in fur. He groaned when he walked. I swear even his cheeks were bloated.

I ran to the phone and called our vet After a few seconds of uproarious laughter, he told me the dog would probably be OK, however, I needed to give him Pepto Bismol every 2 hours for the rest of the night. God only knows why I thought a dog would like Pepto Bismol any more than my kids did when they were sick. Suffice to say that by the time we went to bed the dog was black, white and pink. He was so bloated we had to lift him onto the bed for the night.

Naively thinking the dog would be all better by morning was very stupid on my part. We arose at 7:30 and as we always do first thing; put the dogs out to relieve themselves. Well, the dog was as drunk as a sailor on his first leave. He was running into walls, falling flat on his behind and most of the time when he was walking his front half was going one direction and the other half was either dragging the floor or headed 90 degrees in another direction. He couldn't lift his leg to pee, so he would just walk and pee at the same time. When he ran down the small incline in our back yard he couldn't stop himself and nearly ended up running into the fence. His pupils were dilated and he was as dizzy as a loon. I endured another few seconds of laughter from the vet (second call within 12 hours) before he explained that the yeast had fermented in his belly and that he was indeed drunk. He assured me that, not unlike most binges we humans go through, it would wear off after about 4 or 5 hours and to keep giving him Pepto Bismol.
Afraid to leave him by himself in the house, Charlie and I loaded him up and took him with us to my sister's house for the first Thanksgiving meal of the day. My sister lives outside of Muskogee on a ranch, (10 to 15 minute drive). Rolls firmly secured in the trunk (124 less 12) and drunk dog leaning from the back seat onto the console of the car between Charlie and I, we took off.

Now I know you probably don't believe that dogs burp, but believe me when I say that after eating a tray of risen unbaked yeast rolls, DOGS WILL BURP. These burps were pure Old Charter. They would have matched or beat any smell in a drunk tank at the police station. But that's not the worst of it. Now he was beginning to pass gas and it smelled like baked rolls. God strike me dead if I am not telling the truth! We endured this for the entire trip to Karee's, thankful she didn't live any further away than she did.

Once Jasper was firmly placed in my sister's garage with the door locked, we finally sat down to enjoy our first Thanksgiving meal of the day. The dog was the topic of conversation all morning long and everyone made trips to the garage to witness my drunk dog, each returning with a tale of Jasper's latest endeavor to walk without running into something.

Of course, as the old adage goes, "what goes in must come out" and Jasper was no exception. Granted if it had been me that had eaten 12 risen, unbaked yeast rolls, you might as well have put a concrete block up my behind, but alas a dog's digestive system is quite different from yours or mine. I discovered this was a mixed blessing when we prepared to leave Karee's house. Having discovered his "packages" on the garage floor, we loaded him up in the car so we could hose down the floor. This was another naive decision on our part.

The blast of water from the hose hit the poop on the floor and the poop on the floor withstood the blast from the hose. It was like Portland cement beginning to set up and cure. We finally tried to remove it with a shovel. I (obviously no one else was going to offer their services) had to get on my hands and knees with a coarse brush to get the remnants off of the floor. And as if this wasn't degrading enough, the dumb dog in his drunken state had walked through the poop and left paw prints all over the garage floor that had to be brushed too.

Well, by this time the dog was sobering up nicely so we took him home and dropped him off before we left for our second Thanksgiving dinner at Perry's sister's house. I am happy to report that as of today (Monday) the dog is back to normal both in size and temperament. He has had a bath and is no longer tricolor. None the worse for wear I presume I am also happy to report that just this evening I found 2 risen unbaked yeast rolls hidden inside my closet door. It appears he must have come to his senses after eating 10 of them but decided hiding 2 of them for later would not be a bad idea

Now, I'm doing research on the computer as to *How to clean unbaked dough from the Carpet*. ...

And how was your Day