Wax is as Flammable as Gas

Christmas Eve was spent in solemn prayer at Mass when we weren't battling a squirming and impatient four year old, then back to the house for a drink and dessert with family.

A peaceful late evening with a fire in the fireplace, and Christmas presents all laid out beneath the tree. An idyllic vision of perfect Christmas harmony. A candle was burning down to the end of its wick and I asked my husband, "should I throw the rest of the wax in the fire?" and he replied, "sure."

Now we are both reasonably intelligent people and yet we sometimes make incredibly stupid decisions. You would think one of the advantages of being married is that when one person decides to do something stupid, the second person is the voice of reason. You would think.

But in this case, it didn't happen. What did happen was: I threw the wax in and an immediate whoosh nearly knocked me over. And we had a conflagration to rival any industrial incinerator.
We dashed out to the front yard and were horrified to discover the chimney cap glowing orange and sparks were flying out.

I wanted to call the fire department, and yet was mortified at the thought. My husband said, wait, it will burn down. It took about twenty minutes for the orange to disappear from the chimney, and slowly the fire in the fireplace died back to a comforting blaze, instead of the blast furnace it had been. I stayed awake till 3 am, worrying about creosote, and cracks and smoldering embers.

We have had four near fires in our family's history and all of them have been my fault. First an advent wreath's candles that burned too far down and caught pine cones on fire (threw it in the sink-no damage), then placing a Pop-Tart in a toaster whose automatic pop-up feature had worn out (flames coming out of toaster-pulled the plug and it went out. Who knew the sugar would burn?-scorched underside of cupboard), then putting chicken breasts on to boil and going outside to read (smoke detector went off-roiling clouds of black smoke came out--took me several dashes inside to open windows. Called the fire department and told them not to come even if neighbors were worried about the black smoke-there was no fire. Who knew that three chicken breasts could generate that much black smoke?)

So, I've come to the conclusion that I cannot be trusted around any source of heat. Consider yourself forewarned.

Road to Nowhere

Sunday we set out to go somewhere new. Having gotten a late start we decided to visit a nearby town, and see if there was something interesting there to see. And discovered there honestly, really wasn't.

It is a small, economically depressed town with few businesses, and we didn't feel inspired to stop. So we did an about face and started down a country road toward another small town, and hoped for better luck in this direction.

We drove for about twenty minutes with no sign of a town, or much sign of human presence. We passed several managed forests, and were amazed at how large some of these trees planted fifteen to twenty years ago had grown. And then we came around a curve in the road and a surreal vision of white, floating fog appeared on the right. It took a minute to realize that it was a lake. We quickly made plans to return with our kayak in the summer and explore.

And that's what happens sometimes when you take a road to nowhere. You stumble upon something unexpected.

In the Christmas Mood

I have to admit I'm a sucker for cheesy Christmas movies. The sappier the better. And my husband and I were joking only the other day how all of them seem to be set in small towns. And these small towns have one thing in common. They all have Christmas pageants.

Well, today I went to one of these cheesy sappy Christmas pageants that my four year old grandson was going to sing and do corresponding sign language in. And guess what. It was not cheesy or sappy. It was, in fact, very moving and special. These children (the older ones) put on an amazing musical concert with bells and chimes. But what took this performance over the top was an astounding display where the children wore white gloves and performed under black lights. Their hands spelled out words like Jesus and Merry Christmas and images of the cross. The whole thing was set to music and was the most moving and spiritual thing I have yet to experience this season.

So maybe I'm living a cheesy Christmas movie. One filled with family and love and special memories being made. And one where you get your Christmas tree down the block from a neighbor who cuts a few every year.

Learning to Adapt

One thing to remember when setting yourself any task, is that life sometimes gets in the way of the best of plans. Dishes, laundry, shopping still need to be done. Dinners need to be cooked and all the other time-consuming things that make up daily life put plans on the back burner. But I'm a stubborn person and continue to plug away, although I have found I sometimes need to adapt.

Last Saturday I had a Christmas party to go to. I was assigned a vegetable dish, and also wanted to make a gluten free dessert so I could be guaranteed something sweet to eat.

So there I was all ready to pour my cheesecake batter into cupcake liners when I discovered that I didn't have any cupcake liners. So I did what wives all over do-sent my husband out to fetch some. After awhile he returned with some. Decorated with soccer balls and footballs and baseball bats. For an adult Christmas party. But I was a sport and put the cheesecakes into the oven and set to work on the vegetables.

I downloaded a vegetable recipe and was busy cooking it when I opened an unexpired (honestly, I checked) and unopened jar of pickled jalapenos and found them coated with a strange looking black oily substance-not like the fuzzy green stuff I usually associate with bacteria laden food, but not wanting to poison a whole group of friends, I couldn't use it. There was no time to send the husband out again, so I sprinkled some red pepper flakes for the missing heat and continued cooking.

And you know what, both dishes turned out wonderfully and we had a great time at the party.

However, there's still the question of what to do with the jar of jalapenos in my fridge. Dare I serve it to family?

Playing Catch Up

I have a confession. I am not an organized person. Never have been-and am coming to realize-never will be. If you're a follower of this blog you will see the lists have been updated-no I didn't read 6 books overnight, I just sometimes let things pile up before I deal with them.

A quick review: Household Guide to Dying-sad. Work in Progress-hopeful, spiritual. Hard Christmas-murder on a tree farm. Italian Summer-descriptive, full of golf. Cruel Intent-prefer JP Beaumont. Copy Kat-tangled family murder. As you can see, none of these fulfill the classic literature category, but I needed to have a few that were a quick read. Fifty books in a year is a lot of reading.

Actually, though I'm finding the categories of learning something new and contests and food to be the hardest categories. These will take some effort. Fifty of anything in a year is a challenge.

On the other hand, going places I've never been before is fun. One Saturday, my husband and I wandered around downtown Olympia, and went in a bunch of small stores I had never been to before. We stumbled on a Gingerbread House display, and had a nice lunch. An entirely local, entirely new day.

On the food front, I need to start combing through my cookbooks and making a creative dish because opening a can of no salt sardines was no fun at all. Honestly, husband of mine, no salt??