A few months ago I bought a pie cutter (it's the red plastic object in the second photo).
I wanted to use it and so I decided to make a 2 crust apple pie.
You can see the final photo with the cut outs on top.
The problem is that it was difficult to handle and to even cut the pattern out.
I am not sure if I will do it again. The crust came out very dry and brittle.
All in all, it was an interesting experience.
We have had these LED lights since 2009 and so far, no strings have failed.
I am so pleased with them.
They went up on Sunday and minus the wreath above the garage, it is basically what you are used to.
Neither of us can reach that top area without pulling out a broken ladder to use, and I don't want to have to deal with it.
I don't think anyone cares, anyway.
My Husband wants to ask a taller neighbor. I don't think its a big deal, and would prefer not having to get it down off the house, at the end of the season.
Happy Holiday Season.
My Water Post For Today.
Who knew we would get this beautiful image, while cruising through the Inside Passage of Alaska at sunset.
An unforgettable part of our Alaska journey.
Seeing such calm water and little islands along the way.
You can understand why people would move to the area, for the beauty and solitude.
Here are two views of our Thanksgiving Turkey.
We heard that starting it in a 420 degree oven for 20 minutes and then fliping it onto its back and lower the temp to 325 degrees, is the way to go.
The top photo is of the nice and crisp bottom of the turkey.
The bottom photo is of the breast. See how sad it looks?
Somehow, I will have to split the difference and allow the breast to brown up, at the end of cooking.
Otherwise, it was good.
I bought popovers from King Arthur Flour, and I decided to make them for Thanksgiving Dinner.
My first mistake was using cupcake papers. They ended up sticking to the popovers.
They also mention in recipes that heating the pan for 2 minutes will make them not fall over.
I was not aware of this and you can see some of them fell over a bit.
Otherwise, they were yummy.
Here it is, the full Thanksgiving dinner at the angel house.
Turkey, stuffing, scalloped potatoes, green beans, popover buns, gravy, and cranberries.
You can see the apple pie at the very end of the table.
I will put a candle in the middle and sing to the birthday boy later in the evening...so no photos of that.
Boy, am I tired.
Here we are again, just our little family will gather for Thanksgiving.
Myself, my Husband (whose birthday it is today), Makenna and a visit for a few minutes from my Magic "Son".
We made the stuffing ahead of time and we just need to place it into the oven to cook.
As I mentioned before, my Husband won a turkey. It will cook in the oven today, along with the stuffing.
I hope to bake an apple pie. If I get it done Wednesday night, a photo of it will grace this blog.
Otherwise, look for it on Friday.
Makenna has not been hanging out with us for the past few weeks.
The time change has definitely reset her tummy clock and so she is still totally off with her food.
She hangs out in the den and we miss her on the ottoman.
Maybe we will invite her to Turkey Dinner on Thursday.
Glad for winter coming, but sad at the same time.
My Department at Oswego had an open house for the students in the Communication Studies Department.
I, of course, could not attend the event.
They offered their "Off Campus" students a chance to get the free gifts they were giving out.
I did not know what they had, but I said yes to the message.
Then I totally forgot I did so.
On Monday I got a fairly large package from the school and this is what was in it.
A really lovely cup for either water or coffee.
A reusable straw to drink from it.
A note pad and a pen.
I am quite pleased with the gifts.
My Water Post For Today.
I never did get to Ventura this summer.
I am so sorry about that, especially since I did not get to see my work friend.
This trip in 2021 brings back so many memories.
I keep hoping I get out his way soon.
It's the big news in Santa Clarita.
We got ourselves an Asian Market called Seafood City.
It was started for Filipino's, but they have obviously added other Asian food, and as you can see, it is quite large.
I checked out their huge fish department and I know that moving forward, I will have a place to buy quality fish products.
They also have packaged meat, great produce and packaged meals to grab and go.
On top of cooking the food yourself, they have a counter called Grill City and you can order all sorts of food and either eat it there, or bring it to go.
I was impressed beyond belief.
We bought this BBQ a year ago and we have had several problems with it.
The latest was that our igniter no longer worked.
What the heck!
My Brother-in-law had mentioned always check Youtube. Someone, somewhere has had this same problem and solved it.
So I did. Amazingly, I did not even have to run the video. The still for it had a battery being changed.
I said to my Husband, it has a battery?
He went out, took off the igniter and there was a battery.
A two minute fix.
I am so happy.
My Husband got a call from the local SCV Service Center.
He has been down there several times this past month, working on his Veteran notation on his Real ID.
They had a raffle for a free turkey and he was one of the names drawn.
We figured if it was outside what we could use we, could donate it to the Food Pantry.
It ended up being a Jennie-O turkey that is only 11ish pounds.
I am worried for the salt content, but otherwise, it looks great and it is free.
When a train is moving backwards and there is no engineer capable of seeing what is going on, a member of the staff goes to the end of the train.
They make sure there is nothing in the way and that the move is made safely.
I have heard it referred to as The Shove.
Normally the train you take out of Union Station in Los Angeles is already delivered when passengers arrive for boarding.
Our train was probably delayed a bit and so it pulled in while we waited.
There was a train worker on the end of the train as it pulled in, doing that exact thing.
I got a real kick out of it.
My Husband took this photo and I am borrowing it for this post.
One of the cool things that happen in Grand Canyon Village, is the arrival of the Grand Canyon Railway.
We were not in the area when it arrived or departed, but my Husband did hear its whistle while we explored the scenic outlook area of the park.
It costs about $100 round trip, according to how nice your train accommodations are, and if you plan to stay overnight, that costs quite a bit, too.
Being we did not take the train, I do not know if you have to pay for the bus from Flagstaff to Williams, so that might add to the fees involved.
For many, I am sure it is so much easier than renting a car and driving, but we were happy to experience the journey on our own time frame.
No matter what, a great way to enjoy this scenic wonder.
Hey, look what turned up on Facebook!
My Great Nephew with the shirt I sent him.
His room is decorated in planets and such, and so when I saw this shirt about his 1st year around the sun, I just had to send it his way.
I thought it came out cute and I am glad it fits him.
My final birthday post for little Miles.
My Water Post For Today.
San Francisco and the infamous, Pier 39.
It was a clear day in January of 2020 and you can see Alcatraz Island, off on the left.
The bigger island dead center, is Angel Island.
A beautiful day, after a storm blew through the area. Who knew a pandemic was coming.
I hope you enjoy.
With a lot of luck, I should have my website for my Applied Project ready for its close-up.
My advisor will be helping me get Google Anaytics up and running on my site and I can then invite people to check it out and possibily think about taking a train journey next year.
I hope that this will allow me to get a count that will then be reflected in my Thesis paper.
Please let this be the final push to the end.
My Husband and I would like to be able to travel more, next year.
We are not big on Veteran's Day deals and usually avoid them.
This year we saw that Red Lobster had a free shrimp dinner for the vets and we decided to go for it.
You had to be there before 4PM and that is a bit early for our dinner, but we ate a small lunch and treked over to our restaurant.
We found out that we could get dinner To Go, and that is what we ultimately decided to do.
We got back home before 4PM and had dinner at 4:30PM.
That worked for us.
This is half of my Shrimp Pasta Alfredo and with the addition of coleslaw and fruit salad, I was set for 2 meals.
It was a nice change from what we normally have and gave us so much food, for a relatively small amount of money.
Thank you Red Lobster.
We went to gym at Golden Valley and after class was over my husband asked me if we wanted to go to Costco and try to get scalloped potatoes for the holiday.
I was in and off we went.
They had them and we got other supplies, while there.
Then we decided that we would pick up their hot dog deal for lunch.
We did so and moved on to the Senior Center, where spaghetti and meatballs were on the schedule. Note, we added our own coleslaw and got rid of the kale that they provided. Yuck, kale.
So that ended up being 2 meals for both of us for just $3 (for the hot dogs).
I guess that was a major win for us.
My youngest great nephew turns one year old today.
It has been an honor to watch him grow from a small baby to the child who is ready to walk.
He has an older sister, so he is always trying to keep up with her.
I am sure that helps him.
Have a very happy birthday, Miles. You great aunt loves you.
I have no idea how the election went, at the time of this posting, but I do know that we are in day two of RAIN!
A totally different experience for us on the West Coast.
So far about an inch and a half of rain here in Santa Clarita and I am hopeful for a bit more tonight and Wednesday.
It always amazes me when it comes along, after a dry Spring and Summer.
I almost feel like planting grass seed. LOL
I sent the latest version of my Thesis to my advisor, so I decided to work on a business card, that I can give to people and put out at my gym, among other places.
I got this cute clip art from Creative Commons, but I was unsure about how to credit it on a business card, so it is still in pieces right now.
It will be a little image on the right center of the card.
I don't want to give out a phone number, for security reasons and I can always write it in, for friends.
If you have any comments, please leave them below.
My Water Post For Today.
For me, my May vacation brought me to Port Huron and that made my trip.
You get to watch the freighters on their way to the Soo Locks and you get to watch pleasure craft, too.
Not that I would want to steer a small boat anywhere near those freighters, but I guess they are used to it.
Enjoy a beautiful blue sky day at Port Huron.
We have seen the outside of Barstow Station several times, but this was the first time I could shoot through their window and get photos of the station all decorated in Fall pumpkins and leaves.
It was very lovely and sometime I would like to come through when the station is open. It is not open this late at night or early in the morning, when the Southwest Chief comes through.
I hear there is a museum there, on the history of Harvey Houses along the Santa Fe route and also a event room on the second floor.
Kind of a cool place, along the railroad route.
Probably my favorite station to watch trains at.
I mentioned in a post a few days ago, that we dined at The Lumberyard, which is right across the tracks from Flagstaff Station.
We see it on camera, when we watch the evening train come in and have said to each other that we wanted to check this place out, if we ever got to Flagstaff.
There we were, with 4 hours to kill before our train came and so we had the rental car people drop us off there, instead of at the station.
First up, was choosing an IPA.
I looked at the menu of craft beers and went with the Hazy Angel.
It has a high alcohol by volume (ABV) and so I only drank about half the glass. It was excellent and had notes of fruit, as mentioned in the description. It was the first time I tasted notes of something in my drink.
Dinner of mac and cheese was OK (no photo taken of that), and dessert of banana pudding was good, but it was huge, even though we split it in half.
All in all, a wonderful early evening in Flagstaff and it was nice to see the place hopping.
We have had recliner couches before and as a matter of fact, I have the old set in the living room and the den.
This couch we bought in 2019 from a now defunct store named Art Van.
On Saturday evening, my lever to elevate the recliner on my side, broke.
This is not our first rodeo, in regard to fixing the recliners in couches, so we went to Youtube and started looking.
We found a video, which ended up giving us critical tips which we used as we put the new part in the couch.
Taking it apart took a bit of time, but the replacement took no time at all.
Thanks for the tips Youtube.
My Husband got a hint from a Virtual Railfan post.
The Lumberyard, right across the track from Flagstaff Station, would be featured on NBC Nightly News.
The story is about 16 minutes in and it concerns Arizona as a battleground state.
As people who just spent time in that area of the state, we definitely noticed the campaign ads that were even worse than those in Los Angeles.
They interviewed two of the staff at The Lumberyard, (we ate there on our final evening in their city) and both were very articulate and knowledgeable on the subject of the election.
Oh and their craft beer was extremely good, but that post is for another day. :-)
I feel like things have been busy and I did not give you a decent look at The Grand Canyon.
The first photo is looking at the far right of Grand Canyon Village and the magnificant El Tovar Hotel.
"Opening its doors in 1905, El Tovar Hotel, a former Harvey House, is considered the premier lodging facility at the Grand Canyon. Constructed of native stone and Oregon pine, this historic hotel was built as a destination resort and provides an air of venerable dignity. Its location is just steps from the rim of the canyon and is one of only a handful of Harvey House facilities still in operation. The hotel features the canyon’s premier dining facility, El Tovar Dining Room, and an elegant gift shop with unique gifts and apparel."
We did not go in this direction, but we did see the lower level of the Bright Angel Lodge several times, since we dined at Fred Harvey Burger.
The food was relatively inexpensive and no reservations were required.
The second photo is along the rim walk, near the start of the Bright Angel Trail.
We did not go down the trail, but I did want a photo of it.
Between the two photos you are seeing the far ends of the Grand Canyon Village area.
To see more, you need to take a bus to Hermit's Rest. A 7 mile trip further west.
In case you care, we stayed at Maswik Lodge in the Aspen Building, about a 1/4 mile from the rim.
My Husband was taking a shower, so I was watching out for any children, who might come trick or treating early.
I did not even get outside, when I saw this incredible sunset through the living room window.
I grabbed my camera and took a few photos.
It was spectacular, and the halloween trick or treaters deserved a beautiful sunset.
A definite good omen for them.
