Christmas Time, Blog Time, HO Ho ho

 

Before Christmas is Thanksgiving...before Thanksgiving is my Birthday (sometimes it falls on Thanksgiving).  So for Thanksgiving, we enjoyed a nice, boneless leg of Lamb dinner, complete with different veggies and a large sweet potato that we split in half.  The nice thing about the Lamb, it lasts for another 4-5 meals, so I put a third of the cooked lamb into the freezer.  And what about my birthday?  Pizza from Pizza Hut.  Not that the "Hut" is the best pizza, when you have not had it for nearly 5 years, it tastes darn good!  Now we have had various low carb pizzas over these past 4-5 years, but they just are not like a real pizza.  I "almost" had a Lou Malnati's legendary Chicago deep dish pizza shipped, but I just could not justify the cost...so Pizza Hut was it, and it was good.  And what about Turkey???  We got a bone in Turkey which I made Turkey Soup out of...that lasted four to five days!

Of course, with Thanksgiving being over, we now have to prepare for Winter in Florida.  That included getting rid of an ant farm which suddenly showed up outside our front door.  

Although I could have called the HOA and they eventually would come and take care of them, I hit them with TERRO ant bait, which took out the sugar ants real quick...but the majority of these ants were not sugar ants...more like Little Black Ants, and you need a different TERRO for that...but I did have Amdro and it did the job, except these little creeps kept moving to areas nearby.  It took about a week, but they are now under control.  The difference between these two type of ants is that the Sugar Ant seems to climb up and down walls, power cords, drapes...they just get into anything and everything if you don't control them.  The Little Black Ants seem to stay along the ground...which means poor Indy's food bowl was their favorite place to go.  Let's just say that we are prepared for Florida Winter now, no ants inside for well over a week now.

Since we arrived home from our California trip in late September, I knew it was time to put the HHR back into the shop again.  Once we got back home, it started right up...which lasted about 5 seconds then died.  I figured it might have had water in the gas due to the high humidity and the one tropical storm that it endured while we were gone.  After two shots of gas additive and a few hundred miles of driving, it became apparent this was not the issue.  The Camper Van needed an oil change, and I decided that would be first.  Then the first hurricane, Helene, hit the area, and although we did not have issues, others around us did, including massive power outages.  So I held off (procrastination) until two weeks later when Milton hit the area and caused even more damage.  Although I had an appointment to get the oil changed for the Camper Van, that had to be canceled as we headed north to get away from Milton.  By late October the community was getting back to normal, as close to normal as it could be with debris piled up along so many roadways due to the damage that Milton and Helene caused...so I did get the oil changed, and that was blogged about in late October.  By early November I got the HHR into the shop where it stayed for nearly a week.  $1,700 later, it is like we have a new engine...but the check engine light was still coming on due to a sensor in the Catalytic Converter. So I put an additive in and started driving it in 2nd gear as much as possible to get the RPMs up there as if it was on the highway.  220 miles later, before the second treatment, the light turned off.  I put the second treatment in and continued the high RPM driving for another 30 miles, filled up the tank and started driving it normally again.  It has been another 200 miles, and all is well.  The HHR has over 170,000 of driving miles, and another 120,000 miles being pulled behind three different motorhomes, included up to Alaska and back, so it has seen its days for sure.  But we love our HHR, which we purchased a month or so after we got married in 2011...it was originally bought by a rental car agency in 2009, so we are its second owner, but it has had multiple drivers.  Overall, it has run very nice for us until a couple of years ago.  This time I think we have it fixed.

Which brings up to up to Christmas.  Christmas Day we are going over to Marcia's brother Mike's house.  Christmas Eve I will cook a Texas Ribeye, with Baked Potato, Veggies, and our favorite seasonal dessert, Cranberry Orange Marmalade Sauce over Rebel Ice Cream.  (2 - 12 oz bags Cranberries, 1 cup Splenda Brown Sugar, 2 cups Sugar Free Orange Marmalade, 16 oz baked chopped Walnuts, 4 tbl Lemon Juice.  Cook Cranberries and Splenda Brown Sugar mixed well in a standard 2 Qt. 8″ x 11″ glass baking dish for an hour, covered, at 350 degrees, stirring once half way through.  Add Orange Marmalade, nuts and juice, stir well, cook uncovered for another 15 minutes.)  A half cup serving has 4 net carbs, the ice cream has 2-6 net carbs depending upon flavor (Rebel is our favorite brand).  We also put a couple tablespoons over our Hot Oatmeal in the morning.  It is YUMMY!

We hope all of YOU have a wonderful Christmas Holiday, and remember just what it is we are celebrating for.