Lemon Meringue Pies and the "Never Fail Pie Crust"

Tomorrow we are having a dinner to celebrate Bev's birthday. She said she hasn't had a party since she was a kid, so decided to invite our family home evening group over for dinner. Her favorite dessert is lemon meringue pie, so she asked me to bring 2 pies. Well, I did not have the heart to tell her that I am not a pie baker. Let me say that again, I AM NOT A PIE BAKER. I am a cake decorator. Anyway, probably the reason I am not a pie baker is that I haven't taken enough time to learn how to perfect the art of baking pies. Now, don't get me wrong, usually my pies taste good enough; I just haven't learned how to make them look beautiful yet. Now when I bake something, I think it should not only taste wonderful, but look wonderful too. So I pull out my recipe for "Never Fail Pie Crust." It is a great tasting, very flaky pie crust, which is very easy to make, you roll it out between wax paper, and plop it in the pie pan. Here comes the trick...making it look pretty around the edges. So I worked extra hard and actually made these really pretty crimped edges. Both pie crusts looked really nice, until...I put them in the oven to bake. Little by little, the crust begins to slide down the insides of the glass pie plates, so I no longer have beautiful pie crusts. I caught one before it baked too long, so took it out and repaired it, then put it back and let it finish cooking. The other was difficult to salvage, so it ended up looking pretty sad. So I poured the filling in and put the meringue on top, hoping that it would cover up or at least disguise the damage to the poor pie crust, but it didn't help much. So my quest continues...to make a pie that looks as great as it tastes, and to keep my "Never Fail Pie Crust" from failing.

First pie...OK, but not perfect

Second pie...looks like someone has already taken a bite out of it!

Computer generated "words" and random memories...

This morning, after reading some recent blog posts from friends' blogs, I felt inclined to leave comments. As in many times past, I was asked to type in a "word verification" prior to publishing my comment. Another time when you are asked to type in a "word" is when you post something on Craig's List. It just struck me funny this morning that these computer generated whatevers were actually referred to as "words." So, I began to think of what these "words" could actually mean. Here are a few of the last "words" I typed in:

spitual: This could possibly be the word "spiritual," just typed wrong

barslyte: Could this possibly be someone sitting at a bar, drinking from only a very small glass?

daheas: Maybe some kind of flower

wallyh: Definitely someone's name "Wally H." It could just as well have been Wally G. or Wally M.

phose: Either phone spelled wrong, or another name for a funny hose, with the word being pronounced "fose"

Looking at these "words" then made me reflect back to the times when we played either Boggle or Balderdash together as a family. My first thoughts were of Tom, who was the best at cheating (or at least pretending to cheat) when playing Boggle. We had to keep a dictionary handy, as he would constantly come up with new "words." In the game of Balderdash, you have to make up definitions for unfamiliar words and then try to trick the other team into guessing for your answer. The most "fun" we had during a Balderdash game was actually after the game was over. Paula put several words together to make some crazy sentences. Rachel (who was 7 mos. pregnant at the time) began laughing so hard that Brent was fearful of her going into labor, and then Bruce began laughing so hard that he began to upchuck (not an extremely unusual thing to happen). Yes, we are your normal "fun and games" type of family.

Crazy Colorado Weather

We knew from living in Colorado before that the weather here is very odd. The saying here in Colorado is "if you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes...it will change." Well, so far, this has been a very strange winter. One day it will be in the 60's or 70's, the next day it will be below freezing. Take this week for example...early in the week we had single digit temperatures; this afternoon it was 73 degrees. No wonder everyone gets sick with colds. The snowfall has been weird this winter, too. 2 years ago, we had several feet of snow, and it snowed what seemed like every weekend. This year, the most snow we have had at one time has been about 2-3 inches, and the wind just keeps blowing and blowing. When it is this dry, the "experts" tell us we need to water our lawn, even in the middle of the winter, or else it will dry out and die by the time spring comes around. If that's not strange, I don't know what is. So, I'm going to bed now, and before I do, I will slather my body with lotion, so it doesn't resemble a piece of dry crusty old bread.

Happy 2009!

So, what do two old people do on New Year's Eve? We try really, really hard to stay awake until midnight. I had a wedding cake to bake that night, so while the cake was baking, we watched a movie. Watching movies makes me automatically fall asleep, so it's a good thing I had the cake in the oven...I knew I couldn't fall asleep while the cake was baking, or we would have a crispy instead of moist cake. So, after the cake was baked and the movie was done, we flipped from channel to channel on the TV, waiting for the "NY ball" to drop, so we could officially proclaim "Happy New Year!" Then we went to bed. Normally, on New Year's Eve, we would have been celebrating at a party at Dick and Nancy Wright's home, but they had family here from out of town, and no one else stepped in to take over the hosting, so instead you have two old people with a pretty boring New Year's Eve.

Yes Emma, there really is a Santa Claus!

Our oldest granddaughter, Emma, does not believe there is a Santa Claus. However, one of our grandsons, Dallin, believes that the once dead Santa has now been resurrected. Grandpa and I believe there is a Santa Claus! As some of you may know, this has been a difficult year for us financially, and we weren't sure how we were going to pay all of the bills or car repairs this nexth month. So, 2 days before Christmas we received a monetary gift in a card signed from "Secret Santa." Then again, late on Christmas Eve, we received another large monetary gift on our doorstep. We have no idea who this was from, but Grandpa and I believe it was from our own special "Santa" who was aware of our needs. He must have dropped by our house on his way to delivering all of the toys to the good girls and boys. Thank you Santa!

This is a picture of Santa "Billy" Claus. He normally resides at the North Pole near Colorado Springs. This year, he lives in a special workshop by the White House in Washington, DC.

You can read about him at: http://www.gazette.com/articles/christmas_45163___article.html/right_gooch.html

Families, Events, and Expectations...

There are certain events that occur in the lives of families when other family members are sometimes "expected" to be there...blessings, baptisms, weddings, funerals. In a perfect world, all extended family members would be able to join together together for these blessed occasions. However, we do not live in a perfect world and even though we sometimes would love to attend these events, "life happens." For example, a few months ago, our newest granddaughter, Lucy, was born. Originally, we had all hoped to fly back to NY to attend the blessing. As time got closer for Lucy's birth, Tom and Amanda realized that it would just not be possible for that to happen, so they brought Lucy out to Utah to be blessed so it would not be a hardship on family members to travel so far. It was not their first choice, but it was the most reasonable answer so that the most family could attend. Even then, our son-in-law, Eddie could not attend because of his work schedule. Just recently, our oldest granddaughter, Emma was baptised. The original plan was for her to be baptised at Thanksgiving time, since we thought everyone would be able to be there, but then again, it was too far for Tom and Amanda and Lucy to come, and Paula and Eddie and Lexi had planned to go to Idaho for Thanksgiving. So, Emma was baptised the first weekend in December, and Grandpa and I were the only ones that could attend, as well as Grandpa and Grandmas from Rachel's family. None of the aunts and uncles were there, even though they had originally hoped to be. So, now we are approaching a wedding in the family. One of our nieces, Ashley, is getting married on January 3rd. Yes, we would love to attend, but again "life happens," so we do the best we can do, and hope that everyone involved can understand that even though we can't attend due to previous commitments and work schedules, etc. that our thoughts and prayers and best wishes will still be with Ashley on her important day. As families become further spread apart, it becomes more difficult to just pick up and go, especially when money and/or winter travel can be an issue. Hopes, expectations, and wishes are great, but sometimes reality takes over. It's called life, and we just do the best we can.

Christmas Decorations are Finally Up!

So I'm not sure why it took so long to get the trees and decorations up this year...too busy, no incentive, nobody here except us two old people, hmmm. Anyway, the trees were sitting out for a week, and I finally got around to decorating them on Friday night. Bruce attempted to decorate the downstairs tree, but realized I had made a few changes when he got up on Saturday morning. That was OK with him. We also have an upstairs and downstairs nativity set...one for little fingers to play with and one that is better off left alone. That way, when Lexi comes over, she has one to play with. As for the stockings hanging on the fireplace mantel, only two this year, as we are spending Christmas morning with Paula's family at her place. Seems kind of strange compared to some years when we have the whole family here and can barely fit all the stockings up there.