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While you have the baking soda out you might as well make some Christmas cookies to send me. I am partial to the tree and star shaped ones.

I just finished baking my 5th batch of cookies for this year only 4 more to go. But I am going slower this year so maybe only 2. Still have 2 batches of fudge and 2 batches of nut brittle and 3 of granola. My kidos eat really good for a few days after Christmas. Almost forgot at least 2 batches of each kidos Favorite soup still to make...

maki2 said:

Seajatt sorry to hear about the accident and hope it heals quickly. We’re you doing some overhead welding?

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I was welding horizontal, and a piece of slag just managed to get down my shirt as I was chipping. Doing much better today

vanbrat said:

I just finished baking my 5th batch of cookies for this year only 4 more to go. But I am going slower this year so maybe only 2. Still have 2 batches of fudge and 2 batches of nut brittle and 3 of granola. My kidos eat really good for a few days after Christmas. Almost forgot at least 2 batches of each kidos Favorite soup still to make...

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Those are some lucky kidos!

INTJohn said:

View attachment 33391

Sayin………

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.
Hey, that's me!
.
1960s.
Sacramento, California.
I worked at a local-owned family-operated burger-joint chain called YOGI BEAR HAMBURGERS...
... not inside cooking nor making shakes.
Nope, I was the bear.
My gig was to climb into a bear costume, put the yuge plastic 'bear' head over my head, grab a picnic-basket of treats, and walk the outside.
.
Carrying the basket in one furred hand, my task was to fumble around in the basket -- using the other furred hand, utterly devoid of tactile feedback -- and pass out tiny theme toys to tiny kids enjoying an afternoon burger.
.
Sheer lunacy.
.
My visual orientation to the outside world was through the nose of that massive head, a small area of black fabric about twelve inches from my face.
As you might imagine, I tended to shuffle to avoid tripping over curbs...
...or the extended feet of mischievous do-badders.
.
My audio orientation was along the lines of "couldn't hear squat".
.
Sometimes, I stood on the sidewalk, waving at traffic.
I rarely got pounded by chucked beer-bottles from passing vehicles... although maybe more than I realized because the hairy suit provided a bounce-off buffer for my tender sensitive flesh.
.
Sometimes, I staggered through our 'Jellystone Park' picnic-tables area, bouncing off tables and inattentive patrons... hoping some parent would sense my dilemma, and move to intercept my weaving trundle, thrusting any handy child up near my nose-hole so I could graciously offer a toy...
... but with zero ability to sense the toddler's tiny hand grasping the toy -- and with the standard vaguely-in-that-general-direction attempt to grab of any kidlet -- the toy usually got bumped onto the astro-turf.
.
Sheer lunacy.
.
And sometimes, I waltzed along the drive-through driveway...
... although that was 'thin ground'...
... because of evil and truly demonically-possessed drivers bumping me from behind.
.
Still carry the scars.

^^ shame on you for teaching children and parents to get up close and personal with bears.

I woke up to frosted glass windows this morning. At first I thought it was condensation on the interior but when it did not wipe off I realized it was outside. It does look pretty with the morning sun shining through the little beads of moisture. There was a very fine sprinkling of rain last night so the little beads of drizzle froze in place rather than it being regular looking frost.

Turned on my heater and now crawling back under my downy my nest of blankets while the trailer warms up the inside. Going to be a nice but chilly, sunny morning for enjoying a breakfast of a mug of hot coffee and a bowl of hot oatmeal. Simple pleasures to savor.

So, third (more like 13th if you count last year) time lucky -- the "pretty decent" volunteer gig is actually turning out to be more like "very good." The people are (gasp) friendly -- like, all the time -- they don't just bite your head off and then every other Tuesday go "oo woo woo we love our volunteers"for five minutes -- and they're actually civil to the clients, even when it gets hectic, no drill sergeant "do this do that" barking. It's very lively and busy and there's an S-ton to learn.

All I needed was one o' these to work out and looks like I got it! Now if I could only fix my gimp foot so I can work more than two hours at a stretch without turning into Quasimodo ... Thanks for being there while I 'itched about all the bad 'uns, looks like I finally found a good 'un. knock wood!

Hard freeze warning in southeastern Arizona today. Better empty or take water inside to a warm space to prevent damage from freezing!

Drove up yesterday to see grandkids... 700 miles. Getting to 0 tonight here. You’ll be waken by my diesel truck Saturday night. Two more nights is all I can take!
32 is going to be a steam bath...

so my two-hour shift ended four hours ago. I think they might be a little bit understaffed... lucky for me I enjoy hectic and have a flexible schedule. now plan to pop some Tylenol, zombie out, and eat everything in sight...

Morgana said:

So, third (more like 13th if you count last year) time lucky -- the "pretty decent" volunteer gig is actually turning out to be more like "very good." The people are (gasp) friendly -- like, all the time -- they don't just bite your head off and then every other Tuesday go "oo woo woo we love our volunteers"for five minutes -- and they're actually civil to the clients, even when it gets hectic, no drill sergeant "do this do that" barking. It's very lively and busy and there's an S-ton to learn.

All I needed was one o' these to work out and looks like I got it! Now if I could only fix my gimp foot so I can work more than two hours at a stretch without turning into Quasimodo ... Thanks for being there while I 'itched about all the bad 'uns, looks like I finally found a good 'un. knock wood!

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Now you are someplace wonderful. Now you know why the other ones just didn't work out. This was waiting for you..... If you had gotten one of the other ones and it wasn't as good but 'worked' you would have missed it.

So this place I'm volunteering has a lot of paid staff too. How you can tell the difference? The paid staff spend their time playing with their phones and complaining. (One guy complained today that he didn't get good enough phone reception to work his other job at the same time.) Also, the paid staff know what the eff is going on, unlike the volunteers. LOL! This ain't no Angelina Jolie movie.

One client/guest today was upset enough to tell me I was the only person in the place that was nice to her. This is how you say "They're very busy, they don't mean to be rude, I'm sorry" in Russian: Это очень занято, люди не хотят быть грубыми, извините. Just in case you ever meet a pissed-off Russian, now you know.

... Shortly after, the boss lady came along and said "here I'll shut this door so people don't bother you." Wait, what! The only reason I come here is so that people can "bother" me. You think stuffing handfuls of Wet Ones into baggies in the back of a glorified clothes closet is my idea of fun? Then they ran out of stuff for me to do and sent me home early (like that was some kind of favor) (excuse me, you seem to have me confused with a paid slacker, I'm actually the volunteer workaholic). So maybe not so busy after all. I sincerely hope they did not hear me slam my car door at the other end of the parking lot.

The thing is, when it's busy they don't have time to orient you, it's just "do this/do that," but when it's slow they can't think of anything for you to do, and it seems impossible to get any kind of a big picture of what's going on. All that super friendly stuff from the first week wore off pretty fast, too. The day I worked six hours on a supposedly two-hour shift, all I got at the end was a grouchy lady coming to relieve me saying "X says you gotta go?" (We had been slammed as hell for the four extra hours. Except, somehow, the boss lady found time to take her lunch break. Captain Picard would not have done that!)

Well I guess honeymoons end, that's normal. It's only been three weeks. It could still shake out OK. (right??) I am not gonna let this drag on forever this way but I can give it some more time. The volunteer coordinator has been out sick or "working from home" the whole time I've been here. I'm not holding my breath that anything will be better when she's back, but it could.

I just gotta laugh. I'm here because I traveled hundreds of (actually a couple thousand altogether) miles in search of my dream lalala and half these people are probably here because they couldn't get on at IHOP. You think you know what's going on and you find out you're almost on a different planet.
Well, I'm the one that wanted an adventure. It's definitely that.

Happy Solstice.

Woke up to zero degrees and 25 mile per hour winds from the north. Minus -23 windchill this morning!

Brrr!

it’s 79 where I’m at. But if it’s any consolation here’s the weekend snowfall projections for my summer spot near Lake Michigan:

Blizzard Elliot is Snowmeggedon…….

2022 Xmas song as follows:


Why I leave Michigan when it gets cold.
jonny boi wants a warm sunny beach livin lyfe.

(Great) Lake effect snow.

That cold front from Alberta (aka Alberta clipper) runs all the way down to the tip of the Texas panhandle.

tx2sturgis said:

Woke up to zero degrees and 25 mile per hour winds from the north. Minus -23 windchill this morning!

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When my granddaughter left for school it was 25. When she got home (at 3:00 PM) it was 1 degree with minus 15 wind chill. Now (5:00 PM) it is minus 2 and minus 30 wind chill.

We will be about 15 in the morning and with a 2 wind chill..... still way too cold for me.

The sun is my heater today. Going into the low 70s for the daytime high for a few days. The perfect winter weather pattern I came to SW Arizona to enjoy.

The Christmas Day outdoor potluck will be merry, bright with sunshine and WARM.

Low and slow flying small plane was over the Plomosa Rd BLM this morning. Perhaps the rangers? Hard to know for sure as there are small plane airports in both Bouse and Quartzsite.

My afternoon is scheduled for mundane chores.