Happy Birthday to Me!

My birthday was this last Tuesday! Yay! This means I got to feel spoiled and get presents! Woohoo!

In the morning, before my man went to work, I opened the gift my in-laws had sent me.

Aren't they cute? SOCK MONKEY STAMPS! Woohoo! :) I'm gonna have some fun with them! :D

Then, hubby went to work and I goofed around for a bit. For lunch, I picked him up and we went to International Cuisine. He had the Monterey Chicken, and I had the Greek Combo Platter. So yum! Except for the Dolmas... I still don't like them. (I tried, but... yuck.)

When hubby got home from work, I opened more gifts!

First, the gift from my baby sister! :D

She made me a CD of 16 cool and relaxing songs. I love it! I'd heard four or five of them before, and some I'd never heard of. It's now on my iPod in its own playlist so I can listen to it anywhere, anytime. :D

My man got me three packages of FIMO--red, green, and purple! Yay! :D I've already been having fun with it, and the clay I'd purchased earlier in blue and translucent.

He also got me an oven thermometer so I could check the oven temperature, but he let me open it about a week early so I could bake clay. (Good thing, too--turns out the oven bakes about 25 degrees too hot!)

His last gift to me was an apple peeler/corer/slicer--something he's been wanting to get me for a few years, but always had trouble finding around the time of my birthday! Now I can make totally awesome pies with less effort!

My parents totally surprised me with the now out-of-print and wonderful Lion House Recipes cookbook. Yes, there's another book of recipes in print--Lion House Classics--but they CHANGED THE RECIPES. At least some of them--like apple pie. (The old one is awesome, the new one is gross.) As I discovered when I looked inside the cover, my parents, me, and my brother gave this to my grandparents in 1986 (before my baby sister was born). So, it was kinda like getting it back!

They also sent me what is probably THE COOLEST COOKIE CUTTER EVER. Yes, that is a BYU cookie cutter. It rocks. Now I need to make cookies!!!!!

My parents also sent me birthday money, and so did my maternal grandparents! Yay! I used it last night to buy THIS:

Yes, it's purple. Yes, it's a camera. Yes, it's awesome. And yes, it's the reason for the huge number of photos in this post. 14 megapixels, 5x optical zoom, purple goodness! And I had enough to get a 2 GB SD card, too! Now I have more than a cell phone camera! AWESOME.

So, yeah. I had an awesome birthday, was spoiled rotten by my husband, got several phone calls, and my sister and her roommate sang to me out of tune.

I'm not OVERLY paranoid...

Just paranoid in a healthy way!

When it comes to food, I have a bit of a Hippocratic Oath--"First do no harm." The food tasting good is secondary to it not killing anybody or making them ill. This means I wash my hands any time they get near raw meat, will never process my own meats or vegetables (ACK! BOTULISM!), and won't let anybody eat things with raw eggs (like cookie dough... unless I make it with the Egg Beaters things that have been pasteurized).

Here's why I mention this:

A few months ago, I got an e-mail from my LDS ward about steam canners and where to find them--apparently, at an Enrichment Night I forgot about (oops), they talked about canning jam... using a steam canner. I immediately went "OH NO! NOT THE UNAUTHORIZED, UNTESTED, NOT RECOMMENDED OR APPROVED STEAM CANNER!" And then I sent an e-mail with a link to USU's extension page talking about steam canners and such.

Then, I get an e-mail talking about the upcoming "Super Saturday" activity, where there will be crafts and things. One of the items was described as this:

Cake in a Jar

Bake a personal sized cake in a jar - the seal will keep it good for up to a year! Great for a gift or a lunchbox treat.

Is this SAFE? Am I freaking out for no reason? I don't see how you could POSSIBLY process CAKE. If you can't process pureed pumpkin (which you can't, by the way--don't even try it!), I don't think cake, as a non-liquid item, would process well. And a year? Just doesn't sound like a good idea.

What do you think? Am I freaking out over nothing here, or do you think they're simply valid concerns? My hubby thinks it's valid concerns, but then, he's been married to me for 5 1/2 years, so I don't know if that's accurate or he's just used to me being paranoid about these things!

UPDATE 10/24: USU Extension says NO to canning breads and cakes. I'm not crazy! Yay!

http://extension.usu.edu/files/publications/newsletter/Food_Safety_Bulletin_No__008_(2007).pdf

Happy Birthday to YOU!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

As of about 4 hours ago, at the earliest point in the International Date Line, it became my wife's (the creator and main author of this blog's) birthday. I asked her to add me, so that I could post occasionally, to keep the blog a bit more active, and then I go and do a thing like this... Do you think she expected anything?

Well, anyway, Happy Birthday, Honey!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

My Daddy is My Fav'rite Pal!

Happy birthday, Daddy! I won't say how old he is today, but next year his age will start with a 6 and end with a 0.

My Daddy is wonderful. When I was little, I said he was "big and strong and can do ANYTHING." Now I know he's "Big and strong and can do ALMOST ANYTHING." Still an amazing guy!

My dad is a fix-it, work-with-your-hands kind of guy. He has a shop in the garage, and builds model sailplanes and things for the house. Recently, he built cabinets for the downstairs kitchen and bathroom in their house, as well as shelves for the food storage room. He's also built a really fancy roll-top desk (I saw Norm make one on The New Yankee Workshop, and Dad's is so much better--really), a turning bookshelf, bed frames, bed side tables, and on and on. He's amazing!

Dad's favorite airplane is a P-38 Lightning. It makes me happy, because it's easily identifiable and I can always tell what it is. (Thanks, Dad!) Every time I see one (or rather, a picture of one), I think of him!

Daddy also likes cars. Especially yellow cars. When he was in college, he had a bug, and he had the shop paint it the brightest yellow they had. (He never had any problems with forgetting where he parked!) He wanted a yellow BMW Z3, but they stopped making Z3s. Then he wanted a yellow Mini Cooper, but they stopped making yellow ones this year. Yellow Ferarris are always on the list, however. Mom gave him a small one for Christmas one year. (Really small...) Vroom vroom! If Honda made yellow as a standard color, he would probably have a yellow car right now. He loves Hondas. Mom can have any car she wants--as long as it's a Honda. It's all his fault I have a Honda Civic right now!

Daddy likes to fix things. He analyzes things and turns the problem around and around until he can figure it out. He knows what kind of glue is best to glue things together--super glue, epoxy, wood glue, hot glue... He fixes things the right way the first time, so there's no need for duct tape!

I love my Daddy. I'm glad he taught me things like always keeping promises (because that's what a promise is), working with my hands (even if I may choose a different medium from wood shop), art (even if his favorite is photography and I do more drawing), how to use a computer and do desktop publishing (which has been an awesome help in my life), and managing money (get out of debt!). I know I can go to him for advice and he'll always give me an honest answer (you never have to wonder what he's thinking!)

I love you, Daddy! Happy birthday!