7 Days Until Christmas
9:14 a.m. - 2006-12-18


Some of my cookbooks came back from Siberia and I have reloaded them onto the shelves. One of them contained the printouts of Abby's accumulated favorite recipes so she is now all set to start the Christmas baking. She has been cooking deprived while at the big U so wants to make some of my diet recipes for me. Go to it, I say. We went to Costco after church and saw a display of the KitchenAid mixers, including the color Abby wants. She has decided to take her graduation from college gift in the form of a KitchenAid mixer and Food Processor, but we had not gotten it yet. We purchased this, and then I had the fun of coming in the front door and telling the spouse that I had spent $300.00 at Costco, and watching his face go pale in dismay. Then Abby walked in with the big box and he realized what it was, so his visions of mounds of canned goods and food with nowhere to store it died a happy death. Abby has been unpacking the thing and testing it out, while we try to decide what dessert to make for Christmas dinner at the EG's. Abby is leaning to an Angel Food Cake, because that involves lots of whipping, so we shall see. She also wants to try out the dough hook, which looks completely different from the one that came with my machine, but my KitchenAid is 30 years old, so science has marched on.

I am totally disappointed in the new pastor, who has the same malady as the old one - an inability to stick to the schedule and a weakness for the sound of his own voice droning on and on and on. In addition to the nearly one-hour sermon, he changed the offering to the very end, so the 'now let us pray' that used to signal a blessed deliverance, is no longer the end. Poor EG, with her bum knee, is having a hard time sitting through the endless service. Abby says that church here, as opposed to the great church she goes to at college, always carries with it an undertone of great annoyance. So that is my complaint for this week.

I enjoyed the last episode of this Survivor, though I was hoping that Ozzie would win, even though Yul is a local boy and went to Northgate High School. I just thought Ozzie deserved it, but it was a close call. Abby and I were talking about how cute Yul was, which brought up the subject of how cute that Jin on Lost is, and she says that her friends in the South cannot see the cuteness of Asian guys, maybe from less exposure to these people than we have in California. But really, they have eyes, don't they?