It's Post #200

Yep, since Brandy got me hooked on Blogger, I have posted 200 times. How appropriate to use this opportunity to share a very evil EVIL dessert recipe!!!

Crunchy & creamy pumpkin custard pie (serves 8)



½ can (=1 ¾ cups) pumpkin

½ can (=2/3 cup) 12 oz evaporated milk

2 large eggs

½ cup brown sugar

¼ cup granulated sugar

2 -21/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

½ - 1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp salt

½ pkg (=7/8 cup) yellow cake mix with pudding

1 cup chopped pecans

½ cup unsalted butter or margarine melted

Whipped cream for serving



TO MAKE FILLING: In a large bowl, whisk together pumpkin ,milk,sugars, eggs,pie spice,cinnamon and salt.

Grease a 9 inch glass pie dish. Line with 14 inch piece of waxed paper. Pour filling into paper. Sprinkle top with cake mix and then with nuts. Drizzle melted butter over top.

Bake in center of oven at 325 degrees for 55 to 60 minutes or until a knife inserted near center comes out clean.

Cool. Refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight. To serve, place serving plate/platter on top of cooled pie and turn upside down. Remove pie dish and waxed paper.


It's not a very impressive looking dessert, once you pop it out of the wax paper. People look at it and go "ew." Really. But the taste is amazing.

For those of you who are doing the Christmas thing this year, Merry Christmas. We are having food and family and friends, but we've instructed everyone that we are not doing presents. We've been telling people this for years but nobody has adhered to it. So I guess this year it might "take" because so many people are broke.
My son has a few items that I've gotten for him, like a DVD and some clothing, but that's it. I may put some cash in his stocking, and that way he can go buy something. But we're not doing GIFT-A-PALOOZA this year. It's nice that my son is eleven years old and very understanding. We talked several weeks ago about Christmas and he was completely fine with it. I also let him know that his grandparents weren't going to be going insane with the gifts, either. He really didn't seem to care. Putting it all in perspective; Shay gets everything he wants and needs all year long. And he knows it. Anytime he gets money as a gift, he puts it away in his room and never spends it. If he wants a video game, he and I negotiate what he's going to do to earn it, and he follows thru.
He's a great kid, does what he's told and I reward him all year long for that. I'm taking this opportunity to start weaning him off the idea that Christmas is the gimme gimme gimme time of year.

It truly was breaking my heart to hear the fear in family member's voices when they'd call to tell me they couldn't afford to get us anything this year. "What? I don't WANT anything!!!" What's the point of a holiday that stresses people out because they've got all the pressure to buy, spend, and finance all kinds of gifts that typically won't be appreciated as much as it was originally intended.

Festivus for the rest of us, I say.

Merry Christmas...

A Long Time Coming

JVR and Sunny had their wedding ceremony on Sunday, and we were lucky enough to be a part of it.



A wonderful toast from Sunny's nephew:


Mmmmmm...strawberry and vanilla cake:


Sunny took a moment to say "Thank You E Harmony!"


And she posed for me as the sun was setting:


There were celebrity guests....


A little bit of bling...


Afterward, we joined Jim and Sunny at their house for some wonderful conversation and "Sunny Delights" which were Bailey's Irish Cream and steamed milk. Steve noticed that Jim had two espresso machines, and he couldn't help but get a little instruction on how espresso is made. He has a sudden interest in lattes. Yay! He's never been a coffee man, but recently he had a double shot latte and he said he actually liked it. So here's Steve and Jim, going over the whole steamed milk thing:


I can't wait to show them my photos, there are 90 altogether.

It was a wonderful day and I'm so glad we were there.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like....

COME to the Darkside...

That's what Vader would say.

"Luke, give in to your destiny. COME to the dark side."

I've captured more than a couple of people in this past month, converting them to the darkside. By darkside, I mean MY side. Not that it's a contest or anything....but I lost several friends with my divorce and now they're coming back around. And the first thing I do is give them my blog address, so they can read and catch up!

My Sweetheart

My Stevie, doing what he does.

What is This Foreign Stuff?

The storm that shut down freeways in Southern California managed to get over here to Arizona a give us a little rain.

Rain?

What's that?

Santa's Little Satanic Helpers

I volunteered to ring a bell for the Salvation Army, and a part of the deal was a requirement to pair up with someone. So I asked Mohave County Supervisor Buster Johnson to ring with me.
Since he apparently will do whatever I ask,,,,,,


We did quite well, managing to ring for a couple of hours without pissing anyone off. It was funny to see the people do a double-take when their County Supervisor was standing there outside of Walgreens bell ringing.

In exchange for helping me with the bell ringing, I agreed to go to a Tri-State Law Enforcement Meeting with Buster the following day. I figured it would be a good opportunity to talk with some of our local cops in attendance about my city council run.
We really had no idea what the agenda was, because neither of us read it ahead of time. We walked in and of course got all kinds of interesting looks. That's what happens when you waltz into a room full of friggin' cops.
We discovered that it was an open bar, and that there was no need to wait in line for a mixed drink since the beers were in great supply over to the side. YAY!!!

Let the drinking begin.

We were told to check out this blonde in a red dress nearby, I guess she was Tracy on the Partridge Family show. I took a look, snapped a great photo, and dismissed the whole Partridge Family thing. I certainly wasn't going to just walk up and ask her if it was true.
But here's the great photo I took of her:

As you can see, she looks just like the little girl from the show. Well, actually I looked up a picture the next morning and it sure looked like her. From what I recalled, anyway.
Our entertainment was to be some blues music, but what we learned very soon that it was the actual Blues Brothers Tribute Band, who tour professionally.
Here's the Elwood guy, doing their introduction from just outside the meeting room:

And here's what "Jake" and I were doing meanwhile:

This was before they even made their entrance.

Once they started singing, it was AW SUMMM!!



I texted Steve throughout the night, who was happily at home on the computer researching airplanes for sale. It's his latest obsession. I don't quite know the
reasoning behind it, I just play along.

I got to see an old friend, Collette, who I went to high school with. She's married to a cop I guess.

And her cop husband decided to take me out on the dance floor and throw me around.

I wish I had a better picture of my outfit. I was wearing one of my most favorite skirts. Stripes with zippers up both sides. Too cute.