Soup Recipe

For the soup recipe go to www.brentandlou.blogspot.com in case you didn't already find it. Don't let the number of ingredients trouble you--it's fast and easy as most of it is open and dump. Thanks to Laura for putting it together!

Nothing Like a Good Soup in the Winter

Well, it's not really very like winter as it is unseasonably warm in SLC and there has been no snow for several weeks now. But in a joint effort with my two daughters and the internet, we have recreated, and maybe improved upon, the Olive Garden minestrone. It didn't take that long to cook, and even the most resistent soup hater (Cameron) admitted he liked it. I'd post the recipe, but Laura is the one who put it all together, and I'm not sure of all the ingredients. It has been a busy couple of weeks with very little to show, but I soldier on nonetheless. I'm looking forward to seeing many of you Thanksgiving evening for dessert.

Addendum: Turns out the invite didn't go out for Thanksgiving evening dessert. Nonetheless, we'll be here with pies if anyone wants to come. E mail or call for details. I'll try to get the soup recipe up tomorrow if the dinner preparations don't get in the way.

Not Too Smart

Since Laura has my camera, and I'm not sure I would have anything to post by way of illustration, this will stand as a narrative entry.

First, I decided after weeks of debating that I would do two things this week--go to the temple and get new tires on my car. The temple part I hadn't debated, but just hadn't put it in the proper place on my list of priorities. I headed out from work at about 4:30 Wednesday afternoon hoping to avoid the worst of the traffic on the way to the temple. Unfortunately, it gets dark really early in Las Vegas when daylight savings time ends. Furthermore, there has been a lot of road construction along the route I use to get to the temple. In the dusk I missed a new division in the freeway system which would have allowed me to head East to the temple and ended up going South on I-15. As luck would have it, there was a traffic accident and the traffic on Southbound I-15 was at a standstill. It took me half an hour to get to an exit where I could turn around and right myself. Not that it mattered so very much, but it made going to the temple feel like more of a sacrifice than I planned on. Serves me right for putting it off so long.

So, Thursday I went to Costco to get new tires. I waited almost two hours for them to finish the installation. Determined to be cheerful, I commented to the guy at the checkout that it looked like it was a busy day. He said, "Yes, and the funny thing is yesterday we only sold one tire all day." Just my luck to pick the wrong day and the wrong time to do that task, but anticipating bad weather on the way to SLC this weekend, I thought it was important to get it done. Surely I could have done with a little inspiration or prompting to make my week go more smoothly.

Today I spent the day cleaning blinds and windows. One of the blinds on the back door had been broken last winter when the wind caught the door and wrenched the blind--it has been hanging crooked ever since. I took it down to evaluate the damage. A plastic piece was broken, and part of it was just lying in the header. As I tried to figure out if it could be glued or fixed, the other piece it connected to was so brittle it broke again when I tried to manipulate it. I began looking about for some potential repair, and saw the lid to a spray can which I had emptied in the process of cleaning the windows. A view came into my mind of how I could modify the lid to fix the blind, which I did. It works perfectly, and even rotates to open and close the blind. I am not too smart, but I am smart enough to know I couldn't have come up with that by myself. I am thankful at last for a little bit of inspiration--it makes me happy every time I look at the blind now hanging straight. I guess the week turned out all right after all.