"Winter" Weather, San Diego Style

Last night Jay turned on the heat for the first time. I guess it's silly to complain about it being "cold" here, but it's been in the 40's at night and to me that is cold. I even had some magic shell in the kitchen (you know, the chocolate ice cream topping that hardens when it hits the cold ice cream, or is mistakenly stored in the refrigerator). Last night it was clear that the bottle's idea of "room temperature" and the actual temperature in my kitchen, are quite different as it was almost hardened in the bottle. Well I suppose that's just as well; the stuff isn't that healthy anyway.

So anyway, the heat is set to approximately 62-65 and I shudder to think of the electric bill. I know, I'm very spoiled to live here. I am so disgusted with certain things in San Diego lately, like the various pension/bribery/etc scandals within the city council and now "Duke" Cunningham's admission of taking bribes while in office. I am glad to say I didn't vote for him, but I am always disappointed to see this sort of thing. The bad politics coupled with the insane cost of living are--at least for now--outweighed by the fact that 50 degrees Farenheit is considered "cold".

On a different note, I cooked the entire Thanksgiving meal by myself again this year. My dad and my youngest brother came down to our house for the holiday. I burned the first two pies (by baking them at 475 instead of 375) but I rushed to the store, bought new pies, and everything turned out well. My dad, brother, and I took Luke to Legoland on Friday. Depsite the fact that it was more crowded that normal, it was a lot of fun. Luke went on the dragon coaster twice and we bought one of the pictures because he had his arms up all on his own. It's his new favorite ride, apparently.

My family and I have also decided to do something a little different for Christmas this year. Rather than buying gifts for everyone we're going to buy gifts for a family that my church is sponsoring who lost everything in New Orleans. Their whole extended family of 16 people moved here to San Diego and the church has been helping them start their lives over. We should have been doing this sort of thing for years instead of buying each other stuff we don't really need. I'm still planning to buy small gifts (See's candy) for my family, but no big "stuff". Luke will still be getting presents though, since he is 4, and he is so excited. He wakes up each morning saying "Merry Christmas". He is also calling everybody "donut" right now. Kids! He insisted we get a Christmas tree last weekend, so we did that Sunday. Jay came for the first time and he picked it out and even did most of the work to get it in place. It was really nice for a change. The cats seem to knock off a few ornaments each day, and we saw Abby *in* the tree once, but it hasn't been too bad, yet.

I also made homemade sugar cookies with Luke on Saturday. Completely from scratch; even the frosting (in 5 different colors). It felt like I spent all day in the kitchen baking or cleaning, but he was so proud of "helping" that it was worth it.

I have completed 67 miles on my trek to Rivendell so far. I still have 391 to go, but it's progress anyway. I was up a couple pounds after Thanksgiving but I managed to get 8 miles in during the holiday so it wasn't too bad. I hate that it gets dark so early now; there's a nice 2.5 mile loop that I like to walk and I can't do it alone at night. I have a friend who will walk with me, but not when it's so cold.

Well, I'm headed off to run some errands at lunch and maybe wrap a couple more presents.