A Note From Her Ladyship

Dear Vassal 1,

I would HATE to have to publish embarrasing photos of you on Ye Vincent Vassalage.

HATE it.

Vassal 1 would just like to say that Vassals 2 &3 are NO FUN AT ALL!!

Disclaimer

Ok, vassals 2 & 3 looked up what exactly a vassal is and we would like to say that the rebellion was all vassal 1's idea and that we hereby disown any alleigance to vassal 1's idea and that all demands have been withdrawn and all acts of rebellion(especially the tattoo and the hair dying) are hereby offered as punishment to vassal 1 for her rebellious idealism and acts of temptation to vassals 2 & 3

We hereby pledge our undying(maybe) devotion to the Lord and Lady Vincent at least until we turn 18

It's "Peoples of Vass"

LIBERTY!!!! JUSTICE!!!!! WE SHALL PREVAIL!!!!!
The vassals shall never surrender to the wicked tyranies of the oppressors!!!
In revolt Vassal 1 will pierce her nose, vassal two will get a tattoo of the words "Freedom or Bust" on his bicep, and vassal 3 will dye her hair pink and date before she's 16.

We hope you know this means war.

Decree from Lord Darin von Vincent

Let it be decreed from this time forth:

The uprising of the vassals has been quelled!!

Beginning from this moment all vassals must obey the following laws and rules or be duly punished and the establishment of further laws will be implemented

1: All vassals must be in bed by 6:30 pm
2: A tax of $1.50 per day will be levied to all vassals
3: Rent will be collected for use of items not personally owend by vassals (This includes beds, toilet, shower, TV, computer, etc.)
4: Ice cream is only for the consumption of the Lord & Lady. Any vassal caught eating ice cream will be flogged.
5: From this moment forth, all vassals who once had rights shall now be referred to as "hey you."
6: All vassals will from henceforth take over all chores and duties to the running of the vassalage while the Lord and Lady do whatever they please.
7: Vassals 1,2 & 3 shall provide the Lord and Lady the following:
*Houseboat at Lake Powell
*A trip to Europe
*A Dodge Viper
*A Mercedes Benz 350SL Gullwing
*A Victorian Style Mansion with swimming pool and secluded and private lodging for the Lord and Lady
*A private Jet
*A Steinway Grand Piano
8: The vassals will be at the beck and call of the Lord and Lady at all times. Any complaining, whining, or rolling of eyes shall be punished by removal of the vassal's mattress until said vassal has paid a fine equal to the value of the mattress.

This decree takes effect from this time forward.

With our sincere love and adoration,

Lord Darin and Lady Suzanne

Revolution!!

The vassals hereby resent the title "Vassal", and so REVOLUTION!!! FREEDOM!!! JUSTICE!!!! LATER BEDTIMES!!!
Our demands and Bill of Rights;
1: Later Bedtimes,
No vassal shall be put to bed before 10:00
2: Allowance
All vassals shall be paid a minimum of 10 dollars a week.
3: More Ice Cream
Ice cream shall be eaten for dessert every night
4: All vassals shall be referred to as Supreme High Majesty of all they survey.
5: Vassal 1 wants a car, her own sleeping quarters and a 5 string violin
6: Vassal 2 wants a computer, no make that a laptop, Fishing licences for Utah, Idaho, Colorado, and Montana, and a hunting/fishing trip to Alaska
7: Vassal 3 wants a Wii, a Nintendo Ds, and a puppy, and a TV...And her own honks store and everything in it. (Haha just kidding, private joke)
8: Vassal 2 also wants a house boat
9: while we're at it Vassal 1 wants six more bunnies and a place to keep them and a servant to clean up the poo.
10: and while we're dreaming we also want a mansion with an indoor pool, a yacht, and a private jet to fly us wherever we want to go. Oh, and World Peace and Chocolate bunnies for all!!!!





RRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIGHT ;)

Irritated or Powerful?

Today we had ward conference.

Ugh.

I'm currently serving as the primary chorister. That's all well and good. But ward conference always throws everything off. We received our actual schedule today. Yes, today. I had a whole fifteen minutes of singing time in which to try to finish teaching them what will likely turn out to be the hardest song of the year. I didn't get very far.

Anyway, the whole stake primary board was there. I was irritated. Why? Not because they were there. I don't care. It doesn't change what I do or how I do it. I'm not there for them. I was irritated because they were 'kind' enough to finally bring us the songs the primary kids are supposed to be singing for Stake Conference on March 1st.

We were given the 'heads up' that we were going to be singing in Stake Conf. two weeks ago with the promise that we would have the songs real soon and that they would be songs from recent Sacrament Meeting programs.

So I get the list today. The day I SHOULD be giving my pianist the songs for next month, I have to toss the whole month into the air and reconfigure the whole thing to accomodate the songs the stake wants the kids to know.

So I look over the list. I ask, "You want the junior primary to sing too?"

"Uh-huh. For the prelude songs."

I look over the list again. "But they don't know these songs."

"None of them?"

"Uh, maybe one of them."

"Oh, that doesn't matter. We just want them to sit up there and look cute and give their parents an incentive to be on time."

Irritation rising.

I look over the list again.

One of the songs they don't know at all.

So in February I'm supposed to:
*teach them the assigned song for the month,
*review the list of songs they DO know for Stake Conference (8 songs),
*teach them the songs from that list they DON'T know,
*try to find a half a second to teach them The Third Article of Faith.

And all that with a pianist who is struggling, a primary president who worries over EVERY LITTLE THING, and the fact that in order to be able to lug all my music stuff around I have to take a SUITCASE to church every week--and it doesn't have room for my scriptures in it!

I need power!!! Lots of it.

But remember, I'm irritated.

So after Primary, I head off to sacrament meeting, we sing, pray, sustain our leaders, take the sacrament, listen to the Bishop speak....

STOP!!

Bishops in our ward have been really good at stunning me with some bit of wisdom that puts me in my place. Here's what ours said today:

"When we cease to see obedience as an irritant, in that moment we become endowed with POWER."

When we cease to see home and visiting teaching, tithe paying, church attendance, doing our callings, etc. etc. etc. as irritants, THAT'S when we gain the power to do anything.

Oh, FREAK!! Now I have to figure out how to stop being irritated!

Binging

I do that. I binge. Not on food--at least not TOO much. ;-)

I binge on activities.

Last week I binged on slush-reading. If you don't know what that is, I'll explain:

I work as a slush editor for an online fiction magazine. I read slush, which is stories that have been submitted for potential publication through our site. I read close to 100 stories a month, and out of those I give the thumbs up to about 20. Of THOSE about 5 or 6 end up being considered, and of THOSE one or two actually get published.

I've been reading a lot of slush this week--probably fifty or sixty stories.

See, two weeks ago it was my blogging binge week. Three weeks ago it was my Primary Music binge week. This week I'm binging on writing. I'm working on a very old and very big project that I hope to actually finish someday--my novel.

For those of you have read any of it, what it's evolving into is going to have very little resemblance to what I originally wrote.

This all started because I'm reading a book in preparation for our history study. It's called Daily Life in the Age of Charlemagne. (It's a pretty crappy book, full of inconsistencies and far to church-sympathetic.) Aside from its basic crappiness, it does two things successfully. 1) It focuses on a pretty narrow time frame, which means that the descriptions of daily life during that time period are actually relevant to the WHOLE time period. To contrast, a book about daily life during the Middle Ages is, to me, idiotic. I mean, the Middle Ages lasted a THOUSAND YEARS! It is inconceivable to me that life would be basically the same at the beginning of that thousand years as it was at the end of it. In fact, it is quite the contrary. At the beginning of that thousand years the average joe was a freeman. By the end the majority of Europeans were little more than slaves living as serfs, basically the property of the person on whose land they lived. Different.

But all that's neither here nor there. The other successful thing it does is that it gives a pretty good outline of all the relevant facts about daily life. Social pressures, Economic pressures, basic living, clothing, etc, etc. Like I said, the book kinda sucks (there are a few passages that are interesting and seem fairly factual if that helps redeem it), but I looked at that basic outline and thought, 'Hey, that would be a really great way to outline the background material for a novel!' So that's what I've been doing. I'm working out all the little details that are going to help me more deeply create characters, where they're coming from, why they make the decisions they do, that sort of thing.

So I'm outlining. Binging on outlining.

Better than binging on ice cream.

Maybe.

Another Lazy Sunday

We like those. When there's nothing else that needs doing but sitting around recovering from a hectic week. And I have to admit, having church at 8:30 in the morning is NICE when I see all the time we have afterward to be together with no obligations pulling us this way and that, nothing that needs doing, no place that needs going.

Ian's timing himself on the Rubik's Cube. He's down to below 2 minutes on solving it.

Hannah is playing Zelda: The Legend of the Minnish Cap.

Maren and Darin are in the living room assembling a collage of horse pictures to put up in Maren's bedroom (thanks to Grandma W. for the old horse calendar).

I'm taking some time to catch up on blogs--including my own.

Tonight we're having turkey for dinner and then we'll have movie night--which is delayed due to a) lack of movies on Friday and b) an Elder's Quorum family party last night.

This week our new President will be inaugurated. We're already seeing signs that he is not as well-loved among his liberal congress-mates as everyone thought he would be. I'm definitely no fan of Obama's, but it will be interesting to watch how things play out.

And that's how it should be, I think. We actively participate in the political process, we work to bring about the kind of change that is best for the country, but in the end we don't have much choice but to sit back and play observer--not only an observer in the political process, but an observer--a witness, if you will--of the last days. I tend to think that we should be watching not with fear, or trepidation, or disgust, but with joy, with fascination. I liken it to the way I must have felt as I watched (or perhaps participated in) the creation of the world however many millenia ago. Certainly then there was a lot to be nervous about as we anticipated our uncertain mortal futures, but would we have been fearful? Would we have had our doubts? Would we have seen Satan plotting to lead us astray and wished things could be different?

I don't think so.

We shouted for joy then. Why not do the same now, knowing that the world and its affairs are in His hands, and that, despite the scary stuff, we're on our way to witnessing some pretty amazing events!

It's like taking a dream vacation with a carful of young children. The ride seems like hell, but the destination is FANTASTIC! That being the case, isn't the ride worth it?

You BETCHA!

Speaking of vacations, here's a picture from last year's vacation to Southern Colorado and Utah. These are from Great Sand Dunes National Park. It's a FREAKING long drive over the ugliest country on earth, and if you DO end up going, be sure to wear long pants and long sleeves if you want to climb the dunes. The wind blows at a fairly constant 35 mph, and that HURTS on bare skin. And, oh yeah, keep your camera in a ziploc bag to protect if from the sand:

TRIUMPH!

As you can see, I FINALLY figured out how to use the free Picasa software to add a slideshow to my blog.

Yay! And tons of thanks to my son, without whose help I would have been LOST!! We figured it out together.

Carrot Pudding

Last night we drove to Salt Lake to celebrate my Dad's 77th birthday.

There are a few things in our family that are solid traditions, and one of them is Carrot Pudding. I'm not talking about that gloppy stuff that we American's call pudding. I'm talking about the steamed cakey stuff that the English call pudding.

This is an old family recipe that I remember eating for, well, as long as I can remember.

No, that's not technically true. I didn't like it much as a child. My kids and I have decided that Carrot Pudding is a mature taste that doesn't appeal to the tastebuds until about age 12.

So my oldest two love it. The youngest won't touch it.

Dad makes the carrot pudding (the recipe comes from his side of the family) every year. Mom made raisin cookies which are another sentimental favorite in my family. The younger kids ate Lofthouse cookies--the kind with 1/4 inch of frosting on them.

On the Carrot Pudding, we have a buttery sauce--either vanilla or brandy.

Now consider that we're Mormons. Mormons don't drink alcoholic beverages, but it's OK for us to cook with them. We get the flavor without the mind-numbing effects of the alcohol. That said, my parents keep a large bottle of very good brandy in the house solely for use in making the brandy sauce for Carrot Pudding once a year. Their last bottle lasted something like 20 years.

It used to be that they could readily find the ingredients they require for the pudding: It's grated carrots and potatoes, flour, Muscat raisins, REAL suet, some spices, sugar, etc. These days they have to special order the raisins from a company in California. Fortunately Muscat raisins are still used for making wines, so a few raisins are still available. And butcher shops don't keep real suet on hand anymore. The stuff they generally CALL suet is just ordinary fat made into pellets to feed to birds. But REAL suet is the fat from off the kidneys of the cow. It's a very fine-grained fat that melts nicely and evenly.

One last lost secret of the pudding is the cans they're steamed in. The original cans are tin, smooth-sided, and very old. They're just made from old food cans of some type--one very tall can about 5 inches in diameter and about 10 inches tall, with a second can of the same diamter cut to a length of about 3 inches that serves as a lid that's slid onto the top of the taller can. These are filled about 2/3 full with the batter and placed in simmering water to steam for three hours.

My Dad would like to be able to make more of them, but all the food cans available these days have ridges in the sides, making it very difficult to extract the puddings when they're done. You can find pudding molds on the internet for making this type of pudding, but they're quite pricey and, quite simply, don't have that same tradition attached to them.

Maybe we'll have to have some custom-made by a metalsmith.

At any rate, we all gave our blood sugars and cholesterol counts a not-so-healthy boost last night--but for tradition's sake, we were willing to sacrifice!

Spreading the Word

No. Not THAT word.

I like to spread the word about companies that I find extremely enjoyable to work with--that give good values, excellent service, and the products I want.

Today's company is Winkflash.com.

Winkflash is a photo printing company that works over the internet.

They offer:
Free membership
Free unlimited online photo storage
Free photo-shopping (somewhat limited, but you can crop and adjust color etc.)
Easy to use ordering system
SUPER cheap prices on printing (like 8 cents per 4X6, $1.59 for 8X10s)
Fast service--about a week for printing and shipping
Printing on high quality paper from the digital photos you choose

The only cost to you, EVER, is when you order prints.

We've been super impressed with Winkflash.

Find them at: www.winkflash.com

Of White Snow, Music, and Purple Potatoes

Today's news: SNOW! We got six new inches last night and it's been snowing lightly all morning. Ogden City has been doing a somewhat better job of plowing the streets than in the past few weeks. We STILL have an inch of ice covering about 30% of the streets throughout the city. Now that ice is covered by new snow, but the city, thank goodness, is salting today. I saw more street this morning driving Ian to Band than I have in a couple of weeks.

Anyway, Saturday we went on our first family sledding trip. There's a great hill at a golf course near us. We had a great time, picking up awesome speed, and getting VERY cold. Maren got going SO fast she kept going on down the next little hill, then the NEXT little hill! It took her FOREVER to get back up to the top, but it was worth it!






Afterward we had a couple of kids with money burning holes in their pockets, so we went to PetSmart and bought fish.

Sunday was my first day as the new Primary Song Leader. Alas, I'm again and still in Primary, but the calling is a fun one, and I have a ton of great ideas for the coming year. I hope the pianist can keep up with me.

Also Sunday we had a lovely beef roast for dinner, complete with mashed potatoes and gravy. However, our potatoes were purple. Purple, you say? Yes, purple. And no, NOT dyed purple. Real, natural, purple potatoes that we grew in our garden. Darin took some of the leftovers with him to work yesterday and his co-workers were dismayed. They didn't believe that the potatoes were naturally purple, so he's taking a few of the potatoes to work with him today.

Anyway, often when we make mashed potatoes we make extras so we can have Shepherd's Pie later in the week. This week was no exception, so we had Shepherd's Pie with purple potatoes. Check this out:




The bottom image is of the potatoes right after they've been squeezed out of the ziploc bag. I usually cut a corner off the bag and squeeze the potatoes out like frosting in a pastry bag. The top image is after it's been cooked. Now doesn't that look appetizing? It doesn't look much better with brown gravy on it either. But once you get past the visual shock, they taste just like regular potatoes, AND they're different. That's why we like them.

My Recipe for Shepherd's Pie:
1 lb Ground Beef, browned
1 can whole kernel corn
1 can cut green beans
1 can tomato soup
1 tsp chili powder
3 to 4 cups mashed potatoes (any color)
Grated cheese, flavor or choice
9X13 pan, sprayed with cooking spray; 350 degree oven

Brown meat, remove from heat and add corn, beans, soup and chili powder. Mix thoroughly and pour in to baking pan. Top with mashed potatoes, spread evenly over the meat mixture. Top with grated cheese. Bake for 30 minutes. Allow to cool for 5 to 10 minutes before serving.

GO UTES!!!

Darin and I are both graduates of the U of U, so we were pleased as punch to see our Runnin' Utes win the Sugar Bowl. No, 'win' isn't really the correct term. How about 'CONQUER!' They slaughtered 4th ranked Alabama with a 31 to 17 win. Yay!!!

We also saw our nephew Dan up there on live television with his big 'Respect Us' (the U being big and RED) poster. He and his friends left soon after midnight on New Year's Day and drove straight through to get there for the game. He looked tired.

Go UTES!


(Wow! Two posts in one day, but I needed to remember to put this in, and I didn't want to overclutter the other post.)

Last Day of Holiday Freedom and OCD

Call me a relic of the public school system, but holidays, including summer, are sacred to me.

No school--at least not formal school--during holidays.

And, as another relic-ism from public school days, I'm kind of rueing the coming of Monday. Back to school for us.

I don't think I'd mind it so much if I didn't have to drive kids back and forth all day, every day.

I'll be VERY glad when Hannah gets her driver's license. She'll be able to do at least some of all that driving for me. I hate driving. I hate driving because I can't really accomplish anything while I'm driving. It's wasted time when, in ANY other circumstance I could be doing at least two things at once. When you're driving, you just drive. If you try to do two things at once while you're driving you end up dead, maimed, killing, maiming, or, at the very least, extremely embarrassed.

I just read my niece's blog. She related some of her OCD-ness and it reminded me of our family Christmas party as we were relating tales of OCD-ness. At that party I had the opportunity to relay my favorite OCD quote to her and other members of my family. I wish I could tell you where I heard this or who to attribute it to, but I can't. Anyway, it goes like this:

"I'm CDO. You know. Like OCD, only in alphabetical order, like it should be."

Yup. We can TOTALLY relate in our household. I only wish I were OCD about a clean house. *sigh*

The Goal

Blogs are a nice way to keep track of the events of your life.

So my goal is to update at least weekly, daily being the ideal, and to include a tidbit of current events, a tidbit of what our family did each day, and anything else of interest.

Today the weather is unseasonably warm, south winds blowing, snow melting. The kids went out to dig out the ice bank so we won't have a skating rink at the foot of our driveway. We have to keep the gutter clear to let the water drain or we end up with a sheet of solid ice right where you need traction to get in and out of the driveway.

So, with all this warmth, is there a storm coming? Wait! Let me check it out at weather.com!

Waiting.........

40% chance of rain this afternoon; 100% chance of snow by 11 p.m., snowing through the night, tapering off until about 9 a.m. tomorrow, then the rest of Saturday should be sunny--PERFECT for sledding!

Hannah and I went grocery shopping today. Ian sent money and had me buy him an aquarium. We haven't had an aquarium set up in the house for YEARS!! He says he's going to force Dad to take him shopping tomorrow for fish. Fish are friends, not...

No, no, no. Never mind.

What I meant to say was, Fish are FUN.

Tonight is movie night. Our family has a weekly movie night. We've been doing it for years. The kids take turns picking the movie, we buy candy bars and drinks, have popcorn if we want, and watch the movie together. It's something that's almost sacred in our house, something we all enjoy, something we all look forward to.

At this point I'm going to put in a plug for Netflix. The really are a great service at a great price. We've been pleased as punch with their selection, their service, the ease of use, everything. No more driving to Hollywood Video or Blockbuster, no more late fees, no more rushing to take movies back, no more wasting time browsing through an abysmally limited selection of films. AWESOME!!

New Year, New Blog

About a year ago I launched the first of our family blogs. It failed miserably, mainly because so few of our family and friends knew much about this thing called blogging.

During that blog's death throes, I posted a notice stating that if ANYONE visited the blog they should leave a comment to let me know that my efforts were not in vain.

My efforts were in vain.

So that blog has been converted for a more useful purpose--an off-site storage site for my short stories--and I started a writer's blog, the link to which you can find in the sidebar.

Recently, however, I have discovered that several of my friends and family have finally taken the leap into the 21st century and keep active blogs.

YAY!!

So, here we go again!

Welcome to Yo Olde Vincent Vassalage!