So I woke up this morning and went about my morning ritual. Halfway across the room, light still off, I heard the unmistakably dribbling... Either my roommate was peeing on the living room carpet whilst standing on the kitchen table, Oooooor a pipe had burst. Weighing the plausibility of one against the other, I hollered for Ken to get off the kitchen table and for God sakes use the head. In answer I received more dribbling and... a snore? Yup, the pipe had burst and Ken was still asleep on the living room couch. I got him up and we got stuff moved out of the way and buckets under the biggest drips then called the maintenance guy's. What can I say, it was an interesting morning.

So there I was, three hours into the counter top method of turkey defrosting, and the bird's still frozen stiff...

I have been invited to a Christmas Eve lunch at the neighbors and was going to make a Turkey to bring. I've never cooked a turkey before, so I asked my neighbor about defrosting it. She said that I shouldn't use the refrigerator method, but should instead put it out on the counter the day before for a few hours and then pop it into the refrigerator. My neighbor usually knows about this stuff so I took her advice, hence my opening sentence.

After a bit of internet sleuthing, I've decided to go with a modified cold water kitchen sink/refrigerator method in order to get the bird ready in time to cook tomorrow morning. I guess what it comes down to is that if defrosting a turkey is the craziest thing in my life right now then I really have no room to complain.

Baaaah!

Word is out on the street at my Church that I'm single and you can about guess where the rest of this rant is going, so I won't even waste my breath articulating it.

In other news, I'm going up for my Air Force Qual Cert. In theory this means that I will be officially able to do the stuff I have already been doing for them unofficially. The actual logic behind why a Navy person is getting an Air Force leader qual it is a bit more convoluted and honestly gives me a headache, but I digress.

My favorite uncle died today. He had been in an accident when he was younger and had suffered massive brain trauma. Honestly, I was told that nobody expected him to live this long. Still, that's a small comfort for the mother and brothers and sisters he left behind.

Also, I've been without power for the last two days as a massive ice storm came through and leveled a lot of the trees which also brought down power and telephone lines. My neighbors and I are trying to make the best of it, two of them have young children. What it's come down to is four families huddled into one apartment, sharing firewood, candles, and food. I spent some time after work tonight picking up fallen tree limbs for use as firewood because they called and said we were running out. Every store in the state is out of firewood, hatchets, axes and the like, but I did manage to pick up a camp saw so at least we have something to break this stuff down with. I had just walked into a Lowes to see if they had any axes hidden anywhere when one of my neighbors called to say that the power was back up. THANK GOD! It had been a long day and I really wanted a hot shower.

I realized last night that today was the day I volunteered to work with Habitat for Humanity!
I haven't worked with them for over a decade, but it was really a lot of fun. We didn't do too much, pretty much tied in walls and put up some sort of barrier up on the outside, but it was still a good first step which will hopefully turn into something I do on a regular basis.