It’s only the middle of November, and I have my Christmas shopping done. It’s not that I have an early holiday spirit. It’s more like -- I hate crowds and the whole commercialism of Christmas. But what is a shame, is that I can’t enjoy the real Christmas because I’m too busy avoiding the commercial one. If my shopping is done by mid-November, I avoid the Christmas advertising, the crowds, and the full parking lots. I even have the candy for the stockings put up on a shelf. Tree goes up the day after Thanksgiving, and Christmas songs are already blaring on the radio.

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One of my favorite appliances is my stainless steel rice cooker, and it gets about as much use as my crockpot -- and that's a lot of use. It cooks just about any vegetable or grain item that I want it to cook, without me manning it. For example, right now it's making my breakfast, a high fiber cooked cereal, while I am writing a blog post.

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Today's post about Chicken Manure, by Neil74, reminded me of a photo I took of a manure spreader. When the animals are big and the poo is too, there is a way farmers get the poo from one place to another, and it doesn't involve handling it personally.

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This photo of an aqua colored toothbrush is one of my favorites. I had no idea how the light would play off the toothbrush, going through it to shine aqua light against the background of white. I know it's only a common object, but sometimes common objects can be petty too. Don't you think?

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Whole grain bread is slice per slice a better option than the white fluffy stuff full of chemicals and dough enhancers. In fact, do we even know what some of the ingredients are that are listed on the outside of the bread bag? I know the preservative-free brands don’t keep too long on the shelf, even less time in a warm kitchen, but I think bread made from the whole grain, baked without preservatives and foreign sounding chemical names, is the way bread is supposed to be.

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Taxes get you coming and going. I read an AP article today about the mortgage industry and the $200 billion dollar government bailout of Fannie and Freddie. U.S. taxpayers are picking up the cost of that bailout, but wait…there’s more.

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Soup and bread lines, are we headed there in America? More and more families are taking advantage of free food distribution as price of food escalates and income declines. What used to be a livable wage for a family, might now be considered living on poverty line. What will happen to the price of food in America now that we have reduced gasoline prices? Will food prices reflect what's happening at the pump or can we expect to see a loaf of bread exceed four dollars a loaf?

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We still have November green grass in my neck of the woods. I'm hoping the mowing I did last week will hold until late February at least. One thing about living in the Pacific Northwest is that if we have a mild winter, it's not outside the realm of possibilities to have to mow your lawn in January. Sod might be on the soggy side, but it can keep growing grass if temperatures don't stunt it.

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After reading a post by clemar that asks Senator Obama a question, I gave it some thought, and decided to write a post summarizing what I believe to be the difference between a democratic win and a republican win.

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Only a few more days until Halloween. I have one of the pumpkins from this frozen out patch (photo) sitting on my front patio waiting to be carved. Generally, carving happens the day before Halloween to keep the pumpkin fresh. But if a person wants to protect a pumpkin from shriveling where carved, all that needs to be done is a little cooking oil smoothed over the cuts to hold them.

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