Christmas Eve Eve

Last Tuesday our bread machine died. EJ discovered it after he measured the ingredients into the loaf pan and turned the machine on. It whirred a bit but didn’t work. He was able to rescue the ingredients and make bread the old-fashioned way; it turned out lovely. Since EJ makes bread at least twice a week and kneading dough is rough on our hands, losing the bread machine was a major inconvenience. So we ordered a new one. We called this his Christmas gifts although we hadn’t planned on getting gifts this year.

After ordering the bread machine, we went shopping for groceries. We filled our cart with mostly staples–flour, sugar, vegetables, and fruit, and so forth, although we did get a few extras such as nuts, low-salt crackers, and pinconning cheese, which is my favorite. I also splurged a got myself a candy thermometer (we plan to make candy this coming week) and a measuring cups/spoon set which were on sale for half-off. The set included spoons for measuring a pinch, a dash, and a tad, which I thought was cool.

With the bread machine and groceries, we did quite a bit of shopping on Tuesday but we didn’t spend any money. Zero. Zilch. How? I’m glad you asked.

EJ’s company gave him a generous gift card from the grocery store so all our groceries that day didn’t cost us anything. At the company Christmas lunch, his company gave each employee a lottery ticket. We don’t ever buy lottery tickets but this was a gift so <shrug>. EJ won $100 and we bought the bread machine with it. The company also randomly gave employees money–it sounds like it was sort of a grab-bag type of thing. EJ received $20 so we used it to go treasuring hunting at the thrift stores. So we serendipitously found ourselves with Christmas gifts. It was a fun date sort of day, without any hassle–and without spending any money.

This morning I went out to open the coop and feed the animals. For some reason, I looked for both the chicken littles. Now that they are older and have joined the general population, I usually don’t try to locate them. I found only one youngster. I searched for the other and found that she had gone between the dog house and fancy coop that are within the Coop and had gotten trapped behind the dog house. I tried to use a long stick to prod her out behind the dog house but she wasn’t budging. I went back into the house, changed into my worn, ripped jeans that I wear for especially dirty jobs, told EJ about the trapped chick, and headed back out. He joined me and when we both couldn’t get her out, we moved aside six bales of straw that were beside and on top of the dog house. Then EJ scooched the heavy dog house a few inches to the side and we got her out that way. We moved everything back in place and put some wire fencing between the two shelters to prevent chicks from getting back there.

Here is a photo of the dog house and fancy coop, which the chick was trapped between. The chicks can be seen in front of the fancy coop. The chicks are free to leave but they still stick pretty close to it and to Mama. Theo is on the roof of the dog house. He always does chores with me.

EJ has to work tomorrow, Christmas Eve. He originally had it off, but he traded days with a co-worker. The way their work schedules are, if EJ had the day off then the other guy would lose a day of pay. It’s difficult enough to make ends meet without losing pay so we have no problem with the trade.

On Christmas Day we are hoping to make hard candy. We haven’t made it for many years. We make it the way my Mom always did—with double oils to make the flavors much stronger. My Mom also used to use a bowl of snow instead of ice cubes to quickly cool the pan of hot candy. I laugh whenever I think of my older sister (as an adult) saying she couldn’t make candy one year because there was no snow on the ground. I said, “You realize that you can use ice cubes instead of snow? Mom just used snow because it was quick and convenient.” LOL.

Gasp! It just occurred to me that WE have no snow. We also don’t have ice cubes! I’ll need one or the other! We also only have a couple tiny ice cube trays. Hmmm. This is a logistics problem. We might have to either buy a bag of ice or postpone the candy-making. Oh, well. We are flexible.

In case I don’t get back here: I hope you all have a blessed Christmas day.