Early Sunday Morning Blogging

Well it's 5 am Sunday morning and I'm sitting here blogging. When I think about it, it's kind of strange knowing that of all the Bloggers (or people) that I know, I'm probably the only one awake at this time on a Sunday morning, except for maybe some of my west coast blogger friends who may still be up partying, as it is still Saturday night for them. I've always been an early riser, and I absolutely love the early morning when it's so very quiet out, so to answer your question, no I haven't been up all night, I'm just enjoying the silence of the morning.

I haven't done much blogging this week because I've had my 9/11 sickness. What is a "9/11 sickness" you may ask? Well let me tell you. Everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing on that fateful day. I was sitting on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, shivering. I had come down with an illness, be it flu or very bad cold, I don't know, but I had called into work, as I was definitely in no shape to go in that day. My wife, at the time, called me and told me to turn on the TV, to watch what was going on after the first plane had hit the first tower. I watched the second plane hit the second tower live. She called me back a little later and asked me to try to get a hold of her daughter who lived in Pittsburgh as there had been reports of a plane going down "in" Pittsburgh, and she was worried. I spent the next four days sitting on the couch watching the drama unfold. I probably could have gone back to work after two days, maybe three, but this was one of those times when you just couldn't pull yourself away from it. As for my 9/11 sickness, I have been sick every 9/11 since that day. It always seems to come back to remind me, and it's gotten to the point where I've given it a name. It's strange that it should come back at the same time every year. I didn't miss any work this year, so I guess I've made up for taking those extra days off 5 years ago. It has become a tradition that I will be sick on that day, a tradition that I wouldn't mind seeing come to an end.

I made my first pot of chili of the season this week. Chili is a traditional fall and winter food, meant to warm you up when the weather turns colder, and as the leaves have started to change, I felt that it wasn't to early for the first batch. Chili goes along very well with football and the end of baseball and all those other autumn traditions that we hold dear. It is one of my favorite things, to be out raking leaves, and then to come in to a large bowl of steaming hot chili, though not enough leaves have fallen for that yet, it won't be long now. I don't really have a recipe for mine as it comes out different every time, which is just the way I like it. I always felt that chili is more art form than actual cooking, and over the years mine has had many changes to it. My chili has gone "from the ridiculous to the sublime", and everything in between. I have made some that verged on inedible, where one spoonful would instantly break you out in a sweat and have you downing vast amounts of water, to others that where quite cool and mellow. I do however have one ex wife that no longer trusts my chili and will under no circumstances touch it, no matter how much I proclaim it's mildness. This batch came out quite on the mild side though it appeared to me that it wasn't. I added about a dozen whole jalapeno peppers (diced) that gave it a look like it was going to be very nasty. I was surprised that it wasn't very hot at all. I have some friends that wouldn't have liked this batch at all, since they feel that it isn't chili unless it makes your tongue run for cover. I have found that chili doesn't necessarily have to be toxic in order to be good. There is one part of my "recipe" that never changes; my bowl of chili has to be dressed up with copious amounts of cheddar cheese and sour cream. The sour cream especially helps to cool it off if that particular batch comes out too much on the toxic fire burner side.

A tragic death has occurred. My coffee maker has given up the ghost. I'm afraid it died from being overworked, and has left me drinking instant coffee all week. I have to get to the store to buy a new one today. I used to have a backup coffee maker, but I think my ex snagged it when she moved out. My backup coffee maker was a twenty-year-old Norelco, though not very pretty, never failed to function. It had been passed from family member to family member and was one of those machines that never seems to give up. Hopefully I can get to the store to get a new one today.

I finally ordered my pellets for my pellets stove yesterday. Pellets are made of compressed sawdust, a byproduct of the wood industry, which are burned in a stove specially designed for them. This is how I heat my home in the winter. This year it will cost me roughly 230$ a month to heat my house with the pellets. If I heated my house with the gas furnace, because of the size and age of my house, some months the bill would be about 400$ and maybe higher depending on the whims of the gas company. I have been a little worried this year because I would normally have had my pellets in long before this, with a few unexpected bills, I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to afford them. I had one ton leftover from last year, so I ordered four more tons that should be delivered this week. I like to have five tons on hand, as this was the amount I used during a very bad winter a few years back, and consider that to be the "worst case scenario" as far as winters go around here. I pretty much burn a consistent one ton a month during the winter, and will burn gas in the very beginning and end of the winter when it costs less than 230$ a month to do so, which was the price per ton this year. When I started burning pellets about eight years ago they were 130$ a ton, but since then, with many people changing over to wood pellets, and the price of gas skyrocketing, it has driven up the price substantially. Still there is great peace of mind that comes with having your heat for the winter already paid for and knowing there won't be any big surprises from the gas company.