A True Life Hill Billy

This is just pure silliness, which, I guess makes this a Silly Hill Billy?

 

Fun in the SoCal . . . SNOW?!?!?

Please, please say it isn’t s(n)o(w)!

Ok, well it’s not really snow, at least by Utah standards anyway.  But, with the rains we’ve been having the past few days, we decided to hop in the car and drive about 20 miles north of us - just past the ”LA National Forest” – we found ourselves in this wacky winter wonderland.  I couldn’t believe my eyes, so I promptly pulled out my micrometer and measured – it’s official, approximately 3 billionths of an inch of snow for us to play in!  My flip flops were so confused!

So, snow shoes, surf boards, whatever.  It’s all good out here.   

 (Warning: Cell phone photos ahead!)

Fun in the SoCal Sun

Just thought I would post a few pictures of the fam.  We went to Ventura beach yesterday and had a great time.  I really can’t complain about 70 degrees and sunny in the middle of winter.  And, on the way there we found a local orchard that sells oranges fresh off the tree - 35 pounds for 5 bucks!  Sweet!

A few shots from a recent trip to the Magic Kingdom:

And last, but not least, a couple of random Sofi shots:

Kids Rock

Just thought I would recount a quick conversation my kids had while finishing up dinner tonight.  Olivia and JJ are both sick with colds and ear infections, so Kristina took them to the doc today:

• Olivia: Dad, guess how high my temperature was today.
• Me (While chewing salad): Umm, i dunno, tell me.
• Olivia: 100 degrees!!
• JJ:  Yeah, and mine wuz . . . um . . . fifty-nine hundred.
• Olivia: Nu-uh!
• JJ: Uh-huh!
• Audrey (Stated very matter-of-factly): JJ, if your tempurature was fifty-nine hundred you would probably be dead.
• JJ:  Well, um, I’m pretty sure it was at least a million.

Hehehe. 

I thank heaven everyday for my hilarious kids!

 jph3

2008: The Year of the Salad

I must admit: I have a love/hate relationship with salad.  (I must also admit: that is the craziest thing I have ever admitted.)

Seriously tho, my love of salad comes from everything it seems to symbolize:  Health, Energy, Greenery, Youth, Happy Times.  But, my hatred of salad comes from actually eating it once or twice. 

While my heart yearns for living every day like the ‘salad days’, my palate yearns for any day but salad day.  And while I remember well my days of youthful athleticism, I also remember well the Carne Secca Burro I had at El Charro last week – one word, yum.

(Oh, and to anybody about to post a comment about how yummie salad really can be, pah-leeeezz.  Face the facts, salads are truly gross, hands down, no matter what.)

So, I ask you, what’s a fat guy to do?

Quoth the poet Burns, “You may find this hard to believe, but in my salad days, my crowning glory was a bright shock of strawberry-blond curls.” * 

I believe we all used to have strawberry-blond curls in one way or another.  But the question for my 2008 is: how can I get my (metaphorical) curls back?  And, by the way, how can I get them back right now, without any effort or expense?  [Insert your favorite Hair Club for Men or WalMart joke here.]  And most importantly, how do I get them back without eating any salad?!!?

Hmmmm . . . thinking . . . hrumph . . . emmmm . . . still thinking . . . hmmm . . . yikes.

Well, since the answers to these questions truly surpass the limits of human understanding, and since all research – empirical or otherwise – reduces the probability of the successful return of said ‘curls’ without effort or expense to near zero, I am officially declaring 2008: The Year of the Salad.  And by Salad, I mean I am re-committing myself this year to both the symbolic healthy-energetic-youthful-fun-salad as well as much, much more of the actual green-leafy-gross-salad.  Methinks that by focusing on the former, I can more easily set aside my aversion to the latter, and that’s my simple plan for the new year in a nutshell.

Please note: I am making my declaration public so as to raise the bar above salad declarations of days past.  And so, I am inviting you to please pay attention . . . ask me how it’s going . . . send along your favorite salad recipes (I can’t believe I just said that) . . . and remind me from time to time of everything good about all things salad (Or that).

Who knows, the next time we meet, I might actually be dead . . . well, a large part of me anyway.  But I hope that which remains of me will be healthier, and therefore, happier. 

So here’s to a salad-filled 2008 from all of us to all of you. 

Happy New Year,

jph3

* C. Montgomery Burns: The Simpsons, “SIMPSON AND DELILAH”.  1990.