Say, aren't you new here?

I didn't really think that I would want to become a blogger. But when my wife started doing it, I decided it could be beneficial. (Mostly to dispel any lies she may post on her blog of course.) I used many excuses as to why I would not blog. The number one reason being "TIME", but there are worse things I could do with my time.

For the time being, I am usually alone in my office, so I often work straight through lunch. With that in mind, I decided it would be a good idea to take some time and blog. So as I sit here waiting for my $8.00 DI microwave to heat up my leftover ham and bean soup, I am becoming a blogger.

Many people's mercury read lower than mine this morning, but not that many. Today I was grateful I had a block heater installed in my big blue beast, because even with the thermometer reading in the high? negative twenties, she fired up and hummed as well as any car with 200K miles. And on the way to work we (My car and I) passed brand new, giant diesel trucks with frozen fuel lines. And at the sight of those shiny new trucks, dead on the side of the road she(my car) seemed to go even better.


*NOTE: This next paragraph may not make sense at first but as you read on I hope you will understand my meaning.*

As I sit here eating my ham and bean soup, I feel blessed. Strange? Why would ham and bean soup make me feel blessed? Well my grandmother made this soup for my Dad when he was a kid, and he would explain to us that you were lucky to get one piece of ham in your whole bowl.
I would always exclaim that the soup would be much more palatable if it had a piece of ham in every bite. I don't know if you are familiar with how the soup was made then, (and now by my mother.) the soup was started by boiling beans, and a ham hock together until the beans were cooked and then adding other ingredients to taste. A ham hock is a very in-expensive small piece of meat clinging to a large bone. The ham hock was affordable during lean times. Any way, this Christmas we had a spiral sliced ham. "Had" being the key word here, someone dropped a dish on top of the ham. The dish didn't just break, it exploded into a million small shards, which then lodged themselves deep into the glaze on the ham and proved impossible to remove. We then had something else for Christmas dinner. Anyway, Last week April, my wife, began feeling a bit despondent about the fact that we did not get our ham for Christmas. So while at the grocery store she purchased another. Sunday dinner was great. What to do with the left overs? I decided that I wanted to make ham and bean soup. I made the soup not only with the ham hock, but with all the left over ham. And wouldn't you know it, I was right!

So back to the feeling blessed part, I am grateful that I am able to go to the store and buy a spiral sliced ham just so I can have ham in every bite.