Cooking for Christmas . . .
We walked again this morning, but for variety, we took a slightly different route this time. It was supposed to be about 1.05 miles, a little longer than yesterday’s 1.01 miles.
But for some reason Runkeeper said it was only 0.96 miles, not really a lot of difference, I guess.
Getting back to the rig, Jan and I sat outside in the shade with our coffee and cranberry nut bread. A little later, our neighbor in the Discovery behind us came out to walk her big Boxer, Joshua, a real sweetheart.
Tracy and her husband Greg (nice name!) are thinking about going full-time, so we talked a while and then I gave her a couple of my last copies of Nick Russell’s Gypsy Journal’s. Hopefully we’ll be able to talk more after Christmas.
Later in the afternoon, Jan got into baking mode, first getting her Cranberry Christmas Cake mixed and in the oven. Then she started in on her much-in-demand Sausage Balls. In fact so much in demand, she has to make six dozen so everyone gets some to take home.
You can check out both of these recipes, as well a number of others, here on Jan’s Favorite Recipes page.
About 6pm Wal-Mart said our prescriptions were ready, so I headed over that way. My first stop though was at Lowe’s to pick up the #14 x 2” screws that I will use to mount Jan’s “Oh Sh$t! Handle” that I talked about in yesterday’s blog. You can check it out here – Livingston Bound and BBQ.
Getting to Wal-Mart, I was surprised to find it wasn’t that busy, not really any more than a typical Saturday, it seemed to me. Certainly not like a Christmas Eve Eve.
Leaving Wal-Mart I made a dinner stop at the Culver’s right across the street to pick up burgers and fries for supper. Since Jan had already been cooking a lot today, supper was on me, and we both really love Culver’s Butterburgers.
After dinner, I decided to wait until after Christmas to drill the holes in the dowel rods and mount the handle. Instead I wanted to upgrade the two front 18” fluorescents by installing the LED strip lights that I’ve used before. I’ve done this several times by now, so I’ve got it down pat.
After removing the plastic cover, I removed the bulbs, and then the center ballast cover comes off by just squeezing it until it pops out of the tabs.
Then I’m left with this.
With a pair of wire cutters, I cut out all the wires except the black and white wires at the right end. Unfortunately they’re hard to see in this photo.
The black and white wires are the 12v supplying the power to the light. I don’t worry about removing the ballast since it’s not in the way.
Next it’s simply a matter of connecting the red wires on the LED strips to the black wire in the fixture, and the black wires on the LED strips to the white wire in the fixture, using wire nuts. At this point I always test the hookup. Looks good to me.
The LEDs come with a peel-off adhesive stripe that I use to mount the strips in the fixture.
Then I just reinstalled the metal cover over the center ballast, and snap the plastic cover on, and I’m done.
It now takes me less than 10 minutes to do a light, and they’re brighter than the fluorescents they replace.
And at less than $7.00 for a pair of strips, it costs less than just replacing the fluorescent tubes.
2ea Super Bright COB White LED Lights
Tomorrow Jan and I will head out about 10am, with our first stop for breakfast at the Cracker Barrel right down the Interstate, where we’ll also pick up the Cornbread Dressing and Turkey Gravy we ordered last week for our Christmas dinner tomorrow.
Then it’s off to our daughter Brandi’s down in Katy for our Christmas Eve get-together. Unfortunately our other set of kids, Chris, his wife Linda, and our granddaughter Piper are all scheduled to work tomorrow evening, so they won’t make it tomorrow night, but we’ll all be together on Christmas Day for dinner.
___________________________________________________
Thought for the Day:
Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Except bears, they’ll kill you and eat you.
adfsdfsdf
