It's Yultide in Grundo...

[kaylathehedgehog]

Wow, so you quite literally had an old-fashioned Christmas, didn't you.

Sounds like you got quite the haul, as well.

[Sylverwolfe]

Yes. It was the best kind of Christmas. Old fashoined, family hanging out and just having a big silly time.
Yes. I made a pretty good haul this year. All of us did.

[kaylathehedgehog]

Reminds of the time I was at college and the power in my apartment went out due to a really bad storm.

I shared the apartment with two other girls, and we played cards and other board games for most of the night.

[Sylverwolfe]

Yeah, we just sat and talked about older times by the light of candles and had a good time. Looking back on it, I don't think we would have cut loose and had as good of a time if the electricity hadn't gone out. It forced us to visit and be silly. My brother's friend came over after her shift and finally met our sister. We had told my sister a lot about my brother's friend and we have told my brother's friend a lot about our sister.
If there had been a few more candles, we would have been able to see the cards, but it was okay. My brother considered getting his lantern out from the stuff he uses to go camping but we decided against it when we remembered we needed to put new mantles on it.

[kaylathehedgehog]

It's funny how things work out that way.

[Sylverwolfe]

Yes it sure is. It was annoying yes, but I am glad we weren't cooking a turkey on a stove-top or counter-top roaster. The electricity was out for too long that the turkey would have gone off a bit. It was annoying, but looking back, I got everything I had hoped to accomplish for Christmas done this year. The sitting in the dark forced us to just sit and quietly visit and that was what we all really needed to do. It had been far too long since we were all in each other's company like that.


HAPPY NEW YEAR, Grundo!!!

[kaylathehedgehog]

Happy New Year, everyone!

[Deleted]

Happy New Year guys and gals!

[Sylverwolfe]

What did you guys do for New Years?
My New Year's Eve was rather tame this year. I had gotten sick a few days before Christmas and though I was on the mends for Christmas I wasn't fully well until after New Year's Day. I did not think it was wise to have the customary champagne to ring in the New Year.

Here is why, for anyone who is curious:

***WARNING: SCIENCE AND BIOCHEMISTRY CONTENT AHEAD***

Zinc Gluconate (Zinc tablets usually contain this) is often given to people who are ill because on the microscopic, microbiological and molecular level; it binds to the sites on your cells where a virus can bind and infect the cell. So it is listed as a means to shorten the severity and length of a cold. This is the active ingredient in Zicam and other homeopathic cold remedies. Alcohol, when it enters the bloodstream has to be broken down by an enzyme in the body called alcohol dehydrogenase. The name does as it applies, it literally strips a hydrogen off of the ethyl alcohol molecule. The deficiency in the chemical then causes a series of electron exchanges which transforms ethyl alcohol into acetaldehyde, which can pass through the urine stream safely. Coincidentally, it is this enzyme, alcohol dehydrogenase, which is released into the bloodstream by cells in the liver which causes the effects that alcohol has on the body, not really the alcohol. In order to work, this enzyme uses Zinc as a catalyst, which enables the reaction to take place more efficiently with less kinetic energy expended on the molecular level. This as a result deprives the cells of the Zinc to protect them and therefore will cause you to relapse back into sickness, make it worse or cause you to get sick if you drink around someone who is.

-SO-

instead of drinking the customary 1/2 bottle of Champagne or wine that I have in the past, I just played World of Warcraft and tried to get my Pandaren warrior to level 100 in the newest expansion (Warlords of Draenor.)

So what did you do?

[kaylathehedgehog]

We had our traditional New Years dinner. I helped make it.

[Sylverwolfe]

Yeah, Mom made a traditional Southern New Year's dinner.
There is a tradition where eating Black-eyed peas brings good luck in the forth coming year. This has roots to a battle which took place in the Civil War. During the slash and burn tactics which took place. Up to the time when the US had slaves they were grown to feed livestock. After Sherman's troops swept through and burned everything else, they ignored the crop of black eyed peas, that was what was left for the Confederates. The Creole style of cooking them with bacon or salt pork caught on and It has since become good luck to eat them on New Year's. I have heard a separate tale that this was relating to a Confederate fort being starved to submit but they refused, eating the black eyed peas instead.
Whether fact or poppycock, the creole way of eating them is the only way I enjoy.

Mom made them with Bacon and cooked fresh cornbread for under them. It was good even though I am not a total fan of them otherwise.

[kaylathehedgehog]

I wondered where that tradition came from.

[Sylverwolfe]

Without the salt pork / ham hock / or bacon those beans just taste like dirt. Mom usually makes them up in the crock pot where the slowly simmer all day and get all the juices from the meat all day long.

Silly traditions.

[kaylathehedgehog]

I'm not too crazy about adding sugar to them.

I used to not like the cabbage part, but since my mom hit on a really good cole slaw sauce, I love it.

[Deleted]

I had my best friend, and his new girlfriend over for dinner on New Year's Eve. We also played Star Wars Battlefront II, and watched a really bad Chris Pine movie. They left at 9 pm, and I spent the rest of the evening watching That '70s Show.