The Day Before the First Day of December

I thought I'd get a last post in before November was over. I seem to have less and less time to do this nowadays. We just came home from my mom's house for our third Thanksgiving Dinner. This was the Real Thanksgiving, in my opinion. Everything homemade, and all of it good (except for brussels sprouts). Let me check if I wrote about Thanksgiving last year... yep I did. Chinese food at my moms house on the day of, then turkey at the in-laws, and then Thanksgiving on Sunday, because that's the day when the most people can get together. This year I decided to smoke the turkey at the in-laws house. It turned out real nice. I finally found a brand of charcoal that works well consistently. It's a brand that I found at Lowe's: Cowboy Charcoal. It's a lump hardwood charcoal, not a briquette, which is full of crap that is not wood. It's a little more expensive per pound, but I like the quality much better than anything else I have tried so far. So the turkey at my wifes parents house turned out really good. And the Chinese food at my moms was really good again this year too, except that we didn't have hot and sour soup. I have a friend at work whose parents own a Chinese restaurant someplace not close by, and he said that they have the best hot and sour soup ever. He bragged about it so much that I asked him to bring me some, and to give me the recipe. He said that he would, but I still haven't seen (or tasted) anything yet. I'm going to have to find a really good recipe for next year.

What I've Learned About Work

Weekends are great. Mostly because I didn't have to wake up at 4:30am to get ready to go to work. I also get to see my family. Working all day long all week long is tough. I spend about 12-13 hours just at work, not including the 45 minute drive to get there and back. I get up and it's dark, I go home and it's dark. But the good thing about working is that I can pay the bills. And I think that is a lot more than many people can say these days. I am grateful for a job that gives me a certain security. Fedex has made it a point over the years to never lay anyone off. While we might get less hours when times get tough, we will still have an income, and still have medical and dental benefits. Even though I don't particularly enjoy my job (I find it tedious and stressful) it is a job that pays a living wage, and I find that I can live a fairly comfortable life. I will never get rich as a result of delivering packages, but I don't really think that anyone who works for someone else ever does. And I am pretty sure that I am not very interested in running my own business. I don't think that is for me. I don't want to end up here forever, but I am ok with it for now.