Cicada Song

Hand-Delivered Turkeys

I want you to close your eyes and imagine something very, very special.

Except don't really close your eyes, because you need to read this. Unless you can get someone else to read it to you while your eyes are closed. In which case, close your eyes.

[To the reader: Please read all of this in a very positive, enticing voice. Because it is positive and enticing.]

Imagine a world in which turkey came delivered right to your door, by the farmer's wife. Imagine a world in which you didn't have to speed-thaw your Thanksgiving turkey in the bathtub because you can just stick it straight in the oven, frozen. Imagine a world in which your turkey came out perfect with absolutely no effort on your part. Perfect succulence! Perfect flavor! Perfect turkey! Imagine all your Thanksgiving guests adoring you for the perfect turkey that you have prepared. Oh, and imagine yourself not being exhausted because you didn't have to go to as much effort this year.

Now open your eyes and get this: My adorable sister-in-law is a turkey farmer's wife. And she will deliver your turkey to your door the week of Thanksgiving if you live in Utah or Salt Lake County. And you can put it frozen into the oven, and your guests will love you and you will enjoy Thanksgiving because you won't be exhausted! Does anything sound more wonderful?

Oh yes, something does sound more wonderful! You will get good karma for supporting Utah turkey farmers! (Whereas if you buy Butterball, you can count on the Mormon cricket breaking into your house and eating your young because that is basically what you deserve.)

Here's the info on all the turkey products available (for delivery to your door!!):

Sweetheart Breast Roast $3.75 lb

Turkey Pot Roast $ 2.75 lb

Turkey Burger $ 1.50 lb (these come in 1-lb pkgs)

Sanpete BBQ $ 4.50 lb

SWEETHEART BREAST is a Boneless Turkey Breast Roast that comes in a cooking bag ready for the oven. This makes a very moist turkey! They are sold in 2 different sizes. They come in a 5-6 lb range or 10- 12 lb range. This is a perfect Sunday dinner choice. This product does not need to be thawed. It can be put in the oven frozen. It takes about 35 minutes to pound to cook. This is our family favorite.

TURKEY POT ROAST weighs about 6 1/2 - 7 lbs. It tastes very similar to a beef roast. It is very easy to cook. I usually just thaw it and cook it in my slow cooker. This product is fully cooked and just needs to be warmed. I love to serve this product at a family party. We make warm BBQ sandwiches or I use it a lot to make Tacos. Our family really likes to make the Cafe Rio Salads and Burritos with this. I usually just flavor the meat with a BBQ sauce and some honey to make it sweet.

TURKEY BURGER comes in 1-lb packages. It makes it very convenient for dinners. I use Turkey burger in replacement of Hamburger in most recipes. It is a healthy choice.

SANPETE BBQ weighs about 9-10 lbs. Pieces of breast meat are already marinated in soy sauce and 7-up. (Shut up: Did she just give away the secret recipe?) Ready for the grill. This is the product that they serve during the Manti Pageant. It is very Yummy!

Please email me if you have any questions:

Melanie Blackham
weloveturkey [at] hotmail [dot] com

Wrong search terms

As I was trying to google "what to feed baby with diarrhea" I was filled with joy as I could hear and watch my precious baby boy playing independently with his toys. What a cutie!

What I should have been googling was "how stupid do you have to be to let your diarrhea baby play around on the floor wearing only a onesie."

For those who Google these words in the future and find this post, the answer is "Very."

Toothy

My mom said recently that she sees it as a personal failure that only 2 of her 5 children made it out of her home with their front adult teeth intact. I don't remember what happened to Captain Fabuloso's front tooth. I know that I chipped Richie's by swinging my lunchbox in his face somewhere around the third grade. As for mine, when I was about 9, my dad needed to do some work up at the church one night while my mom was busy, so he took all us kids with him. The church was deserted and the five of us decided to play tag in the dark of the cultural hall (gym). I was "it" and I was sure I was hot on Captain Fabuloso's trail, so I was laughing. And running. In the pitch dark. With my mouth agape. (Note: Laughing loudly is probably not the best strategy when you're "it" during dark tag.) Instead of getting Fabuloso, I ended up running right into a wall, front tooth first.

I chipped the tooth and we never did find the missing piece. I remember going through what seemed like days with half of a front tooth, which even in 4th grade is pretty humiliating. When I got into the dentist, he was able to put a cap on it. I was told not to do things like eat corn on the cob.

I wasn't told not to chase after El Senor up a slide, playing park tag. After a few months of a successful tooth cap, that's what I found myself doing. Laughing again. That is until I slipped and fell tooth-first into the slide. And out popped my cap.

The next time I lost my cap was ridiculous. Remember that "no corn on the cob" thing? Well, I was served corn on the cob, and like an obedient little girl, I cut all the corn off of the cob. Then, I put my first fork full into my mouth and... the cap just fell off! How insulting!

This all eventually led to a root canal, and for the past two decades of my life, I have lived with half of a dead front tooth. It hasn't bothered me at all, except that I started noticing it in pictures and wondering if other people noticed it, too. It was just one of those things about myself that I took for granted and therefore never actually noticed when I looked in the mirror. But recently I started wondering if this is what people noticed when they looked at me. To that end, I have created a poll on my blog and I would love for you to participate! It's totally anonymous, and I guarantee you that my feelings are not wrapped up in this at all. I really do want to know how much people have noticed my tooth over the past few years. Because, you see, I just paid for a crown!

Now, don't judge. The crown is not coming from a superficial standpoint at all. If it were up to me, I'd just go through life with the half-tooth showing because sometimes I have to show people that I'm not all perfect. And when people look at me and my perfect husband, child, and my perfect life, it probably helps to show them that I don't have everything. I don't have two front teeth! But dentists over the years have kept telling me that it was time to put a crown on it, which insurance would pay for, because it needed to be strengthened. And if I didn't put a crown on it, the tooth would eventually just fall out, or something awful like that. But I've been really afraid to do this because the known evil was much better than the unknown evil. What if they shaved down what was left of my real tooth and then replaced it with a bubble tooth that was way more obvious?

Currently I have a temporary crown, and I have to say, even the temporary one is better than what I had. So I guess this isn't all bad. In a couple weeks, I'll get my real crown and this will be the end of my front tooth woes.

Or will it? Check back in two more decades to find out!

(Seriously, respond to the poll! I'm dying to know!)

Oh! The Cuddles!

After our big art weekend last week, I promised myself (and Murray) that we'd take Monday and Tuesday off. It was going to be wonderful. We were going to go see Harry Potter at the dollar movie for a matinee. We were going to lounge around in our pjs doing nothing. And I wasn't going to touch a computer or my cell phone.

Things didn't exactly turn out that way. Gulliver got sick (for the first time in his baby life) by the end of the Art Weekend. We got home, and found a black widow hanging out right outside Gulliver's room. Murray's friend called him up and invited him on a spur-of-the-moment trip to San Diego. We found out that our backyard has a mouse problem. I had a crown put on my bad tooth. So things haven't all be pajamas and parties. But good things have come out of it, I'm sure!

1) Gulliver being sick means that he is more cuddly than normal. Monday we couldn't put him down at all and he slept most of the day in our arms. (That at least helped with the "slowing down" aspect of taking a couple days off.) He seems to be doing a lot better, but even still, this morning he woke up at 7:30. I got up with him, played a little, and changed his diaper, but when I put him down to play, he just cried and reached up for me. So I picked him up and he snuggled right into my neck and hummed himself back to sleep, less than 30 minutes after waking up. I put him back down to sleep in our bed, so now I'll be hanging out here with him and the laptop till he wakes up.

2) Murray, like the very brave soul that he is, killed the black widow. Then we were able to get the pest control guy to come out the very next day. And that is when he pointed out our mouse problem, and set the needed traps to take care of it. So we should have no mice and no more deadly spiders in our home!

3) Murray is long overdue for a fun boy's trip (or man's trip) so it's fun to see him get to do something like this. And since it's his friend's business trip, pretty much everything is paid for.

4) I will blog about my tooth separately.

5) Things may not be all pajamas and parties, but Jenny came over last night and we were both kindof in pajamas, and I made her do some work with me. Because that's the kind of friend that I am.

Zooniversary

As part of our anniversary this year, Murray took us to the zoo. Because I had to do a little work in the morning, we didn't make it to the zoo till 4:04. Exactly. In fact we may have pulled up to the parkinglot at 3:59 but unpacking Gulliver takes up to 5 minutes.

When we got to the ticket counter they were CLOSED. They closed at 4; the park was open till 5:30. Sad!!

We talked to the zoo gate keeper and said we'd just driven up from springville--was there any way we might still purchase tickets?

And you know what? She let us IN!!! YAY!

And then we had the place almost to ourselves for the next 90 minutes. Perfect crisp weather. I love the fall outdoors!