Do you ever get so busy that something breaking is the last thing you need? A few months ago, I was super busy. I was in the middle of homeschooling my kids, working part time at H&R Block and taking care of the household chores. On this one particle day, I needed to do the laundry. The kids do help with many of the jobs around the house but the laundry is something I like to do myself. That morning the kids brought all the hampers down and I went through and sorted everything. It had been many days since we last did the laundry so there was A LOT of laundry. After sorting everything, I went over, put the soap in the washer, and turned the dial to start the washer. The washer did nothing, no water, no sound, NOTHING. The washer breaking surprised me because it was only a year old if at that. My mind started racing with what to do about the situation. I did not have a lot of time. My oldest had to be at work at 2, I had to be at work at 3 and some of the loads had to wash that day or no one was going to want to be near us. So I took some of the baskets and loaded them into the car, grabbed a bunch of quarters and drove down to the Laundromat praying that it would not be busy. Some of the washers were being used but there was enough for me to get all the clothes washed at once. I sat there and graded math papers while waiting for the washers to finish. Then I transferred the clothes to the dryers and waited some more while watching the clock carefully. Finally, I decided I was there long enough so I sorted out the damp clothes from the dry clothes and hurried home. Once home I had just enough time to unload the baskets, give instructions to my kids about drying the damp clothes (only the washer broke, my dryer was still working), sorting, and folding the dry shirts and pants. I then ran my eldest to work and when onto my job feeling satisfied that, I got what I had to get done that day. That night my husband looked at the washer and found that the washer was fine, the circuit to the laundry room went bad. He gave me an extension cord to plug the washer into another outlet in the kitchen. I folded the underwear and went to bed planning to finish the laundry the next day. That was Monday. Tuesday, the washer worked fine, I was able to get the rest of the clothes washed, and my daughter finished drying and folding the clothes for me. She saved the socks for me to fold later after I got home from work. That night after work, I sorted and folded the socks and started puzzling. For some reason I did not have enough socks. I looked all around for another basket of clothes and did not find anything. I then began to wonder if I had left a load of clothes at the Laundromat. It was too late that night for me to drive down to the Laundromat so all I could do was go to bed. The next morning I grabbed a basket and drove down to the Laundromat, hoping to find my missing clothes. At the Laundromat, I found the lost and found box and all the dryers empty. I started checking the washers that were not being used and in one of the washer, I found a pile of clothes. I asked one elder man there if it was his load and then I saw a collar that I recognized and realized that this load was my missing load. My clothes sat in the washer for two days and it was still there! I could not believe that I had left my clothes there and it was still there. I took the clothes home and rewashed them and I had a story to tell that night at Bible study.

This is one of my favorite times of the year. I love the fact that the end of the year is so close. One time, when I used to have a full time job, on the last day of the year I asked my boss if I could have the rest of the year off. I tried to have the most serious face I could. He looked at me very puzzled by my question. It took him a few minutes before he realized what day it was and what I had asked him. After that, each year when I asked him if I could have the rest of the year off, he knew my sense of humor and I could not fool him anymore. Last week I told my kids that they could have the rest of the year off from school. They know me too well. They wished I would say that on January 1st instead of December 24th. :-)

Have you ever heard of a blue squash? Recently a friend gave me one. It was a big bluish gray squash and ugly. It weighed about 20 pounds. My friend said that you could cook it like an acorn squash. This thing was so big that I was not sure if it would fit in my oven. I don’t know about you but I am a chicken when it comes to cooking something new but I am interested in using new food items. I am just afraid that I would put a lot of time and effect into preparing it and ruin the food. I asked around if anyone else had ever heard of a blue squash. No one had until I asked the farmer at church. He said that it’s real name is a Hubbard squash. He knew all about it. He said that his wife serves it to them many times. He told me how to tell if the squash was still good. (My friend was not sure if the one she gave me was still good.) He told me all the ways his wife has prepared it. I was a bit overwhelmed. So I went home, did a google search on blue squash, and guess what. I found some recipes for the Hubbard squash. (I am enough of a chicken with cooking that I need a recipe before trying something new.) I looked through the recipes and found one that I thought my family would like so I started cutting into the squash. It was not easy. The farmer told me to remove all the seeds and clean out the insides. The recipe said to also cut away the outer shell. The other shell reminded me of a pumpkin (only blue) and once I got it open the insides looked like a pumpkin too. The recipe called for 3 pounds of flesh so I pulled out my handy dandy kitchen scale and cut and cleaned until I came up with 3 pounds. Then I put it in a pot, filled the pot with water and boiled the water until the flesh was tender. After I drained the water out, I put the squash in my mixer. The recipe said to mash it and then add maple syrup, butter, salt and pepper to it. After I did all that, I fed it to my family. To my surprise, they all loved it and the kids wanted me to take some of it to my in-laws the next day. The next day my husband’s family was gathering to eat dinner together and we were each bringing a couple of dishes to share. My husband’s family enjoyed it too. All together, I was able to get three batches out of that one squash. We also saved the seeds; we thought we would try to grow some next year. It should be interesting. I will have to see how else I can cook this vegetable. If you have used a Hubbard squash in your recipes, I would be interested in hearing how you cooked it and what you used it in.

I must apologized to the world. In my family there are five of us who now have Pleonast accounts but only one computer connected to the world. I am on this computer a lot either because of emails or homeschooling or my own school work. My kids want to get on Pleonast but I’m busy with the computer. I will try to let them get on more often. In the meantime, if we have not updated in a while it is probably because I'm using the computer a lot.

On more thought. Have you ever looked Pleonast up in the dictionary. I found pleonasm. Quite interesting.

Hi. Is there anyone out there?

LD