Sunday, November 21, 2010

K...Ouch!

As an early Christmas gift we have received a Ginzu set of knives that completely rule! You know you are special (cheap) when you get excited and cheery about knives that cut instead of saw. It has been awesome!

I keep showing Josh how great they are. The conversations usually goes something like this, "Josh! Look at how uniform my tomato slices are, check out our french bread, watch me dice these carrots with ease!"

"That's super wife. Just don't cut yourself. You aren't use to the cutting power of the Ginzu."

And he's right, so I've been squeezing it easy. But on Saturday we were in a rush, throwing together a side dish for a dinner party. I'm mixing ingredients together, Josh is cutting celery and all the sudden I hear, "OH MOTHER BEAR!" Yes...that is really what he said.

He sticks his finger in the sink and turns on the water for you see, the power of the Ginzu had won. Now I go into nurse mode, cold compress? pressure? band aids? I'm sure he's about to bleed out from a finger wound. Yeah, yeah I tend to over react, it's out of love. Don't judge me..... So I'm throwing out First Aid options and in a perfect Josh answer he looks at me and says, "Do you know how bad it is going to hurt to type the letter K this week? Every time it's going to be like click, ow!, click, ow!" His finger looks like a trauma scene and he's worried about typing the letter K. But I guess I can't blame him, it's a very important letter. I just used it 19 times to tell you this story!

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Thank you

Tomorrow is Veteran's day and as a little salute to the Veteran's in my life I wanted to share the stories I remember most as told by my grandfathers about their time served during World War 2. I am thankful for the service that is given by those who have served (thanks Dad!) and those who do serve.

One Grandfather served as a Sergeant in the Philippines. He was in charge of a work crew of Filipinos who went out and worked cutting down bamboo each day. One particular day they were scouting a new area and came upon a stream. As Grandpa went to step into the water to cross an older Filipino man jumped in front of him, pointed at grandpa's shoes and signaled for my grandfather to allow this man to carry him across the water. Shoes were such a rarity and prize, the man could not allow them to become wet.... Now this is the moment I vividly remember as a child. Grandpa could not tell this story all these years later without tears shining in his eyes. I do not think my Grandfather ever had a day where he was not thankful for shoes. After several attempts to reassure the man that my Grandfather wanted to cross on his own, he finally allowed the man to carry him across.

Here in the United States, my other Veteran Grandfather met his dear wife. He tells of being on the town one night with other soldiers. They had stopped in a little place for dinner and all the tables were full except for one which had a few remaining seats. And they were in luck because the other seats were occupied by lovely ladies! (Side note: sometimes I think it would be a better world if we still shared tables) Grandpa began working his magic with the ladies talking with them and learning more about them. One girl in particular caught his eye who eventually became my Grandmother. But the story of the night that they both loved to share is that he said to one woman at the table, "You look like you have a little Italian in you." All the women at the table laughed and laughed, thoroughly confusing Grandpa. Eventually she stood up showing her pregnancy and announcing, "In fact, I do!"