Octopus Pancakes

It was Taco Tuesday again today, and we were armed and ready.  Things are getting back to normal with school - and tacos.  Mommy has been sick and Daddy starting to fall in that direction, but I did manage to get the all-important taco sauce.  So victory is here, and so are the tacos.  

We had taekwondo tonight, and the season of the blue belt is drawing to its end, extended somewhat by the Christmas play practice, which we still hear about by the way.  There are many compliments from people about our production, which is always nice to hear.  But the show must go on, which is why we're focusing on Vikings, "Frozen" and even a little Mjolnir thrown in there.

This week we're showing an old video of KidPak with the hammer, and yes, there's Madison the last time we did this series.  Back then, it was all about "Frozen," and it still is somewhat.  That's why we chose to do this series once more, as "Frozen 2" will be out shortly.

Daddy spends a lot of time at work setting things up for the future, and also doing some organizing from the past.  The picture above is a result of that, but also a few other pictures that surfaced recently, each ones memories from a series we did called "What's Cookin'."  With that, there was a competition between characters, somewhat like Iron Chef.  The ingredient?  Octopus.  The end result were two dishes that Mommy made up that are just wonderful, at least visually.  Each character hoisted up their octopus.

And now came the hard part.  What classic dish can you make from an octopus?  Mommy did a great job with the finished product.  First, allow me to present Mommy's Octotaquitos!

It could be octopus taquitos, or octo-taquitos, or just octotaquitos.  Whatever it is, it's gross.  It's taquitos with octopus.  Doesn't that just make you want to take a little bite?  Me neither.

But it gets better!  The other competitor made a delicious dish called Octo-flapjacks!

It's octopus pancakes, or octo-pancakes, or octopancakes, or octoflapjapcks... again... gross.  But what an amazing visual presentation by Mommy!  She did really well with these, and yes, the kids were all grossed out.  And no, there was not one person who wanted to try them...!

Well, today was a good day for Madison.  She was at taekwondo tonight, and she got her free sweatshirt hoodie, and she loves it.  It's nice and comfortable.  And just in time for the cold snap we're getting tomorrow.  But she also got her second stripe for her belt tonight, which means she's really close to that new belt, a brown one.  She's moving right along, to quote Kermit and Fozzie.

There's this strange internet thing going on, which is like deja vu all over again.  The broom standing thing is back.  I can pinpoint, thanks to this blog, exactly when the last time this fad went around.  It was back in 2012.  People were standing brooms up on their own, and blaming it on gravity, rather than a simple matter of balance.  But nevertheless, pictures of brooms standing on their own are showing up all over the place again.  We did this a while ago, so ... slight pass.

Anyway, we went to the library to pick up some books today (and drop a few off).  We got a few "Frozen" themed books, and some others too.  It has been raining.  Again.  It rains so much that the unusual weather lately is a clear day.  The lake levels are rising rapidly!

We read tonight, and prayed, and then after that, a good night's rest.  Mommy and Daddy are weary and under the weather somewhat.  But we'll climb out of this!

Madison had a good day.  She's doing well in school, with good grades on her quizzes in the multitudes.  She's very self-driven in that respect.  They're studying India soon, probably starting out with pollution.  Also, probability in math, and Photoshop in her photography class.  She's learning about abstract art in her art class, and cells in science.  All cells in general.  I have no idea about anything beyond that though!  "Cells" is all she'll tell me!

We've been speaking with Ba-Ba lately, and he seems to be doing well.  He's gaining weight, and things seem to be okay.  But we need to get down there soon, nevertheless.  It's been a while.  He's got a test coming up and we'll see where we are with all of this.  We'll also see how Nana is as well.

Primary season is here, and the phone calls are too.  So are the political signs.  They're popping up all over the county now.  There's one guy, and I have no idea what party he's with or what he's even running for.  I just know he's got signs everywhere.  There is literally a path of signs about eight or nine long, and the lake levels rose and swallowed up half of one and part of the next in line.  It's like the campaign is advertising to the aquatic life down there in the lake, because you never know...

I made up a new campaign sign for this guy with a more appropriate slogan.  Apparently, he's got the support of the sign-making people industry.  On the way back from dropping Madison off at school, there are stretches where he's got ten or more signs in a row, all lined up.  Just in case you missed the first five or six.  What's bad is that over a few of those stretches, there are bits of garbage and so forth.  This led me to the brilliant campaign idea:  why not make these signs an advertisement for your candidate "cleaning up the county" and actually... clean up the county?  Replace the garbage with your signs.  Some people might debate that these signs are actually more garbage... but at least we can clean up a little too.

Of course, opposing candidates might dump garbage all around those signs of candidates that are cleaning up areas to make them look bad...  But still!  It just doesn't look good with all these signs, amongst little piles of garbage thrown out along side the road.

Which always gets me upset.  Why people throw their garbage out the window like that is beyond me.  Some people are stupid.  I do stupid things too, of course.  But that there?  That's amazingly stupid.

I've gone off on a rabbit trail, haven't I?  I'm sure there are several more of these rabbit trails in Forsyth County, and all of them have this guy's campaign signs along the way.  Every rabbit vote counts!