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Ten Things of Thankful: Valentine's Day in Color (and Charcoal Black!)

Photo: Two photos of families standing in front of covered wagons. The photo on the left is in black and white; the one on the right have been colorized. 

I learned recently that MyHeritage.com can colorize photos for free, and I have been having fun uploading old black-and-white photos of ancestors and seeing how a little bit of color makes them seem more real. (Thankful #1)

 RootsTech is coming up at the end of this month (Thankful #2) , so my mind has been on family history work. This past week, I helped my in-laws get their StoryWorth books ready to publish. I highly recommend StoryWorth as a tool to help get family stories written down and preserved for posterity! I've learned a lot by reading the stories that my parents and in-laws have written. (Thankful #3)

 Saturday morning, John and I spent time doing outside tackling some projects. When the fence was put in, some plants needed to come out. John worked on minimizing that pile of plant waste by putting it through the chipper. Meanwhile, I worked on pruning the fruit trees (thus making the to-be-chipped pile bigger). We got a lot done (Thankful #4), even if the size of the pile doesn't indicate that.

 Earlier this week, we went to the temple (Thankful #5), then out to dinner. The leftovers provided enough food for two additional meals, which was a bonus (Thankful #6).

 When some of our kids were here last weekend, they brought new games for our collection (Thankful #7). John and I have been playing Splendor quite a bit this week. It's a quick, fun game that surprisingly doesn't bring out my competitive side too much. I like it.

 Last night, John and I went with his sister and her husband to Dry Bar Comedy, and spent an enjoyable evening laughing. (Thankful #8). Dwayne Perkins was one of the comedians we saw. Here's a clip from one of his previous shows at Dry Bar Comedy:


Friday was Valentine's Day. While I'm a plant-based eater, John does enjoy the occasional piece of meat. I decided I would cook a steak for him on Friday night. I found directions on how to cook a rib eye steak: Let the meat sit out for 30 minutes prior to cooking. Get a cast iron pan very hot. Cook the steak for 4 minutes on one side, 3 minutes on the other, then let it rest for 2 minutes before serving. Easy peasy. Unless you have the steak sitting on the paper it was wrapped in a little too close to the flame of the stove. Then you end up with flames not just on the stove! I'm thankful I noticed, and that the house didn't burn down (Thankful #9). After we got the fire out, I had to take a photo of the aftermath. I think it's the perfect set-up for a funny caption, so please, comment below with your best punch line! 
Photo: A heart-shaped, raw rib-eye steak sits atop the charcoal embers of a half-burned piece of meat packaging paper. 
As always, I'm thankful for John (Thankful #10). Whether we're out living life in full color during an evening on the town, or staying home literally putting out fires and cleaning up the blackened remains, we have fun together. 

 What are you thankful for this week?

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Comments

  1. Clark FarleyFebruary 16, 2020 at 11:52 AM

    Flambé steak! Looks like it (the steak) did not fare too badly.
    Did you say working in the yard? Still a bit early in the year for us out here. That said, we've been fortunate for the lack of frozen water piled up on the ground.
    Have a good week!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. KristiFebruary 16, 2020 at 6:56 PM

      John said it was great. Once the fire was out, I was able to continue with cooking it.
      The yard work was just pruning fruit trees and chipping the branches. Yesterday's weather was relatively warm (high 40's, I think). We still have some snow on the ground, in shady spots.

      Delete
  2. Lisa TomeyFebruary 16, 2020 at 4:27 PM

    Glad you fared okay with the unexpected fire! Sounds like a great list of resources!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. KristiFebruary 16, 2020 at 6:57 PM

      Flames are never a good thing to see on your kitchen counter! :-)
      You'll have to try colorizing old photos--super cool!

      Delete
  3. messymimiFebruary 16, 2020 at 8:40 PM

    You burned a hole in my heart! Lovely thankful list, i hope this week is also a good one.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Pat BFebruary 16, 2020 at 10:44 PM

    Thanks for sharing a bit of comedy! With some of the names that were mentioned by Dwayne Perkins, I couldn't help thinking about the challenge of indexing census records and other records and having to spell those names. HaHa. Then again, maybe by that time the computers will be able to read and index the names all by themselves. I'm looking forward to learning more about the latest developments at Roots Tech.
    So glad you have another Story Book!

    ReplyDelete

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