Just some rambling thoughts

It's one of those weeks when I'm just not sure what to write about, I could speak about the elections again or about how people need to stop being bullies on Facebook, but right now that's kind of beating a dead horse.
I know who I am voting for and I hope you do too. More then that I hope that between the forums, candidates 'meet and greets' and social media pages, as well as, the coverage in the Mountain Home News, makes you feel like you have all you need to make an educated vote. However, I'm just done talking politics for a bit.
I could also talk about the surprising snow storm this weekend and how much I enjoyed it. I might be a big child at heart, but I totally had a snowball fight in the middle of the night when it started coming down. For those who know me it's really not that surprising. I am known to wake my children up in the middle of the night on the first good snow storm, to bundle up and go play in the fresh snow. How crazy is it that almost a week before Halloween children were sledding at Legacy Park. And can I take a second to say, how awesome is it that we have a sledding hill in the middle of our town for the young kids, not a lot of communities have that luxury. Trust me though, even if I love the snow, I am not enjoying the frigid temperatures this week. I am going to have to force my child into a thick winter coat over his costume on Thursday and he is not going to be happy even though he has already been warned. Plus ,it is just too early for this type of drastic drop in temperature and I wasn't done enjoying the crisp fall temperatures of Southern Idaho. And I'm getting to that point where I remember every fall I've taken, every injury and every stupid decision I've made. I swear my whole body aches in some way or another.
At least cold temperature food is tasty and usually easy to make. I love when it is time for soups, stews, casseroles and roasts. I just purchased my first pressure cooker hoping that it will help with our busy lifestyles, I probably wouldn't have taken the plunge, but my slow cooker went down. Does those things intimidate anyone else the way mine did me? It took almost a full week before it came out of the box. I kept coming up with reasons to not use it, however, I forgot to thaw something out on Monday, took a late lunch and then had a City Council Meeting to cover so I pulled it out and we dove in feet first.
Okay, I'm not going to lie, I grabbed boneless ribs out of the freezer during that late lunch and knowing I would be at City Hall late into the evening left Jason to try it the first time. Yep, I'm kind of a chicken I guess, but hey, those barbecue ribs turned out great and now that it is officially out of the box I'll use it soon I'm sure. My forgetting to thaw food out is a regular occurrence and we have busy schedules in our home between my covering of meetings and other work events and my son's sports schedules and other extra curricular activities. I'm sure, at least I'm really hoping, it will keep us from turning to frozen pizza, fast food and frozen dinner nights nearly as often as we seem to sometimes. I also hear they are amazing for hardboiled eggs and I try to keep those around at all times. If anyone wants to send me their tried and true Instant Pot recipes, tricks and hacks, you know how to find me!
Those ribs we made were one of the meals that I put together during the Parks and Recreation Department’s recent ‘Freezer Frenzy.’ In the piece I wrote about the student political forum, one of the questions was about the department being a “money pit.” Both mayoral candidates were in agreement that the department does a great job even if they do not make a profit. Schipani also said that they often try to get donors to augment the costs of programs and that they have to keep fees down so everyone can participate. This is a shining example of one of those. For those not familiar with the program, once a quarter the department receives a grant from St. Lukes to buy meat, dairy and other ingredients for these ‘dump and go’ type meals. Let me tell you this program is SO worth an evening out of your time. The cost of the class is very minimal and you just have to bring a few dry goods with you to complete the meals. You then walk away with 10 meals that each serve a family of four to six. The only qualification other then paying the small fee is that you can only take the class twice a year to give other people a chance to take it. Trust me they fill up fast. I might actually regret letting more of you know about them, but I guess I’ve already taken my two turns this year. Keep an eye out for the winter class to come available, you won’t regret it.
Well I guess I’m done with my rambling for today, hopefully next week I can come up with something a bit more substantial to write about.