Airbender

My kids have always loved Avatar: The Last Airbender, and we own the entire series on DVD (which we haven't needed for a while because it's been available on several of the various streaming services we subscribe to). I've seen lots of episodes of the show, because my kids are frequently watching them, but I've never actually sat down and watched it, despite their recommendation that I should.

I started seeing these toys at stores, however, and it made me want to watch the show. The toy was so cool that I wanted to own it...but I couldn't buy a toy for a show that I have never even seen, no matter how cool it is. What, do I claim it's a Christmas decoration like I do with Fortnite guys?

Then again, how much of a chump am I that I would spend hours and hours of my life watching a TV show just so I could own a hunk of plastic that went with it? Especially after my own children told me I should watch the show, but I never took their advice.

Well, I'm a pretty big chump, because that's exactly what I did. My daughter and I sat down together a few Sundays ago and started watching the show. We watched several episodes before giving it a rest. Then this weekend, we did it again.

I got myself Appa, the flying sky bison; Aang, the Avatar; and Sokka and Katara of the Northern Water Tribe.

Appa, the thing that tempted me into doing all of this, looks great, but is really just a big hunk of plastic. It has very few moving party on it, but I still love it. I feel like toy lines need to do more of this kind of thing. It only cost $20 for this big old thing.

Growing up, there were toys like the Wampa, the Rancor, the Tauntaun, and the Dewback that you could get for your Star Wars guys, and they really added something cool to your collection. I commend McFarlane Toys for putting this thing together, because it's exactly what an Avatar line needs.

There are other creatures like this that people ride on. Maybe they'll do a few more beasts of burden in the future.

At the very least, it got me interested enough to watch the show, and I'm enjoying it so far.

Jupiter vs The Tinsel

I got some tinsel at the dollar store because I thought it would look good on my Christmas shelves. I thought I could stretch it across the front of each shelf, and give my study a little extra oomph this year. I might have done it too, if it weren't for that meddling cat.

If I'd put up the decorations sooner, the tinsel probably would have survived, but I just didn't feel like it. I was still trying to get the regular decorations up.

I put it on my desk, and didn't worry about it, but Jupiter doesn't care about rules or restrictions. She just walks right through that caution tape, and does what she pleases.

365-Day Challenge--Restarting my Carnivore ADF transformation

I'm back at it, trying to fix my health. And I'm sorry I've been gone so long. I've realized that I need you. I need the community that you provide to be able to succeed. So, I'm back, pledging to stay, and bringing a new idea on how to make this work. I'm doing a 365-Day challenge, in which I post a video every day for the next year talking about my journey and how it's going.

I won't post the video for every day on the blog. I'll just do this first one. You can find the rest on my YouTube channel called Big Anklevich on Health.

An Early Thanksgiving

Another year, and I'm working on Thanksgiving Day again. I don't know how often that happens, but it seems way more often than it should. The worst thing about working this Thanksgiving is that I probably didn't have to. I asked for Christmas off this year, so I left Thanksgiving to the other editors...but none of them ever asked for Thanksgiving off, so we had all three editors at work this year for no reason. I guess the extra money might help pay for Christmas presents or something.

Anyway, you may wonder why I titled the post "An Early Thanksgiving." Well, it's not because we celebrated it the day before. Instead, my wife decided to have everything ready so that we could have Thanksgiving dinner by noon, since I had to leave for work at 1:00 PM.

Weirdly, we all wound up sleeping in later than usual despite our need for an early meal. My wife said she got out of bed at 9:30 AM. I remember her leaving, but I didn't know how late it was, so I went back to sleep, and then at 10:30 AM, I woke up still feeling sleepy. 

I checked my phone before going back to sleep though, and my eyes bugged out when I saw the time. There was only an hour and a half before we were supposed to eat. Surely my wife needed some help. I'd better get out there.

Turns out it wasn't that desperate, however. My wife had things pretty well under control. She let me help here and there, but mostly she beat that dinner like a boss.

I did get to do some important stuff though...like giving the cats some turkey cat food in honor of the day.

The kids helped me clear off and set the table.

Then my responsibilities mostly consisted of taking pictures of all of the amazing dishes that my wife made for us to stuff our faces with.

She used the air fryer that she got me for my birthday to cook the turkey this year.

It came out wonderfully, and she says it's the best turkey we've had in years. My daughter insisted that we have ham as well, so here's the meat platter for Thanksgiving:

We also had homemade mashed potatoes and gravy:

Which were super tasty. There were green beans fried with bacon, and, my wife's favorite, the homemade cranberry sauce:

She made a big dish of stuffing:

And a huge tray of sweet potato casserole.

We sat down to eat, and it was very apparent that there would be a lot of leftovers.

It's weird to have so few of us left. Ever since we moved to Houston, holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas have been much smaller affairs, but this is getting ridiculous. Last year, my older son came to visit at Thanksgiving, so we had the whole family to eat that big meal. So, it's a much more noticeable drop from last year with both a daughter and son now gone. It's hard to handle this slide toward an empty nest.

So Playful

The kitten loves playing with our collapsible laundry baskets. She has so much more fun than I thought possible.

Is This The Right Plural?

Is it mice or mouses? Asking for a friend who doesn't already know.

Changing My Mind

You know, if my first cat, Juno: 

Had been anything like the new kitten we have, Jupiter:

I don't think I ever would have disliked cats at all.

She is so fun and crazy and playful and entertaining that it completely counteracts Juno's horrible personality. I guess it's an important lesson. Don't judge every member of a group based on one member of that group. Everyone is different. For every Juno, there's also a Jupiter.