Christmas Parties, Freestore Foodbank, Smoked Tenderloin

Christmas Parties

We spent the last week attending several Christmas parties. First off was a get together with my siblings. We spent most of a Saturday together talking and letting the kids play together. These events are different now that my mom passed away and I find myself thinking about her a lot during this time of year. Next we went to a party at the Dutchman’s which was a lot of fun. They do such a good event there for the kids. I love being a member of this organization. The members here are great men who care about their family and their community. A lot of my personality’s been shaped by them recently. I am definitely more assertive and confident being around them and I am thankful I can spend time there. Finally we had our Cub Scout Christmas Party. My thoughts about this organization are the same. I love being able to spend time with these children, and a lot of our friends come from this group. I probably see these folks more than I see any of my friends and family. We really are a pack family for sure.

Freestore Foodbank

I met up with some of my colleagues to volunteer time at the Freestore Foodbank. We spent the day stocking shelves and helping customers. I put on my old grocery store hat (I worked at three of them) and went to work. I didn’t do a weight training session that morning and instead used my energy up there by volunteering to do all of their heavy lifting. Wow I was beat! After filling a meat freezer twice, then stocking eggs, hot dogs, and potatoes and onions I was ready to lay down. I’ve not worked in a warehouse in a while either and that brought back some memories. There is some simplicity to this type of work where there’s not a lot of ambiguity in what needs to be done or a deadline to do it. You just do your job and then go home. I’ll admit when I did work in a warehouse it was the most mind numbing work. I spent most of my day back then fantasizing about going into the outdoors that weekend and where I would fish or camp. I would much rather work on hard things. 

I’ll admit also, volunteering time at these types of places puts something into perspective. Evidently 70% of the Foodbank users work and draw a paycheck, they just cannot make ends meet. They say their clients include retirees but also working families, college students, and those on disability. To be honest back in college I wish they had something similar to it, although I’m not sure the stigma would’ve allowed me to partake in it. Maybe I would’ve done it and not told anyone. In college, especially for on year in particular, I was exceptionally poor and lived off solely ramen for a year. I lost an enormous amount of weight (I also admit if I had any life skills I could’ve easily made beans, rice, and eggs to round out my nutrition since those were incredibly affordable). So, I am glad they are there helping other college students get through their years studying (I believe I saw a few shopping around). I would definitely come back here to help again and include them on my giving list also.

Smoked Tenderloin

I made my smoked tenderloin again this year for the Cub Scout party. I also made about 30 pounds of meatballs. I take so much pride in doing this every year and I’m a little self conscious about it. I want it to be good. This year was tough as far as getting to all done on time. I wasn’t able to get the meat onto the smoker until later in the day, so I had to cross my fingers and hope it got to temp. And it did! 145 degrees perfectly. I let the pork rest and then sliced it up. I also made the meatballs in the oven. In retrospect I would do that part of the process differently. I would prepare the meatballs then pour the gravy over it instead of having it all heat up together. The gravy never really set so we had to pull it off and thicken it by hand before pouring it all back in again. The net result though was it was good, lot of compliments from parents and from scouts.