7 Quick Takes about How To Get Rid of Absolutely Anything, HTML Mischief, and the Opposite of a Silent Night

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

—1—

We got an Instant Pot for Christmas in 2018 that I use all the time, but it recently stopped working. Even after ordering replacement gaskets and then  a whole new lid. 

Luckily this Christmas is right around the corner so I asked for a new one... but what to do with the broken one just sitting around? I hate picturing those things just filling up a landfill somewhere. Maybe someone could fix it, or at least use it for parts?

So I turned to Facebook Marketplace to give it away: FREE BROKEN INSTANT POT. DON'T ALL TRAMPLE EACH OTHER IN YOUR HASTE TO COME GET IT. 

I was being sarcastic, but I seriously had ten people respond in an hour, and it was gone by lunchtime. It's magical what people will take for free.

—2—

Phillip had an upper endoscopy this week, which involves getting sedated and having a doctor put a camera on a tube down your throat to check out your esophagus.

It wasn't made to sound like a very big deal, so we weren't expecting the level of sore-throated discomfort he had afterward. I was wondering out loud if they'd done anything during the procedure to cause above-average irritation and he said, "Well, I think the problem was that they did it by sticking a webcam on a 2-by-4..."

Which would explain a lot, honestly.

—3—

I was clearing out some files on the computer when I came across this screenshot. Did you know you can right-click on a website, click "inspect," and then change the HTML to make it say literally whatever you want? Of course, it only shows up that way on your screen, no one else's.

One of my kids showed me that, so I've got a pretty good idea of who altered this random recipe blog on the Internet and screenshotted it to our computer. (And yes, according to Merriam-Webster, that's the correct verb to use here.)

I share the screenshot here because it's hilarious, but with the blog name scribbled out because I'm sure the author is an earnest, hardworking person and I don't want to give her any bad press because of my children's shenanigans.

Every time I look at their handiwork, I notice something new and laugh.

—4—

Our church youth group does a fundraiser every year, picking up people's Christmas trees in January for monetary donations. This helps fund youth camps and stuff over the summer.

In the past, each teen has gotten a list of calls to make at home on their own, but this year someone had the idea to make the calls our weekly youth activity. We set up long tables in the gym and every time a teen completed a call, they earned a Munchkin (donut hole, for anyone who isn't a Dunkin' Donuts enthusiast.)

I loved it for two reasons:

1. Kids these days have a weird phobia of speaking to a live person on the telephone and I think confronting those anxieties is good for them. 
2. Harnessing the power of positive peer pressure is a wonderful thing. At home, some kids might complain to their parents enough to completely weasel their way out of it, but no one wants to look like a baby in front of their peers so they mostly have no choice but to put on their big boy/girl pants and do it because everyone else is.

But if we do it this way again next year, I'm bringing a big bell to ring every time someone gets a 'yes' like in real telethons from the '80s.

—5—

Phillip's mom is here for a visit, and she's been so helpful in getting us ready for Christmas. Thanks to her, we have the Christmas cards stuffed and sent, the tree decorated (she even remembers to water it, which we never do!) and made a ton of Christmas cookies with the kids for the plates we assemble for friends and neighbors. 

We have Instagrammable counters now! Too bad we rarely/never have an Instagrammable life...

—6—

In the wake of all the tornadoes in Kentucky and the Midwest, I've read a few headlines saying that natural disasters are indeed increasing in frequency (it's not just the general public being more aware of them) in the last 5 or 10 years. 

And the trend will probably continue, which I think is particularly interesting in light of the fact that the Bible predicts a bunch of "famines, pestilences, and earthquakes" before Jesus comes again.

I'm not saying I have any inside intel or that it's going to be tomorrow, but it reinforces my conviction that the world is going to experience some hard times and the best way to weather it is through faith in Christ and holding on to what I know as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

—7—

One last funny little thing overheard between my kids: as they were frosting sugar cookies last night, the 10-year-old started melodramatically opera singing "Silent night, holy night." It was... loud.

Looking up from his cookie, the 13-year-old told her, "That is neither silent nor holy."

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