BurnsFamily Blog

Today I *finally* remembered to clean our furnace filter. According to the Furnace Filter industry, you’re supposed to replace filters every month, but we’re lucky if we do it twice a year. Instead of “paper” filters, we bought an “electrostatic, washable” filter. The BEST thing about these filters is that they fit ANY furnace. The filters come over-sized, and you can easily cut them down to size with scissors. Our furnace takes a weird size that no one seems to carry, but with these filters it doesn’t matter. Read more … »

We love fondue at our house. A couple of years ago a new restaurant in Campbell offered fondue for desert. It was served in a small white ramekin over a tea light candle. One day I was in Bed Bath and Beyond and had a revelation. The little fondue pots at the restaurant were almost exactly like the little butter warmers they sell for Lobster dinners. I bought a set and the rest is history. We now have fondue any time we want.

At our house we try to keep our deserts on the healthy side so we have lots of fruit for dipping. In the beginning I made a batch of Rice crispy bars and cut them up. They were stored in the freezer with cut up cheese cake. That was until we discovered cream puffs. Those are our new favorite decedent dipping items and are so much easier, that we now forgo the others.

Tonight’s platter included raspberries, strawberries, oranges, apples and cream puffs. The berries were a splurge this time of year because of New Years. Fondue is a New Years tradition in our house.

What do you need to do to start your own Fondue traditions. Head to BB&B and get some butter warmers. In each butter warmer mix together: 1 oz semi sweet chocolate (chips or baking squares) 1/2 tsp vanilla and 2 TBS milk. If you want you can also add 1/2 oz milk or dark chocolate for variation. Light the candle and start letting the chocolate melt while you prep your fruits. Cut everything into bite size pieces. Cut the cream puffs in half or quarters, if you have kids. Keep checking on the chocolate while you prep the rest, giving it a gentle stir. By the time you get done with the other prep, the chocolate should be pretty close to melted and ready to serve.

The best part is that everyone gets their own serving of chocolate. No worries about double dipping, and no fights that one person got more than another.

Since we always have at least a couple of fruits in the house and a package of cream puffs in the freezer, we are always ready for fondue.

Today we installed a new antenna on chez Burns! The old antenna was a classic “jack of all trades, master of none”. It was a perfectly mediocre antenna that covered all of the usual frequency spectrum: shortwave, longwave, HF, UHF, VHF. The problem with the old antenna was that it didn’t do a great job on any of them, but it was a *single* antenna that was easy to install, was nearly invisible from the street, and did get us “on the air”. A classic “Better Than Nothing” story. Read more … »

In the Northern hemisphere, weather patterns typically move from West to East (Left to Right).  A few days ago, it was bone-chilling cold here in Northern California.  Not cold like “oh dear, I’m gonna need to put my long-sleeve T-shirt on” kinda cold but “oh dear, I’m gonna need to put on another COAT on top of this one” kinda cold. Read more … »

Our downtown association celebrates Christmas by closing off the city street and trucking in snow for the kids. Read more … »

It’s officially the holidays now — Julie’s making her famous candy! Huray! Read more … »

WARNING: This is yet another blog post about our landscaping.

We don’t have many deciduous trees near us in Northern California. When were were building the landscaping plan, we tried to keep “color” in mind throughout the whole year. We were very pleased to see how the Crepe Myrtles changed colors at the first cold-snap. Check it out… Read more … »

On Sunday I participated in this event. Not riding a bike, mind you, but supporting the folks who DID ride their bikes. It looked like an awesome ride, and the number of “event participants” was eclipsed by the number of folks out riding the same hills just for the fun of it.  One section of the course was along Skyline Blvd… a very popular place to ride a bike, a motorcycle, or drive a car..umm…”spiritedly”. Bring your extra-strength Dramamine!

As an amateur radio communicator, I was posted at the side of Woodside road right before the intersection with Portola Road. If you’re familiar with the area (I wasn’t), it’s a tricky intersection at the bottom of a particularly twisty/turn downhill ride on the 63-mile course. Read more … »

Let the Show Begin

We seem to be very lax at posting to our blog lately. This post is about yet another volunteer event. We do in fact do things other than volunteer, but apparently they are not exciting enough to post about.

We starting volunteering to be emergency communicators for the Cupertino Fireworks show last year. It was a fun, so we decided to participate again this year.

NOTE: Though out this post, Keep in mind, my love of loud noises, NOT! I have never been a huge fan of fireworks, I like the lights, but the noise usually gets to me. This year was excellent.

Read more … »

A year ago we achieved our goal of completing our front- and backyard landscaping. The plants we small (but cheaper!) and we wondered if they’d ever grow up.

Here’s the yard one year later…nearly all the plants made it, and the edibles garden is in full swing too. We also think that we have around a dozen “California fence lizards” now…so they have thrived as well.

We have a drought to worry about, so our plan was to water deeply the first season. That’s supposed to encourage strong root development. So far, things are looking great!