Thanksgiving recap

Thanksgiving was very quiet for us. Instead of the usual turkey I decided to make pulled pork BBQ with vinegar sauce. I actually bought three large turkey breasts for the freezer, since the sale price was so good, but we'll eat those in various things (plus sandwiches) over the winter. To go with the pulled pork, I made rice, collard greens, and real heart-attach-in-a-casserole dish Southern mac n cheese. The recipe I use for it comes from Deep South Dish, and I make it so infrequently that I forget to halve the recipe. It makes a big batch. Just look at what I ended up with:
 

That, my friends, is enough mac n cheese to feed a damn army. I don't know what I was thinking, considering it calls for 4 pounds of cheese, a pound of butter, 4 or 5 whole eggs, and several cups of whole milk. I realized early on I'd have to use two pans. We still have a ton left, even after sharing huge portions with a neighbor. I don't know how I'm going to get rid of it all, but I'll admit, it's delicious. 

Here's what my Thanksgiving plate looked like. We still had cranberry/pineapple sauce left from book club last week.

I was too full to even think about dessert after that, but the next day I peeled some apples and made baked apple hand pies. 

We stumbled upon this Santa candy dish while putting away the fall wreath

 and candleholders. I added him to the picture to make it more interesting! :)

On Friday another seed catalog (from Baker Creek) arrived. I also got a new David Austin Roses handbook and Seed Savers Exchange catalog recently. These will be perfect for daydreaming over this winter!

I hope all my American friends had a happy Thanksgiving! I'm thankful for all of you reading here. xx

Things could be worse

This year the district gave us this whole week off for Thanksgiving instead of the usual three days. Everyone was super excited about it, especially folks who travel over the holiday. I imagine people who do lots of cooking/hosting will be grateful for the extra time, too.

 We won't be doing any traveling this year (not that we ever do). We're in the process of preparing to paint the remodeled room, and so the meal I cook for the two of us tomorrow will be small and relatively simple. I picked up three large turkey breasts for the freezer last week--they were such a good price that I couldn't resist--and I'll cook one of them for the holiday, and the other two will be handy to have around later in the winter. 

Gregg had three separate oncology appointments yesterday. He's going to be doing four or five radiation treatments sometime within the next few weeks, probably before Christmas. There's a small and (very) slowly growing mass in his lung and the doctors all agree that it shouldn't be ignored. His PET scan came back clear, thank goodness, although there was a slight bit of heightened activity around the spot. They can't do a biopsy, since that poses some risks when you only have one lung, so they've decided to treat it as if it's malignant and proceed from there. They're all confident that a few radiation treatments will eliminate any potential future problems. I'm really, really grateful that the doctors are being so proactive in taking care of him.

Radiation will be a new experience. The last time, it was surgery and chemotherapy, chemotherapy that he did not tolerate well at all. The first thing he said about this treatment plan was, "At least I don't have to do chemo this time." It should be over relatively quickly, and fatigue and skin irritation are the only major side effects they expect. But then, get this: the radiology oncologist Gregg met with said that occasionally a broken rib is a side effect of lung radiation.

A BROKEN RIB, Y'ALL. 

Hopefully, that won't happen. And the doctor assures him it isn't all that common and they have good pain relief available if it does. But still!

Thank goodness the treatments should be done by January, and we can leave this episode behind as just one more shitty thing that happened in 2024. I'm really hoping for a better 2025.

Gratitude

 It's always a good time to focus on what we're grateful for in life, but Thanksgiving is a nice reminder to count our blessings. 

Two years ago on Thanksgiving Eve my little family moved into our new home! It was the first night we spent in this house and Thanksgiving morning we woke up here for the first time. Our home is modest; not very big, not expensive or expensively furnished, and probably not all "that" to a lot of people, but we love it. We waited so long to be able to afford our own home, and I've been grateful to be here every single day since.

Thirteen years ago on Thanksgiving Eve I came home from work and found a puppy hiding on our back porch. That, of course, turned out to be our Ginger. This photo was taken the next morning, Thanksgiving morning of 2007:

Thanksgiving Eve and Thanksgiving Day ended up being a double homecoming for our family: first when Ginger found us, and then when we moved into our permanent home. Of course, this year it's a bittersweet holiday because we lost our good girl back in August. Tears are running down my face as I type this--I still love and miss her so much--but I'm so grateful for her and for her life. And I'm glad she had a year and a half in our new home before she died. I feel like her spirit is still here with us, her loving family. I'm grateful for our little family as a whole: my husband that I love dearly, our other good dog, Georgie, and even bratty Marco. We're an odd, slightly eccentric little family, but it means everything to me.

Then there's my job, that I also love; our continued good health (especially my cancer survivor husband's); and last but not least, our fantastic friends! I have so many wonderful friends that, pre-Covid, I had trouble making time for them all. A couple of my women friends have become as dear to me as sisters. I feel so very lucky to be blessed with so many friends.

Last but DEFINITELY not least, there are my blog friends! I never would have thought that so many people all over the world, people that I've never actually met in person, would become such a big and important part of my life. Just a couple of days ago Parsnip and her two good dogs in Arizona sent Georgie a care package in the mail, out of the blue, just because we're old friends and she's a thoughtful person. There was a stuffed duckie in there and George loves it so much he's been carrying it around with him and even sleeping with it! Other blog friends have sent me presents over the years: Anne Marie and her beautiful shawl, Terra and a lovely arrangement of flowers, Joanne and her hand woven kitchen towels that make me smile every single day when I use them.....But as nice as gifts are, what I really love is the thought behind them, and the love and support I get from so many other bloggers that I've gotten to know over the years. I'm humbled by all of the kindness I've been shown by you all. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being my friends. I count every single one of you as among my greatest blessings in life. 

So on that sappy and sentimental note, I'll end this post.

Happy Thanksgiving! 

Love to you all.

First day of fall break

I woke up at 6:45am this morning with pink light streaming in my bedroom window. The sky looked so pretty that I immediately got out of bed and snapped a photo from the front porch.

It's good to be on fall break, finally. Thanksgiving falls really late this year. Once we go back to school on Monday there's just three weeks left until Christmas break will be upon us.

Today has been nice. I drank several cups of coffee on the porch first thing and watched the progress next door. The house beside us that's been for sale for some months now has finally been sold and the new owners are moving in. I saw a (probably) young woman out back with two dogs on leashes, but I haven't been able to get a real sense of what these new neighbors are like yet. I went out to do some shopping today and picked up a box of assorted cookies from one of the local bakeries, and Gregg brought home a package of dog treats from the pet store. I plan to take them over tomorrow as a little "welcome to the neighborhood" gift. I do hope they're decent people; we're doing what we can to get off on the right foot with them. The jerk behind us is plenty as far as bad neighbors go! Wish us luck.

While I was out today I stopped at a garden center/gift shop to have a look at their year-round Christmas items for sale. Nothing I saw inside was of much interest to me but I enjoyed walking around the outside and looking at the plants for sale.

We still have a lot of color left in the trees around here, as you can see.

Oh! And Gregg's birthday picture is framed and hanging on our wall. I picked it up last night on my way home from work:

Tonight he's working late like he usually does on Wednesdays, but once he gets home it will offically be a holiday! I'm having wine while beginning to prep some of the food for tomorrow's meal. We'll be having roast turkey, gravy, cornbread dressing, cranberry mandarin orange walnut salad (the recipe I invented years ago), deviled eggs (I cheated and bought the pre-boiled eggs for convenience sake!) and canned corn and green beans. For dessert I'll be making some sort of apple dessert from scratch, most likely a crisp. Tonight I'll salt and season the turkey, make the cranberry salad, and bake a batch of cornbread for the dressing so that tomorrow our meal will be fairly easy to pull together. With a 16 pound bird we'll probably be eating turkey until Christmas....I'll have to be creative with leftovers!

And tonight makes 12 years that we've had our sweet girl, our Gingerbread. She showed up on our back porch the night before Thanksgiving in 2007.

Puppy Ginger....Thanksgiving Day 2007.

 My sweet girl!

Happy Thanksgiving to all my blog friends here in the USA! I hope you all are surrounded by good food, good company, and lots of love tomorrow.

Ready for a break

Thanksgiving break can't get here fast enough. We haven't had an extra day off from school since Labor Day and everyone's nerves seem to be frazzled. Even the kids.

My friend little P. woke up on Monday morning thinking that this was the week we get out for the holiday. His mama told him no, there's a full week of school left before that. She reports that at first he got mad, and she had to pull out a calendar to show him he was wrong...…..and then when he saw it was true he was so disappointed he cried. Poor little guy.

I know just how he feels.

The days start to drag right before a break. The discipline referrals have spiked sharply since last week, and there seem to be multiple tearful trips to the guidance counselors' offices by students each day. This morning, two 12 year old girls got in such a vicious fight that it took the principal, one of the assistant principals, the security guard, and a teacher to break it  up, and even when they dragged them apart the girls were still throwing punches and cursing. The teacher got hit in the head, and the assistant principal told me later, "If I'm going to break up fights like that, I need to start going to the gym again! I nearly got kicked in the head!" Later on another two girls got in a fight at lunch. Right now I'm averaging about 15-20 discipline referrals a day which is crazy high.

I don't know if it's the colder weather, or the approaching holidays, or what, but I've noticed a lot of acting out among our poorer kids these days. A handful of them are in foster care (getting shuffled around constantly) or living in residential group homes, and a sizeable percentage of our students get regular welfare checks by DSS caseworkers, which means they've lived with abuse or neglect. It's no wonder that some of them act out so much, but it seems to always get worse as any break approaches. I imagine lots of these kids aren't looking forward to the break (if their home situations are bad) but it should cool things down some.

We'll be staying home for Thanksgiving. We talked a little about the possibility of going camping, but neither of us got too excited at the idea. Since I'll be hosting my book club's Christmas party just over two weeks later I plan to put up the Christmas tree and decorate the house that weekend. One less thing to worry about as I prepare for the party, you know? My mom invited us to eat Thanksgiving dinner with her and my dad, but my cousin and her husband will be there and I don't like them very much. I feel guilty about that, because my parents have become very close to this branch of the family in the last decade or so, but I just can't stand anything other than the very minimum of contact with them. My mom knows this. We keep up the polite fiction that I'm always "busy" when they invite us to do things that include my cousins.....which these days, means pretty much all holidays and special occasions. My parents make plans with them first and then invite us as an afterthought. Which is why I don't feel but so guilty turning them down. I'll cook something Gregg and I will enjoy and we'll simply spend the day at home together, stress free. That's something to be thankful for!

And the 5 day break from school is going to be wonderful!

Thursday stuff.

Today was a really weird day at work. I'm tired and stressed out. So this is what's going on in my den as of 5:30 pm...

A Whiskey Sour, made with mid-priced Kentucky bourbon that a friendly one-armed man at the liquor store helped me pick out. (He's apparently quite the conisseour of whiskey). Whiskey Sours are definitely on my top ten list of favorite cocktails to unwind with.

I'm assuming I didn't get the job I interviewed for last week. They made it clear they were in a hurry to make a decision. Whatever. (sigh.) I was hoping this was it--my current job environment is extremely dysfunctional. So dysfunctional that a long time employee (and personal friend of mine) walked in last night with a resignation letter, and with no notice whatsoever (or even another job to go to!!) she quit on the spot! I don't blame her at all; in fact, I envy her. She's just the latest in a whole long line of people that have jumped ship recently. I'm ready for my turn! Our workplace morale is the lowest I've ever seen at a job.

Thankgiving is next week. I'm not sure yet what we'll be doing. We thought about taking advantage of the day off work together to go see Gregg's mom, but I'm afraid she'll feel obligated to try to cook a meal if we do, and she's not in good enough health for that. Also, there's the chance that she and her husband are planning to spend the day with other extended family members.We may just end up staying at home together, which is our standard Thanksgiving. It's nice. We stay in pajamas until late in the morning, and I start cooking early. I usually roast a small turkey, because Gregg likes turkey sandwiches made from leftovers, and I make a few side dishes and desserts to go with it. We usually walk the dogs over to the park and in the wooded lot behind the church. And of course, Ginger and George eat really well that day, too. I won't mind if we end up staying at home alone.

Speaking of food, I've recently gotten addicted to The Great British Bake Off! It's so much fun to watch, but I find myself wanting to bake stuff but being thwarted by my limited free time, and, if I'm honest, my messy and disorganized kitchen. Still, I love to daydream about making elaborate pastries and pies and I have a fondness for cooking shows. And the GBBO is so much fun! I especially love Mary Berry, and might order myself a couple of her cookbooks at Christmastime.

That's it, my life on a rainy, gray, dull November Thursday evening. Cooking shows and big glasses of whiskey! Haha.

Thanksgiving for two

Thanksgiving was quiet and very, very nice this year. Husband and I stayed home and spent a lazy day together. We wore our pjs most of the day, watched movies, and then in the early evening we had a small feast. (I did most of the cooking the night before, so I didn't have to spend all day in the kitchen).

Pretty autumn table for two.
 

 

The star of the show. It was the smallest whole turkey
I could find. We'll be eating leftovers all weekend.

 

Broccoli salad with broccoli, shredded carrots,
red onions, walnuts, and dried cranberries mixed with a
 creamy, slightly sweet coleslaw dressing.

This picture of the baked macaroni and cheese I made doesn't do it justice. This is a sinful recipe. There are literally pounds of cheese, butter, whole milk, eggs, and pasta all baked to a rich, golden, bubbling mass of decadent lusciousness. I call it a heart attack in a pan. We only eat this once or twice a year for that reason.

Husband's favorite: deviled eggs.
 Required at all holiday meals. And homemade
cranberry sauce is mandatory when there's turkey!

Isn't that pretty? Those are two dessert dishes of Watergate salad. It's a light side dish/dessert that consists of pistachio pudding, crushed pineapple, mini marshmallows, Cool Whip, and pecans. It may sound strange, but it's actually delicious and a vintage holiday recipe in the South. I also made a pecan pie and a chocolate pudding pie.

It was a great meal, and a fun and relaxing way to spend Thankgiving. Late in the evening we took Ginger for a cold, starlit walk (which we needed after all that food!) and then I cracked open a bottle of champagne. It was a perfect day.

Friends, near and far

Yesterday was such a great day for me. My dear friend Meg was in the area visiting for the first time in almost 2 years. She moved to Texas at the beginning of 2012 because her husband got a job offer there, and I've missed her so much. Chatting and sharing pictures on Facebook just isn't the same. Her little girl, who was a 1 year old baby when they left is now a spunky 3 year old. This past June, a baby brother joined the family. I was so excited to see both of the kids, and their lovely mama, too!

They were in Greenville, SC visiting Meg's in laws for the Thanksgiving holiday. Another member of our circle of friends, Marla, went with me to see everyone. Round trip it was about a 5 hour drive, but totally worth it. We had so much fun catching up with Meg, playing with her little girl (who of course didn't remember us at all and was very shy at first) and meeting the baby boy. I admit I was a bit of a baby hog all day, but the chubby little fellow was so cheerful and sweet that I hated giving him up! We got to go to lunch with Meg, and then we spent a few hours back at the house just hanging out. It was a wonderful day.

I have tomorrow and the next day (Thanksgiving) off. Gregg and I decided to cook at home for the holiday this year. Tomorrow will be spent straightening the house and shopping for the meal. Tomorrow night, I will be making some dishes ahead of time, and Marla is coming over for drinks and to hang out while I cook. (We got tipsy together last year while I cooked on the night before Thanksgiving, and we decided to make it a tradition, it was so much fun!) Then Thanksgiving Day will be very quiet and private, dinner for two and a cozy day spent at home.

Sometimes I can feel a bit melancholy this time of year. Gregg's and my combined family is small and (sadly) not very close, and during the holidays when everyone is having big family dinners and gatherings it can feel kind of lonely to be just two people. Last week I was feeling down, and the thought of the impending holiday season just made me depressed. Spending time this week with my friends was just what I needed to give my spirits a lift!

So today, as Thanksgiving approaches, I am feeling thankful for the good friends I have to share my life with. Good friends near and far.

Stuffed

A quick post before I fall into bed and attempt to sleep off all the food I ate today. We had a huge Thanksgiving meal with my parents.

Mom cooked: Roast Turkey, southern cornbread dressing, rice and gravy, biscuits, deviled eggs, and banana pudding.

I cooked: baked macaroni and cheese, green bean casserole, real cranberry sauce with toasted pecans and mandarin oranges, pumpkin pie, and pecan pie.

After we drove home, we went for a short walk with Ginger (who got lots of turkey with her dog food tonight) and then watched a bit of tv while eating leftovers. Now it's time to turn in early. There's really nothing else to do when you're as stuffed as we are!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Cleaning and shopping and cooking, oh my!

Today is going to be busy! Since tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and my mom is cooking a large feast for our family, I plan to make some dishes to take along. Unfortunately, I wasted a day off yesterday when I should have been taking care of business, so now I have to clean my messy house, go shopping (the grocery store will be a madhouse today) and then cook the dishes I promised to bring.

Time to crank up some Pandora radio and get my rear in gear!

I'll be making homemade cranberry sauce from my own special recipe, baked macaroni and cheese, and a couple of pies (probably pecan and pumpkin). If I can get the cleaning and shopping out of the way early, I can spend the afternoon in the kitchen sipping a leisurely glass of wine while I cook. That's the plan, anyway.

  Tomorrow I will post pictures of all the glorious food we'll be enjoying! Stay tuned!




Ready for turkey!

October marches on

It's already almost the end of October, and I can't believe how quickly this month has come and gone! Between a long, nasty cold I was fighting for two weeks and extra projects at work, the past few weeks have gone by at light speed. I haven't done a single thing to get ready for Halloween this year, and it makes me a little bit sad. Last year I had the front door decorated with strings of lights, furry spiders and spiderwebs, and hanging plastic skeletons. There were also four really awesome carved pumpkins, after Meg and I got together for a little pumpkin carving party. Check out our handiwork:

Meg and I also made a witch hat for me to wear to work on Halloween. We made a big mess, and got glue in places it's best to not speak of (ahem) but the hat turned out nice. We added a bit of purple veil and a fringe of tiny dangling spiders and purple beads to a plain black hat purchased at the dollar store.

This year I just haven't had the time or the energy to do fun craftsy things. I am also scheduled to work from 4pm-midnight on the 31st, to do a Christmas set. There will be no handing out candy for me this year, except at work. Our store is signed up to be one of the retailers handing out treats at the mall. I didn't know that this phenomenon of "mall" trick or treating even existed until I got this job, and frankly it disgusts me. So many wonderful traditions in our country have been hijacked by the great mindless consumer culture, and are being turned into a chance for corporations to make more money. It's kind of pathetic. People dress up their kids (mostly in costumes purchased at Walmart) and bring them to the mall so they can drink Starbucks' overpriced, over roasted coffee, talk on their cell phones (with only one eye on the kiddos!) and shop while their children trick or treat. Don't even get me started on Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Lots of families now have a "tradition" of gearing up and joining the mad rush of people hitting the stores in the wee hours to shop shop shop. You see these families at around 8 or 9am and they're exhausted (yet still jacked up on the $8 lattes from Starbucks they've been drinking for hours) with wild eyes and short tempers. Black Friday is a horror, if you work in retail. And the worst part is seeing how many people now consider the mall the place to have meaningful time with their loved ones. It's sad, really. I hope that by next year I will have a new (non retail) job, and I can totally avoid the whole repellent scene during the holiday season!

  But what was I saying? Oh yeah....so no handing out Halloween candy at home for me this year. GB isn't interested in doing it if I'm not going to be here, since we only get a few  kids anyway. Without my usual decorations to let them know we're into it, I doubt any will show up. And the last thing we need around the house is lots of leftover candy! Although we're kind of skipping the Halloween decorating and events this year, I've been doing a few small  things to acknowledge the change of seasons. I got some new kitchen towels with a falling leaves design for our kitchen. I put out our pear and pumpkin shaped candle holders in the den. I've been cooking heartier meals lately that make the house smell good, like chili and soup and pies. Our tiny family takes a long walk almost every day, and we love checking out the seasonal decorations our neighbors put up. It's kind of nice to just quietly observe and take things easy sometimes.

Thanksgiving ease

I had a very quiet Thanksgiving at home this year. I roasted a small turkey for my husband, who loves turkey sandwiches.  He's not crazy about the traditional holiday side dishes, such as dressing and casseroles, so I didn't bother cooking anything like that.  I did make the bread for the sandwiches in my bread machine, so it was fresh and delicious.  And we both love homemade cranberry sauce, so I made some!  It is my own special recipe, which includes the cranberries (of course), fresh squeezed pomegranate juice (in place of the water called for in the basic sauce recipe) raw sugar,  mandarin oranges, chopped toasted walnuts, and a pinch of cinnamon. It's basically a cranberry fruit salad, and it tastes best if allowed to hang out in the refrigerator overnight.  Even when you're just eating turkey sandwiches (and not the whole meal) you must have cranberry sauce on the side!  For dessert, we had a store bought pecan pie.

The whole day was easy, quiet, and relaxing. We raked leaves, took Ginger for a couple of walks, and watched movies. The weather was perfect--chilly first thing in the morning, warm and sunny throughout the afternoon, then cold again once the sun went down. I tried to capture the nice weather in pictures, taken at the park and in our backyard:

The trees at the park still have lots of green, since they are mostly oak and pine

Our blueberry bushes are just now getting their autumn color.

A young tree in our backyard, one of my favorites.

I love the mixed red and green colors.

Autumn is a long, slow season here in the south. Although our leaf change is well past it's peak, there is still plenty of lingering color to enjoy . It's also really nice to have such perfect temperatures and sunny skies so late in the year!

I'm really glad I spent Thanksgiving quietly enjoying it all, instead of doing what so many women do: stressing out, driving long distances, cooking/cleaning/entertaining for hours, and then finally overeating lots of heavy food.  I actually had the time (and energy!) to look around and appreciate all the things I have to be thankful for.  It was a nice way to kick off the busy holiday season, too.