Ingratitude is a shabby failing. ~ David McCullough

the sweetest of Thanksgivings to you all  ♥

October, November, & Now December 4th

I spent some time last night looking through twelve years' worth of my photo albums on flickr, and it struck me that all those years--every year of the past twelve except this one--seemed to have been [easier?  more creative?  less of a blur?] than this one, but then it further struck me that this year was just not as well-documented as past years.  :)  I keep a journal as always, and I take pictures almost every day, but since I haven't sorted them all into an album labeled 2019 yet, and since there are only thirteen blog posts before this one to tell 2019's story in images and words here, this year just somehow seemed "less."  (A-ha!)  'Funny how memory works.  This year really has been a blur, though, as every year anymore seems to speed by faster than the ones before.  

It seems like I was home for a visit with my parents Halloween-week maybe two weeks ago.  It stormed almost the entire time I was there, sheets of rain pouring onto the deck's roof and then flooding it.  I baked a gluten-free dark chocolate cake for my parents, 

helped Mom figure out her first cell phone, and watched game seven of the World Series with Dad.  Sometime overnight on Halloween, we lost power.  Mom's many candles were put to good use all over their little house the next morning.  The top photo is of their kitchen island as November began.  It was the most perfect Halloween-week weather. 

Mike's mom celebrated her eightieth birthday just as little Bianca was turning six--six?!  She was just three!  She was just BORN!--and somehow, cards, flowers (mother-in-law), and balloons (niece) made it to them on time.  "She was so cute skating with her friends," Mom reported of Bianca's roller rink party a few weeks ago.  But look at this dear little face--

--and tell me what she'd NOT be cute doing.  'So adorable.  ♥  And still a little imp.  :)  She began kindergarten this fall. . . bows on her knee socks, stuffed animal on her desk, and answering the question of what she wants to be when she grows up with:  "A detective."  A detective!  Of course, at her preschool graduation ceremony this spring, all the kids had facts about themselves announced to the audience as they walked across the stage.  Bianca's?  "Bianca likes cats."  Bianca likes cats!  Ha ha!  Sweet girl.  I get such a kick out of her.  :) 

I got this shot of my oldest and youngest nieces from the Thanksgiving table last week.  ♥  The mind boggles.  And what a rich time for my parents, I have been thinking, to be able to enjoy grandchildren who range from five-month-old to almost-sixteen.  My nephew will be old enough to drive soon.  Baby Dylan!?  Precious times, and precious time. 

Mike and I spent Thanksgiving day at my older brother's home and then spent the night at his mom's.  'Such a sweet holiday, and the craziness of my working life being what it is, this was the first Thanksgiving I'd spent with family since 2010.  2010.  There are a number of changes I need to make in my life in the next few years, and changing things like that is high on the list.  Late last Wednesday night, I finally decided what I wanted to make for dessert to go along with both brothers' pies, and especially given how little planning went into them, I'm so delighted by how both desserts turned out.  'Such a good feeling when a "baking vision" turns out.  :)  I went with gluten-free yellow cupcakes to have an option Mom could eat, and I tried the all-over-the-internet "pumpkin pie wedge" Rice Krispie Treats.  The first batch of the Rice Krispie Treats I made standard pie-slice-size and took to Mike's mom's since there was to be a smaller gathering there.  We totaled  fourteen at my brother's home, so I made mini pie slices with that batch.  'Dollop of homemade buttercream on each to mimic whipped cream.  :) 

The tiny pumpkins were crafted out of homemade fondant, one of my favorite little baking/dessert-making/cake-decorating things to play with the past fifteen or so years.  Mike is careful with his sugar intake, and I (always anymore, alas) need to lose weight, so I rarely make things like these Thanksgiving desserts, but it is so fun and relaxing, I should make the time more often and just give away all but a couple of whatever I've baked.  Or maybe I should play it safe and just buy some poylmer clay to craft desserts for dollhouses.  :) 

Mike's mom had fall leaf-patterned flannel sheets on the bed for Thanksgiving night--so sweet  ♥--and oh my goodness, it was the most comfortable bed and the coziest and most festive way to end the holiday. 

We returned home Friday evening to a cuddled-up-on-a-chair Stuffed, still going (relatively) strong at twenty years old.  ♥  I remembered just in time last week to get this fall's photo of him with the yellow trees outside the window, and he spent most of today on a nest of blankets beside the space heater while snow fell.  Dear sweet Stuffed.  ♥ 

I say life's been a blur, but I will also pat myself on the back here and point out that my Christmas cards have been ready to mail for a week, I'm almost done with my shopping, and I put up the tree a couple Sundays ago.  'Unprecedented holiday organization here, and it's making the entire month ahead feel better.  Onward and upward, then, and may it not take me three months to find my way back to my little online space here.  Happy December to you all.   

♥

This Day

'Leftover pumpkin pie for breakfast, 63° outside, Stuffed is curled up in the sun-slants along the floor, and I have the day off work.  'Time to read with Stuffed snuggled into the afghan on my lap, time to cook a proper dinner this afternoon, time to catch up on email to dear Lisa later, and time to get laundry and other chores crossed off my list for the day and rest of this week.  It's all so much of a juggling act lately--I much preferred the work-schedule I had with my previous job, it turns out--that I feel like everything I do gets done at the last minute in a rush of "Whew!" and "'Pulled it off again!" so days like this when I can catch my breath and sit awhile in late fall sunshine with pie and a good book and a cuddly cat are truly, more than ever, the sweetest days of them all. 

A Few Days Late

Thanksgiving was last night here, and a sweet one it was.  Best wishes to you all.  ♥

Making My Day

Mike is out of town visiting family and sent this picture to me today from his parents' home while I was at work.  Ha!  They're everywhere, these crazy hearts. Happy Thanksgiving to those celebrating today, and a good day to you all.  ♥

Thanksgiving Cornucopia Rice Krispie Treats

After getting home from work this morning, I made a quick dessert for Mike to take to his mom's Thanksgiving dinner.  He thought the "Bugle" chip cornucopias on top of the Rice Krispie treats looked more like ice cream cones, but I think the idea has potential.  If nothing else, maybe they gave his family a needed laugh during a difficult holiday today.  ♥

I thought about using the tiny "Runts" candies that are shaped and colored to look like different fruits, and maybe the little fruits would have given me the look I was going for here.  Anyway, for a quick dessert, these worked and are still cute enough to make me happy.  I added a bit of pumpkin pie spice and a few melted pumpkin spice chips (new to me--they're like chocolate chips but taste exactly like pumpkin pie filling [Ah, strange food science!]) to the Rice Krispies, but the finished squares only taste vaguely of cinnamon.  That's fine too. 

And now, off to work.  Happy Thanksgiving, and a happy day to you all.  ♥

An Early Thanksgiving

Mike and I decided Monday afternoon to have a Thanksgiving dinner together on Tuesday.  Since I work this Thanksgiving and Mike will be home with his family for the holiday--their first Thanksgiving without his dad--we hadn't made plans to have a just-the-two-of-us dinner at all, and I had kind of figured I'd just miss Thanksgiving this year.  Monday afternoon, though, that seemed stupid:  I had the next day off and wouldn't see Mike again until next week, so why would we not just celebrate on Tuesday?!  Last night was our little Thanksgiving, then, and it was a sweet one. 

It was the second consecutive Thanksgiving for this favorite vintage tablecloth of mine, a brown patchwork print that looks like something Holly Hobbie would throw onto her own table for the holiday.  I love it so, and it survived Mike's red wine with no damage, so all the better.  

As I did a couple Thanksgivings ago, I went with paper plates, which made things a bit easier.  I think 2013's simple orange-paper-plated dinner remains my favorite Thanksgiving table setting so far--the orange was just so warm and vibrant, as it was when we had an orange Christmas breakfast table last year--but this year's table was cozy even if a bit muted. 

We had turkey cutlets--neither of us like dark meat, so we never bother with a whole bird--Marie's zucchini gratin, our mushroom stuffing--that I just realized the recipe for is still in my list of posts as a draft, so I'll have to hit "publish" on that one soon--quinoa with just a bit of butter and salt and pepper stirred in, buffalo cauliflower because Mike wanted to try it, and green bean casserole.  Neither of us cares much about potatoes or gravy, so we skipped them, and since Mike was diagnosed with diabetes this fall, we went easy on flour-filled foods and bread products too.  Our mushroom stuffing was mostly mushrooms instead of the more equal bread cube-mushroom ratio it's been before, and we had no side-bread this year.  For dessert, we split a slice of chocolate tuxedo cake from the bakery.  Mike will be having his mom's apple pie and pumpkin pie tomorrow, so he'll be splurging a little more then anyway.

We watched Planes, Trains, and Automobiles over dinner, as has become tradition during our rather informal Thanksgivings here.  This was one of my and my younger brother's favorite movies when we were kids, and it continues to be, and now we all find ourselves quoting lines of it to each other throughout the year. It both tickled me and struck me as poignant to hear a few years ago that my brother and his wife were watching the movie while she was in the hospital to give birth to their dear Bianca--that this sweet film from our childhood was a part of those moments for him and his own family so many years later.  ♥ 

Stuffed didn't come near-enough to the table for pictures until after Mike and I had eaten and cleared things away, but he was his usual impossibly soft and adorable self all day, napping in just about every chair and even softly snoring while he did.  Love, love, love.  ♥ 

I added a chocolate turkey to our cake, as I did with our pumpkin pie on our first Thanksgiving together in 2007.  It took forever to find this tiny candy-turkey in the store; What seemed to be a hundred huge solid milk chocolate ones were displayed more prominently.  Is eating--or even just gift-giving--solid chocolate turkeys a thing that people do at Thanksgiving now?  At a Thanksgiving dinner I attended during my internship days in Wisconsin in 2004, one of the women invited arrived with a number of little foil-wrapped turkeys for all the children present, which struck me as such a thoughtful and fun offering, but the big--at least 6" tall--solid chocolate turkeys are new to me.  I'm sure they'd be gorgeous on a big-enough dessert or as part of a centerpiece, at least.  (And you can tell I work with children when Elsa's bust-topped Coronation Day cake is the first "big-enough dessert" that comes to mind.  :)

Mike did the dishes while I put away the leftovers, and another Thanksgiving had come and gone.

When I took my iced tea glass out to the kitchen sink, I found a soap suds heart dissolving before my eyes.  'One of my favorite found hearts, this one, and a fine finish to this Thanksgiving. 

A happy holiday to everyone celebrating, and a good day to you all.  ♥ 

Thanksgiving Mail

I only mailed out a few Thanksgiving cards this year, but it was still a treat to spend even that little bit of time catching up and placing Snoopy-in-Pilgrim-hats stickers on envelopes.  

Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of our thanksgiving. ~ W.T. Purkiser

Happy Thanksgiving to you all.  I head off to work soon, so my own Thanksgiving dinner will be tomorrow evening.  Love and blessings--and a rich and deep awareness of your blessings--to you all, and prayers for all who are struggling with the loss of loved ones.  Dear Mr. M, one of my favorite elementary school teachers, recently and quite unexpectedly died, and his life and what I admired about it and hope to emulate of it have been very much on my mind and in my heart the past couple weeks.  His kindness and enthusiasm for life are the first things that come to mind when I think of him, and he and all the other good-hearted Mr. M-sort of souls who have come into my life over the years are always chief among my blessings.  Love and thanks to all of you.  ♥

Thanksgiving Fudge and Frogs

The sore throat I dodged a few weeks ago has returned, so the Thanksgiving mail I'd hoped to send out this week remains a stack of blank cards and unaddressed envelopes while I laze about trying to nurse myself back to better health.  We'll see how tomorrow looks.  Tonight I'm remembering this package of maple-walnut fudge I mailed to Aunt Laurie a few Thanksgivings ago.  (I think this was the recipe I used.  The fudge was quite rich, but good.)   My sweet aunt is not really a frog-collector, or to be more accurate, she is not really a frog-collector of her own volition.  As a kid, I told my mom that since her older sister's favorite color was green, we should start her a collection of something that color, and frogs were what I came up with--!?--so for about thirty years now, long-suffering Aunt Laurie has received frog-themed nonsense from me.  ♥  In 2011, I taped this Kermit inside the turquoise pencil case I filled with the fudge, and one Thanksgiving, a magazine clipping of a photo of Kermit-as-a-Macy's-Parade-Float adorned her card's envelope.  Fudge-making likely won't be happening here this week, but I hope to mail out a Thanksgiving sticker-ed card or two--and at least one bit of mail with some smiling green silliness for my dear aunt.  

Thanksgiving 2013

Our Thanksgiving was lovely and sweet and laaaaaaidback.  I had worked the overnight shift the night before, picked up a few groceries after work Thursday morning, since I had decided at the last minute to treat Mike to baked spinach-artichoke dip in a bread bowl and didn't have the ingredients for it, called my parents around 9:00 am to wish them a happy Thanksgiving while the store-bought frozen pies were in the oven ("Vally!  Why aren't you in bed?!  I thought you'd be asleep by now!" cried out my mom, as if she's never had to stay up too late or get up extra early to prepare a holiday), and finally went to bed.  Since Mike didn't care when we ate, my vague plan was to have everything ready by 5:00 pm, so you can imagine my near-terror surprise when I later woke up alone in a dark bedroom unsure what day time it was.  It was 3:30 in the afternoon, Thanksgiving afternoon, it turned out--"'It's Christmas Day!' said Scrooge to himself.  'I haven't missed it!'"--and he had let me sleep so long, Mike explained, because it was obvious that I was tired and needed it.  Righto. 

The turkey he had started in the slow cooker a few hours earlier was already almost done--Bless!--and the pies had been cooling since morning, so it was just a matter of making the spinach dip and side dishes--green bean casserole, our mushroom stuffing (a recipe I'll share before Christmas, the next time we'll make it--it is heavenly), mashed potatoes and gravy, a few heat-and-serve rolls for Mike, and Marie's zucchini gratin (another dish I could eat every day).  Neither Mike nor I like sweet potatoes or corn or cranberry relish, but rest assured that if you were joining us for Thanksgiving, we'd make them to add some color to your meal.  :)  I enjoyed a breakfast of cold spinach dip and sourdough bread chunks while I cooked.  I found a new Niece Bianca picture waiting for me on my phone.  Mike watched football and called his parents to catch up with them awhile.  At some point, I had decided it would be pictures of just the table this Thanksgiving and stayed in my pajamas.  Mike's been battling a cold the past week or so, so Casual and Comfy were two of the words of the day here. 

When the side dishes were almost done, I looked around the apartment for a few decorations for the table and ended up just gathering the angel from our mantel and a few pumpkins and a pinecone.  Our First Thanksgiving with Store-Bought Pies was also Our First Thanksgiving with Paper Plates, but I liked these bold orange square ones and they made life easier Thursday.  The idea of making a couple orange gingham napkin rings had occured to me, but the idea came and went.  We used plain paper napkins and lived to tell the tale. 

We ended up eating around 7 pm, and everything was wonderful.  "Hunger is the best sauce," as Ma Ingalls would say, but everything really was good.  Watching Planes, Trains, and Automobiles has become one of our Thanksgiving traditions, and surely, the amount we laugh during this film burns off half the calories consumed during the meal. 

And little Stuffed was in a strange mood all evening and could be found in a different spot every thirty minutes staring at who-knows-what but looking cute while he did it.

Love to you all, and a belated happy Thanksgiving.  ♥

Two Days Before Thanksgiving

If counting my blessings counts as being in the Thanksgiving swing of things, I'm all set, but the thought of decorating a table and baking pies from scratch isn't delighting me this year the way it usually does.  We bought pies--BOUGHT! pies, and Maple-leaf-shaped cookies, to boot--but we have my homemade fudge and my mother-in-law's homemade sugar cookies too.  I'll get home from work around 8:00 Thanksgiving morning and will have to sleep at least a few hours while Mike begins the food.  Maybe by afternoon when I get up and smell the turkey and whatever-else-he's-started, I'll feel more jazzed-up for pretty-table-setting and cute-dessert-making, but in the meantime, it seems good enough--more than good, really, and more than enough--simply to be grateful for the meal and the time with Mike.  I spent Thanksgiving at work and then alone last year, after all.  

This past weekend, Mike rented a car to make the trip to see his family back home, where they had eighteen inches of snow, and returned yesterday before the storm hit us.  My own family, baby Bianca now included,  ♥ will gather for their dinner Thursday afternoon but all live within about twenty minutes of each other, so I don't have to worry about any of them driving or flying a long distance in the snow this week.  Ideally, Mike and I could be here, there, and everywhere for Thanksgiving, but work schedules and weather issues equal a table for two this year.  Opposite work schedules and a frugal and car-less life mean we've only ever spent one holiday with each other's family--Easter 2008 with mine--so our holidays are not quite what I wish they could be, obviously, but I have really learned to appreciate the time I do have with Mike and with my loved ones, and regardless of how or when or with whom I spend the holidays, I always know I'm blessed.  Still, my dream dining room for years has been one large enough that I can keep it set up restaurant dining room-style year-round, with a round dinner table with comfy chairs and high chairs for any babies, a long Waltons-style wooden dinner table with benches at either side, a square table with more painted chairs seats, a couple overstuffed wing chairs at a table for two, maybe a high-backed restaurant booth in a window, and a Pottery Barn Kids catalog-style kids table with sweetness and color in abundance.  I've had this vision for my future dining room for years, and someday, someday, I hope to make it happen and enjoy the sight of both our families gathered in this crazy room catching up with each other in all its mismatched chairs and over all the mismatched vintage tablecloths.  I can picture it so clearly, it's like it's already happened and is an actual memory.  It makes my heart ache, I want it so. 

We are supposed to have nine inches of snow by Thursday morning.  I walked around the neighborhood taking pictures last week before the last of this year's vibrant leaves were snowed-over and took a few more pictures this morning while Mike and I walked to the store for our Thanksgiving groceries.  I love this time of year.  One of the news shows played a recent segment from "Saturday Night Live" in wich one of the cast members ran around Manhattan screaming, "Take down the Christmas decorations!  THANKSGIVING'S FIRST!  It's not time for all that yet!  THANKSGIVING COMES FIRST!"  Mike and I laughed like loons over that and have yelled it at each other a few times since seeing it.  While walking home from work one morning last week, I noticed the city had put up its giant Christmas candle lamppost decorations along the streets overnight, and I thought of Mike and the skit and laughed again.  "THANKSGIVING COMES FIRST!"  What a beautiful time of year.