A blurred busy week

That week went quickly!

Busy, busy, busy with preparing for the wedding, family arriving, fun activities and then of course the wedding on Saturday. Sunday was a big day of recovery and sad airport goodbyes.

Now it's on to Thanksgiving day preparations. I'm hosting this year at our new place. The one thing i'm dreading is touching the raw turkey. Normally i never touch raw meat but i have to rub in the seasoning on the bird so... touchy, touchy, for me.

Hope everyone has a really good Thanksgiving day in the US!

Valentines

I for one relish the thought of romantic gifts of flowers, cards with words of devotion, and small gifts chosen with thought. I appreciate these things any day of the year. I do not appreciate trying to get out in the craziness that is the official day of love. We have no romantic plans this year.

Part of me wants to try a matinee showing of Coraline mostly because i didn't get to go see it opening weekend. I've heard rave reviews of it in 3D but here's the thing, usually wearing the special glasses don't work over normal glasses and then i end up with a headache by the end of it. In general the movie has received amazing glowing reviews so it could be one i'd try to see twice in theaters, the first being just a normal viewing.

The other thing that i'll be trying to complete this Valentines is curtains for the backdoor. We've had part of the fabric for a year and then purchased the second half of the needed fabric about six months ago. But the final motivation is that the dog ripped a whole in part of the current curtain and has bent the rod they hang from. So, we have a missing chunk of fabric and the rest of it dragging the floor. It looks AWFUL. This will be an interesting attempt considering i'm going to use heat set fabric glue instead of sewing. I would sew the straight lines that are needed for the hem but i don't have a machine. I wish i did though.

Is anyone making it as a 3 day weekend with Monday being President's Day? I'll be at work on Monday because my company is a little odd and we don't get holidays but in exchange we have 9 extra days of PTO. We can request holidays off as PTO but i chose not to because I'd rather save it for days i really want off.

What will you be doing this holiday?

I don't have any exciting plans. It's like i turn into a 70 year old woman on this holiday and go to bed at my normal time with out even so much as a glass of grape juice to clink "New Year" with.

I have fond memories of being small and celebrating with my family or my best friends family. The night always involved games, puzzles and good food. But now that the novelty of staying up past midnight has worn off, i don't see the big excitement about it. Plus I'm working tomorrow to cover for a snow day i took last week.

You have a good celebration!

Thanksgiving

Have a wonderful day of relaxation, food, family, friends and good times!

Thanksgiving?

I'm so excited about Christmas that i've basically written off Thanksgiving this year. I know it is sad but honestly i don't feel very festive for Thanksgiving. We're going over to my husband's, uncle's, wife's sister's house - home of friends loosly related to us through marriage. I'm flattered that they wanted to host Thanksgiving but since moving this has been the hardest holiday for me to enjoy away from Dallas. Mostly because the food is not my family's food and food is one of the main things about the holiday. Which reminds me that i need to find out what i'm responsible for bringing.

Have any good T-day plans?

Top Things for this Weekend

1) Vote - in OR it's all done via mail or drop boxes for your ballots. There are several measures to be voted on that i have no idea about so, i'm going to sit down and open my voter guide to see what i can make of it. On a side note, i kinda wonder if Obama doesn't win how much foul play will be called.

2) Create my pages for the latest collaborative zine project i'm in. The theme is Positive - Negative {i totally know what i'm doing for Negative - Positive hmmm....}. This is due in the book creator's hand by the 7th.

3) Write a first draft of a Mission Statement for the art group that i'm in. It's needed for Tuesday's meeting. Yeah, i procrastinated a little.

4) Figure out what i still need for the Scavenger collaborative project. That needs to be post marked the 14th but i'd really like to ship it in time to be in their hands by the 14th.

These are all things that i feel like HAVE to be done this weekend. The list i made last week, yeah, i was right, i got 2 things done {moved the table, sorted through a small pile of mail} and then proceeded to be kicked in the butt by headaches and pity-parties. Neither of which I'm allowing this weekend.

***
I don't really celebrate Halloween. I don't like being scared or grossed out so it's not really the best holiday in my opinion. I don't pass out candy because we have dogs that bark when people come to the door and no backyard to banish them to - they'd get really annoying very quickly. I do like pumpkins, pumpkin carving, leaves changing colors... i'm thinking if the store still has them today i'm going to pick up a small assortments of gourds for my work desk. When i have children i'll take them trick-or-treating but until then, i'm staying home with the front porch light out.

Happy Anniversary

Here's to two completed years and may the third be better yet.

Happy Fourth of July!

July - a year half full - already!

I hope everyone had a pleasant day. Mine was filled with sleeping in late, a church picnic, getting sunburned even though it was really cloudy, and seeing a movie. That's right, this year we broke with tradition and saw a movie instead of fireworks. Neither of us were feeling the need to mess with traffic to go see any. Instead we saw Wall-e, very good movie! Who knew you could make a little cartoon roach likable! Also impressed with the personality the animators were able to put into the robots. I recommend you go see it, not that you probably needed a recommendations.

Movies still to see:
Hancock {think i can wait till dvd though}
Wanted
Hellboy 2 {out next weekend}

On a complete random side note, never format your hard drive and then realize that you don't have your install key for Window's Office that could have been recovered from the HD that was just wiped. It causes a lot of headaches!

The Stuffing Results

This is what's left of the Cornbread Stuffing. I forgot to take a picture before it was eaten. Also, I'm definitely picking up cornbread packets the next time I'm in Texas. The honey cornbread mix made it taste sweet and it was an odd combo with the sage plus it gave it a spongy texture, not soggy like undercooked but chewy. Lessoned learned.

The day was really good and relaxing. I got up and cooked because I didn't end up doing anything last night except eat my pizza and beer for dinner and get sucked in to Guitar Hero and The Office. Cooking this morning was really nice actually. It was super sunny and I had the blinds open in my office to let that sunshine into the kitchen.

We got to the in-laws at about 1:00p. I took the stuffing and a corn casserole dish for baking there so it would be hot. They got a 22lb turkey and it tasted so yummy, very moist. The best part is there are left overs! I love Thanksgiving left overs. Even though I have to go to work tomorrow at least I have a little feast to take with me.

I called my family this evening. Its easiest to talk to everyone while they're still at one location so all they have to do is pass the phone. Very nice to catch up.

I am very thankful for all my family!

Thanksgiving Stuffing Ingredients

Thanksgiving_Stuffing_Ingredients
Originally uploaded by Violetkey

My paternal Grandmother always make Cornbread Stuffing for Thanksgiving. Growing up my sister and I would help her make it. I bet it probably started this way because it is a save and easy task for younger kids to do. But even to this day we help her make it - the years we're in town. The years I stay in Oregon I make it for my husband and his family.

This year I did not have the classic packets of cornbread and biscuit mix that are traditionally used. So, I picked up the closes things I could find. I'm amazed at how hard it is to find packets of bread mixes here. I am committing a small crime for using sweet cornbread because in the Texas we just don't do such things but in the stuffing I'm sure I won't notice. I'm thinking of buying packets while I'm down there for Christmas, they'll keep for a year, right?

I did forget to place a few items in the picture like celery and the walnuts but then again i didn't get too picky either because I only have one egg and really to make the cornbread i'm going to need more.

The beer is not an actual ingredient for the stuffing. It is there for me to drink as I clean and cook. But at the rate I'm going I'll be lucky to be done cleaning before it's bed time. The good thing is dinner isn't until 3 tomorrow. I'll have some time in the morning to cook it even though I had thought I'd go over early to help my m.i.l. cook - we'll see how this works out.

Phase one: the ingredients

Stay tuned for the results tomorrow.