so you got a bonus last saturday when i made my millionaire shortbreads and yummy chicken wild rice hotdish. i’m not sure you deserve a foodie friday…
but! here’s what i will do! thanksgiving is coming up, and for the first time in a while, i am not making a turkey! i want this year to be easy. here’s my plan:
smoked turkey from famous daves (this will be interesting!)
mashed potatoes from the dairy case
perhaps gravy from a jar? lol
homemade cranberries
homemade pies (pumpkin and sweet potato!)
homemade dressing
sort of homemade rolls
squash (easy)
i don’t know if i’m going to do another veg or not. i was thinking broccolini and mushrooms. not sure
i’m also making another squash galette with bacon mmm mmmm
i signed up for the wishbone run (it was only $5) and told myself if it was 30ยบ or more i would run it. i really wasn’t expecting the temp to be that warm, but turns out i might end up having to run it that morning! :/ who knew…
my mom likes to tell this story. i don’t remember much about it, but i know the retelling pretty well, so here we go.
my mom got a new job in willmar in 1993; we moved from austin to spicer, then after a year of renting a home on green lake, we bought a house in new london.
to understand how ecstatic my mom was about this house, you have to understand how pretty awful our house in austin was. it was an old farm house, and it was past the point that it should have been remodeled. like three times. the carpet in the living room didn’t reach the edges of the walls and was so flat, it almost could have just been the floor. the tile in the kitchen was broken and tearing up so you could see the floorboards underneath it. and it wasn’t nice hardwood floors, either. we had no shower – just a tub. a few of our light fixtures were just bulbs in the ceiling.
NOT that this was bad; it was still HOME. it was just that, after buying the house in new london, it was like we finally had a grown-up house. my mom was very happy with it.
shortly after moving in, my mom had to go to a conference in washington dc (i think) for work and was out of town. i couldn’t tell you where my dad was, just that he wasn’t home. i was in charge (why am i always in charge when these things happen??), and charlie was just going nutso. i’m not sure if he finally realized three sisters were too much; maybe jane pushed him to the edge of reason; perhaps he wasn’t able to watch the tv show he wanted to watch. whatever it was, i was like, that’s enough of that – go upstairs until you calm down.
which he did not.
instead, he sat on the bottom stairs, threw a fit, and kicked a hole in the door that closed off the stairway from the kitchen. my mom’s house that had nothing falling apart in it suddenly fell victim to falling apart at the foot of a seven-year-old.
so i called mom up and apparently told her cha was out of control, and he kicked a hole in the door! that just about did her in. she yelled at him, telling him that for the first time in her life she had a nice house and here he was ruining it.* (apparently she did all this with her employee in the hotel room with her. she apologized profusely after this, and i think to this day my mom still considers that woman one of her good friends.) the perpetrator standing in front of the door in question – 10 years later. they have reconciled.
but that still didn’t solve the door. my parents lived in that house up until 2013 – and the stinking hole NEVER got fixed.** they were there for almost 20 years, and somehow the hole was something that my dad never got around to fixing. i don’t even think they technically fixed it before they sold it; from what i hear, a piece of wood just went in the hole to make it look a little better. ***
* this was just the beginning. he also stood or sat on the dishwasher, and the thing never closed correctly again. my parents did eventually replace that, but it wasn’t until it completely died.
**to be fair, it wasn’t like they were staring at it every day. for the most part, the side with the hole in it was against the wall because that door was open a lot of the time. when it was closed, my mom was in the kitchen and didn’t have to look at the hole.
***the people that bought the house have pretty much flipped it! it was on the market last summer and the kitchen is completely renovated. i wonder if they fixed the holey door.
i think everyone’s an iceberg. how many people know the REAL you, the true you with all your private thoughts and wonderings in your mind? maybe parts of you are scattered among different people, with some friends knowing thoughts on your marriage, your siblings knowing how you like to sing at the top of your lungs in the car, your husband knowing how you really feel about your friend’s boyfriend. put all those people in a room, and you STILL wouldn’t have the real you.
now imagine all your jumbled thoughts and personal feelings, fears, happy moments, pet peeves, and doubts about yourself, and imagine that EACH PERSON on the planet has as much going on inside his or her head as you do.
if we could harness that power, holy cow. the entire world would be and iceberg with a tip the size of alaska.
i’ve taken pity on you and decided to write another (non-houseblog) post.
awesome life moments, in no order, except as they come to me in my head. most of these aren’t awesome in the true sense of the word. they are just memories that i remember occasionally and smile when i think about them.
1. best day ever – big gay race/crypticon 2013 with jane. between rainbows in the morning and zombies in the evening with too much to drink, this really was an awesome day.
2. walking through the autumn woods at st. john’s for all those years.
3. when nate and i drove to utah for branden’s wedding. it was a good trip, fun wedding, awesome time. nate and i went to visit the state park island in the great salt lake just as the sun was setting – mountains surrounding us and dirt under our feet. on the way home we stopped in the black hills.
4. speaking of the hills, doing the deadwood tour with my sibs. ate a cheap (but good!) steak at an outdoor bar along with some rocky mountain oysters, then gambled our way up and down the cobblestoned main street.
5. almost seeing santa claus. i was 2-1/2. i was so close. whenever i remember it now, i get hope butterflies in my chest.
6. going to a podunk bar with kerin and angie on a random saturday night. kerin wanted to go see the band, so angie and i went with her to raymond, mn – population 30, i think. cars lined the streets on both sides, all visitors for the two bars the dinky town housed. kerin went to find some people she knew, and angie and i sat at the bar, had a few drinks, and enjoyed the music.
7. the first time nate and i went to the MN state fair. i was amazed at what i’d been missing all those years – what was i thinking, not going??
8. the day in high school when the pep band (yes, i was in the pep band) traveled to the girls’ basketball tournament in the cities and then to the boys’ basketball regions in st. cloud. long day, but absolutely fun!
9. the day i quit merrill. i never felt more free. i miss a lot of the people, but the place and work were pulling me under.
10. finishing nanowrimo in 2007 and 2011. the sense of accomplishment when you tip over 50,000 words is like none other!
