Saturday, November 30, 2024

Post-Thanks

 Not that we’ve stopped being thankful now that the holiday is over. We’re still appreciating the good things we enjoyed during our visit to daughter and family.

          Good food – an amalgam of homemade and bought. She and husband were geniuses this year and ordered the majority from Whole Foods, a fully cooked turkey and fixings. I thought the stuffing was much better than mine, although one loyal grandson surprised me by saying he liked mine better. My Guy and I must be out of training; we spent our evening with groaning guts, asking ourselves ‘why did we eat so much?’

          Good company – All three grandsons were in attendance, not an easy achievement with two in their twenties, and the youngest grandson was gratified by the oldest’s shock at how tall he’d grown. We were also happy with extended conversations with SIL’s aunt and uncle, two of our favorite people. We are a fortunate family indeed – a day of no hassles or awkward relatives.

          Good driving – we drove to New Jersey and back with no traffic issues, a miracle in its own right. There was one small slowdown and we settled in, thinking, ‘Okay, here it begins.’ But it was just a loooong gummed-up lane of shoppers heading to a distant outlet center. It was impossible to think that once there, they’d find enough parking.








          And one fun thing: New York appears to be on a massive renovation campaign of their rest stops. 

      




At one, I came out of my stall to wash my hands and at the sink instead of water I got hot air. ???????????????? Then I looked more closely and discovered I had my own private hand air dryer. 

          Golly! Like rocket science!!       



Thursday, November 28, 2024

Wednesday, November 27, 2024

It's Coming

 


Probably breaking one of the condo rules here, I’ve just snuck to the woods where I’ve unloaded – to the likely ecstasy of woodland creatures – all the peelings from the apple pie.

Today is pie day, not to be confused with Pi day on March 14, when math lovers celebrate that magical number. I’ve cranked out two, a pecan and an apple, to bring to my sweet daughter’s tomorrow. This hardly counts as work – I’m not even making my own crust as I used to do. An apple pie is fairly labor-intensive, all that peeling and slicing, but you could have a lobotomy and still turn out a tasty pecan pie.

          This is nothing compared to my Thanksgiving days of old. For most of my married life, I was the destination for the holiday, and of course the numbers grew as the family did, my kids and their kids, in-laws, and in-law kids, not to mention the portion that came and stayed with us for several days.

And all this while I was working full-time. In years past, by now the table would be set, beds readied, house kinda clean, and pies waiting on the cold porch. Then today (after the half-day of teaching) the rubber would really hit the road. No wonder I had to suppress a giggle the other day in the grocery store at all the people frantically loading their carts with squash and poring over shopping lists.

Thursday, November 21, 2024

HallowThanksMas

 


So here we all go, careening down the slippery slide into the holidays which pick up speed until we crash exhausted into New Year’s Eve.

Wednesday, November 20, 2024

The nose knows

 


A walk in the fresh air and a brief encounter set me thinking about smells.

Tuesday, November 19, 2024

Weekday Things

 

Artsy pic of my faded clematis

          Yesterday was fairly mundane – my Boomer Bootcamp at the Y, then errands in the afternoon.

Sunday, November 17, 2024

Calories and Compost

          The problem with being one of those do-it-yourself types is that I tend to do just that. So yesterday while out running errands, I thought - wouldn’t it be nice to pick up something sweet for tomorrow’s breakfast. Except as I was about to turn right to the bakery in town, I thought – I have all afternoon. Why don’t I just make something? and turned left.