Sunday, November 28, 2010

What day is it?

I think it's Sunday.  Cliff's been off work for over a week, we had our Thanksgiving yesterday instead of Thursday, and I've lost all track of time.  Cliff has decided he's going to love retirement.  For seven more months, though, he'll have to hit the old time clock.  
I had a close call with our turkey.  It took an hour longer than I expected to get done, and I was really sweating it, what with all those hungry faces out in the shop.  Yes, we had Thanksgiving dinner in Cliff's shop!  


People said everything was good.  I wouldn't know:  I had three servings of twenty-four-hour salad and three servings of cranberry salad.  No turkey, no dressing.  Not even any noodles.  I decided to focus on two dishes I absolutely love, but very seldom make.  I didn't make pumpkin pie, nor any other kind of pie, this year.  I made Oreo Delight, pumpkin squares (squash squares, actually, with pureed squash from the freezer), and a peach cobbler (with peaches from the freezer).  I went over budget, but will make it up next week, I'm sure.  
Noodles are not optional at our Thanksgiving dinner.  They are required.  In fact, we'd ban turkey before we'd get rid of the noodles.  When I was growing up, no big family meal was served at my grandma's house without noodles, so it's a nostalgia thing for me.  My oldest granddaughter never eats anything except noodles and mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving, and I usually send most of the leftover noodles home with her.  
We opted out of going to Cliff's brother's on Thanksgiving Day in order to avoid temptation for Cliff.  
Yesterday, though, it was no holds barred.  I looked the other way and let Cliff have at it; it's one day a year, after all.  I'll probably turn a blind eye on his partaking of a few of the leftovers today, too.
It was an enjoyable day, all told.  The oldest grandson and his girl friend stayed around and visited for quite a while, along with Cliff's sister and her husband.  We had lots of laughs.  


Have any of my readers ever bought a fresh turkey, as opposed to frozen?  Every year it seems more water has been pumped into my bird, and I get tired of paying 69 cents a pound for water!  I wonder if fresh turkeys have all that liquid added to them.  
I realize many people have no problem paying a big price for water:  I watch folks everywhere paying $8 per gallon for bottled water (that's what it comes to if you buy it in plastic bottles which, by the way, aren't very good for you or the environment).   Yes, I used to do it too, but the Oregon guy converted me; Guy won't be converting me to his atheistic beliefs, but he got me on this one.  Ha!


I received a wonderful surprise in my mailbox Saturday:  Vicki, the lady who once gave me an egg beater that she no longer used, wrote a letter to tell me a little about herself.  My blog, she wrote, was the first one she ever read.  She discovered it around the time that my dog, Mandy, was killed by a car, and has gone on to read other blogs I've recommended.  Mine, she says, is still her favorite.  
Vicki is my age, got married around the same time I did, and has children in the same age range as mine.  She lost her husband in 1991; a month after that she was diagnosed with breast cancer.  In 1995 she had three heart attacks.  Her neighbors "fixed her up" with a man, and in 1998 she remarried.  
As I sit here and toss words into this thing we call cyberspace, I often wonder about the people who read my blog.  Of course some of my readers have blogs of their own, so I feel I know something about them.  It's the others I'm always curious about, the "anonymous" ones:  What leads them here?  Why do they find this drivel interesting?  
Thanks, Vicki, for introducing yourself to me, for letting me know about some of your trials and triumphs.  Thanks also for reminding me how good it feels to go to the mailbox and find written words put down on paper.  I had forgotten how much more satisfying that is than email.
By the way, I used your mother's egg beater about twenty times in the last three days.    


Wow, this turned into quite a ramble, didn't it?  I'm heading to the fridge to get myself some cranberry salad for breakfast.



9 comments:

  1. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

    It's been a long time since I came by. Your blog is as interesting as the first time I ever read it.

    Have a great Sunday!

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  2. Anonymous7:41 AM

    Donna, I love your rambles. Sometime it is my turn to tell, or if I get brave - start a blog. But I have to learn how to handle this dang computer better! Karen

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  3. We have a 24 hour salad also. I call it a 7 layer salad but the recipe it comes from says "24 hour". It was demolished at both Thanksgivings. I love it! I also love noodles but we don't have it at Thanksgiving. I'd welcome it though. Seems like stroganoff (spelling) would fit in well with a Thanksgiving dinner. lol
    Now I'm making myself hungry. We need to eat diet food today but all the grocery money for November is GONE! Ya'll have a good week. I'm in for a rough week at work. Ugh. One day to relax (well after church).

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  4. Sounds like a wonderful Thanksgiving!

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  5. we come for the stories--and pictures, of course. just the humanity.

    enjoy your Sunday.

    KC Photog Blog
    Mo Rage Blog

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  6. Had to smile when I heard you had cranberry salad for breakfast. Me too. Glad you had a terrific Thanksgiving celebration.

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  7. Rambling is good because it sounds more conversational and casual. I've never heard of noodles at Thanksgiving, but we love them in my family. Are they plain or do they have a sauce? I wonder a lot about the lurkers too and wish I could find out more about them and what they think of what I write.

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  8. Margaret, I cook the noodles in chicken broth with pits of chicken boiled in it. The broth thickens up a bit, and most of our family puts noodles on our potatoes instead of using gravy.

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  9. I love handwritten notes that come via the old mailbox, too... and I'll take the real Hallmark card over the e-version anyday. I figure I might as well make use of the postal system while it's still around.

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I love comments!