Happy Thanksgiving!!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!! 

 

I know normally you are reading about what happened in my life the day before....but on this Thanksgiving day I wanted to write a truly heartfelt message.  I believe the secret to joy and happiness is a light and grateful heart.  I am blessed to have a partner who feels as I do, and who still marvels with me at the wonderful life we are living and at all we have been given: the beauty of really good friends….some of long standing…others much newer, but just as precious and important…the gift of a wonderful and caring husband (and believe me, I know just what a gift this is)…the true pleasure in doing what I want to on any particular day…the luxury of being retired…the sheer and silly joy of finding a new recipe I might try…the loveliness that is my home, whatever state it may be in…and for me, one of the most important of all…the ability to use my time and talents to GIVE to others….a real blessing in my life.  For all of these and for hundreds of reasons more, I am grateful. 

I wish you a blessed time this holiday season, and hope that you have the ability to be grateful for things in your life....whatever they may be.

Elsie a duex, yoghurt, new quilt loaded up

Elsie is totally digging her new bed here as you can see:   

 I guess the quilt fell off of the back of the chair, so she just nestled in at the bottom.   

Tuesday (11/24) was another busy day for both of us.  Michael had an appointment with the chiro, then the foot doc first thing in the morning.  He squeezed in breakfast somewhere before heading to ALDI’s to pick up a few things for me and the library to return one of my books.  I made yoghurt overnight in the crockpot for Michael and got 6 containers made up 

a quarter cup of fruit in the bottom...

then the yoghurt....

a little jam for sweetness and voila...better than store bought  :-)

before Jan picked me up after 9 AM.  We swung by to get Pat, then headed out to Joann’s.  All 3 of us had lists, so we separated to find everything we wanted.  When we were done there, we swung by Chik-fil-A to find out that the holiday milkshakes have arrived…..YAYAYAYAYAY!!!  If you’ve never had one, you owe it to yourself to try this chocolate/peppermint treat.  After that we headed to TARGET to pick up Angel Tree gifts and do some grocery shopping.  Then it was on to WALMART, the DOLLAR TREE and home.  I threw the cold groceries into the fridge, grabbed a cheese stick and headed out to the door for Stitch & Chat.  I got many more hats for Clinton School (the S&C ladies are amazing) and had a good time talking to everyone.  By the time I got home at 3:30, I was beat and sat to read my book for a bit.  I’m reading a series by Martin Walker which started with BRUNO, CHIEF OF POLICE.  They are murder mysteries set in the gastronomic heart of France.  The first book started a tiny bit slowly, but I am glad I stuck with it because I am really enjoying them.  I think I’m on book #5 in the series.  Michael and I had leftover pizza for dinner, then he left to go to the movies with Larry, and I headed downstairs to get a customer quilt loaded up on Miss Scarlett.   

I got it loaded and set up the program, then came upstairs to watch TV and wait until my honey got home around 10.

Cooking Fingers, disappearing 4 patch, 1st dino quilt finished, binggining of "reading" quilt

OMgoodness…it was 29 degrees when we got up on Monday morning (11/23).  The guys had already cancelled their golf outing, and decided to go out to breakfast instead.  I putzed around on the computer for a bit before getting cleaned up and heading out to the Lake House for Cooking Fingers.  The program chairperson got a group of men to demo the recipes 

 and I must say everything tasted very good….but for the first time I found the samples to be very tiny :~(.  We had a cheddar Bacon Ranch Pinwheel, Double tomato brushetta and a teeny, tiny Superbowl Sausage Puff.   

Dessert was a wonderfully sized slice of Butter Pecan Cake…

 but I brought that home for Michael.  I came home at 12:30 and had a piece of cinnamon bread before heading to my studio.  The first thing I did was to iron one set of my blocks for the newest quilt:   

 I got step 3 done on them, and it is the final step.  Now that I know what the finished size of the block will be….I don’t have nearly enough blocks :~(…so I’ll have to get more squares cut one of these days.  The next thing I did was to weave in all of my bobbin ends and stitch down the label for the first dino babies quilt.  It is totally finished….YAY!  

I’ll take it to Stitch and Chat for show and tell tomorrow.  Then I dropped back to working on another Clinton top.  Barb M gave me 8 embroideries quite awhile ago…they are all of animals reading books.  I finally got the top put together with borders:   

 and I embroidered a special square for the center of the quilt:  

 By then it was dinnertime and my honey and I shared a pizza and watched TV for a bit.  One of the shows we were watching got very violent and bloody….so I headed downstairs while Michael watched the rest of it.  I came back upstairs around 9 and watched TV until bed.

bags, Christmas food supplies, pancakes, roses, pull-apart bread, Phil & Evelyn

Michael loaded all of the leftover bags from our Volunteer Thanksgiving food drive into the back of the car Sunday morning (11/22), 

 and I headed down to put them in Loree & Reg’s car while they were at church.  Loree will deliver them to HOPE…the Food Bank in Lancaster.  Then it was back home to the terrific smell of frying bacon :~).  It’s a good thing I cleaned off the island before I left…this is what it looked like:   

 These boxes are the beginning supplies for my Christmas food gifts!  I whipped up pecan pancakes to go with the bacon, 

 and that was our breakfast.  Before heading downstairs I had to take another picture of Michael’s roses…these things are 1 week old today and they still look absolutely gorgeous….the color is unbelieveable…not adequately/accurately picked up by the camera:

 I headed down to the studio around 11 AM and worked on a label and binding for the first of the dinosaur babies quilts.  Pat came by to show me a catalogue to order some aprons, and I gave her a book I think will help her make a Christmas stocking.  I quit sewing at 2 to head upstairs to start putting together a new recipe: herb/garlic pull apart bread for our dinner.  Michael left at 2:30 for a membership meeting at FMCP, and he got home at 4:30 as I was sliding the bread into the oven.  The minute it was done we plated it and headed on our to Phil & Evelyn’s for dinner.   

 

Jim and Susan were already there and we sat down to salads, a scrumptious Italian veggie soup and the bread.   

We played many rounds of Mexican Train (stopping 1/2 way through for homemade apple crumb pie) and finally got home at 9.  We watched TV for a bit, and I continued to knit on a scarf before heading to bed.

Michael's omelet, tutorial on chicken sausage dinner

Although it was only 30 degrees when he got up, Michael was up early to get ready for golf on Saturday (11/21) and I followed shortly afterwards as I felt I had lots to get done.  Michael made his usual, professional spinach/mushroom/swiss omelet:   

with a Wolferman's English muffin of course

while I had my leftover quiche.  I spent the morning and afternoon quilting Diane’s quilt, and by 3:30 it was done.  I worked on sewing together another Clinton top while Diane’s quilt was stitching out.  I got the bobbin ends woven in on the quilt before heading upstairs with Michael to work on a slightly early dinner (neither of us had lunch and we were both starving).  Michael and I put together a mostly one pot meal of that designer chicken sausage (this was chicken with mozzarella).  I sauteed some onions in olive oil, 

 then added the sausage, 

then a can of diced tomatoes, 

a tiny bit of mozzarella I had leftover from our last pizza 

and finally several handfuls of baby spinach.  

 In the meantime, Michael was cooking pasta in the microwave, so we served the sausage over 2 ounces of whole wheat pasta and with a final sprinkling of Parmesan, it was ready….yum!  

 I went back downstairs after dinner to sew for another couple of hours and finally settled into TV watching and knitting around 8:30.