Hey, everyone – I’m really sorry last night’s post was such a cop-out. I mean, I’m not ashamed to post a cop-out post here and there during National-Gonna-Blog-Every-Day-Dammit-Month. It’s gotta happen. (Although I have to admit this month so far has been a good exercise in getting me to write at least a little something every day, and perhaps has inspired me to write one or two better-than-usual posts maybe). Yesterday, I had a very nice blog post all written in my head and then BAM! by the time I got home from dinner at the family’s I was a walking zombie. I couldn’t keep my eyes open, let alone type something coherent.
So here I am now, and I won’t try to say what I was going to say yesterday, I’ll just do a little brain dump and call it a night.
First, look what I finished on Thanksgiving morning…
Some Rainbow Barf socks for Julie, which I cast on just before the sock class I recently taught – these were my Magic Loop examples. Julie had been begging for more socks, and I figured smaller socks would be easier to knit along with the class. I let Julie pick the yarn.
That picture just speaks for itself, no?
I did 2X2 ribbing all the way down the cuff and along the insteps. It’s the basic standard traditional flap-and-gusset sock, no pattern need be named, but I used 50 stitches circumference on size zero needles. I’m feeling a little bit guilty because this project went completely unmentioned on Ravelry till – well, I’ll put it up right after this post. Is it cheating to cast on a bunch of projects and not put them up because who knows when you’ll get around to actually knitting on them? That’s a whole other post.
Back to Thanksgiving, though. It was a nice day, and best of all because I was only responsible for one dish. I made the green bean casserole, and instead of following the traditional canned-soup, canned-bean recipe, I once again followed Emeril’s recipe, only this year I used this recipe for the mushroom soup. Last year I spent more than I want to think about on fancy mushrooms, and all it got me was WAY too much mushroom flavor. This year I went with the simple and cheap, and was wonderful. I had a bowl of the leftover soup for dinner tonight, and it was great. And the casserole turned out great this time too.
We went to Joe’s cousin Sarah’s house for dinner, and because Sophie hadn’t napped all day, she fell asleep in the car on the way there, and miraculously slept through me carrying her inside and laying her down in her cousin N’s crib. She slept for a good hour, long enough for me to indulge in a glass of wine (enough to give me a good buzz and account to some extent for the extreme exhaustion later in the evening). Julie and her cousin K. were upstairs watching a video for the same amount of pre-dinner time, which meant that I was free to hang out with the in-laws and chat ‘em all up, for better or for worse. It was great!
Sophie eventually woke up, in a great mood, and had all kinds of fun on the indoor playground.
Joe and Julie did a little story-cuddle, which was sweet.
We all stuffed ourselves on the most traditional of American 20th-century middle-class Thanksgiving food, including pie for all. I have to admit that during the pre-meal prayer, I shed a few tears when Sarah mentioned thanks for Julie being able to eat whatever she wants. Heck, I’m shedding a tear right now thinking of it. I am SO thankful for that! I think this was Sophie’s first taste of pie…
And Julie thoroughly enjoyed her slice – she chose pecan.
Wanna know a pet peeve of mine? Where I grew up, it was pronounced puh-cahn. Everyone here pronounces it pee-CAN. ARGH! Like fingernails on a chalkboard!
But back to the story. Joe chose to get up at 2:00 this morning so that he could be at Best Buy to stand in line in 10-degree (Fahrenheit) weather for three hours to buy an X-Box 360 with Guitar Hero game package. It’s my X-mas gift to him. He got it, he’s happy. Then he came home and slept till we all woke up.
And then – then we went and had breakfast with an old friend. Back when Joe and I were dating and pretty much until we had kids, we used to eat breakfast more Sundays than not at the New Uptown Diner. We’d almost always split the Cajun Breakfast, and it is awesome. We only went a few times after Julie was born because she was so fussy it was hard to eat out with her, and then once we figured out the allergies it really wasn’t safe for her to eat there. Since she’s been eating everything again, we’d been planning to go eat at the Diner some morning, and today was the day. Only now there is a satellite restaurant called the New Calhoun Diner right by us, and we went there and it was all the same good greasy goodness. mm-MMM! Julie and Sophie had pancakes bigger than their heads, and everyone was happy.
We did a little shopping, in search of new winter boots for Julie (who loves to sing along to the Interjection! song on Schoolhouse Rock)
And a new winter coat for Sophie (how did we manage to get Julie to this age without ever having purchased a winter coat in size 2T – oh, because she was wearing 2T when she was barely 1 and therefore was still wearing the bunting style of winterwear.)
Sophie loves to take her shoes and socks off while riding in the car.
She’s always so proud of herself.
We made it home and ate Thanksgiving leftovers for lunch, I put Sophie down for a nap, then I sent Joe upstairs for a nap. Julie and I did some cheesy arts and crafts stuff, Sophie woke up and we made and at some cookies (just a few from the pre-made dough I got in the school fundraiser) and then it was time to go meet up with awesome reader Katy who came through on the awesome Viewmaster offer. I can’t believe she was willing to give us her childhood toy – not only an old-school viewer, but a projector and a stack of reels – all quality ones that I’m happy to share with my kids. I know, most of you probably think I’m crazy to hate Dora the Explorer with the passion that I do, but really she is evil incarnate.
Anyway, Katy was really cool and sweet even though I had, uh, left the package I’d meant to bring for her on the kitchen counter at home (argh!) – Katy, it’s all packaged up and ready for me to mail out on Monday! And also, even though I was incredibly distracted my my four-year-old who was being a little monster-brat. I swear, she is not that bratty most of the time, but then again I don’t usually take her out for meet-and-greets at 4:30 in the afternoon. I should have known better, I just didn’t want to wake Joe up from his nap when he was clearly so tired. I can’t begin to describe how disappointed I was in Julie’s behavior. But it was really nice to meet Katy and put a face to the comments! Thanks again, Katy!
I look a little wild-eyed and crazed in that picture- trust me, I was. I was so pissed off at the squirming, whining preschooler in the stroller in front of me.
Now I must off to bed – tomorrow, the in-laws are coming over to watch the girls so that Joe and I may go see Beowulf in 3-D at the IMAX theater. All reports say that Beowulf is a horrid movie and not worth seeing even for the 3-D. You know what? I don’t care. Anything for the chance to go somewhere and sit in peace with my husband for a few hours. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen a 3-D movie before. I just hope I don’t get motion-sickness. Do people get motion-sickness in 3-D movies? Full report tomorrow.
You’re not crazy. I detest Dora, too.
I pronounce pecan like you (puhcan). It makes me crazy when it has a hard E.
How did you like the movie? I went with my husband and we loved it!
argh, i drives me batty when people say “pee-can” (like the barefoot contessa, i can’t watch her show because i want to throw things at the tv if i hear it)!
hope you enjoyed the movie!
With you on “pecan”. How does Joe say it? Will the kids get to choose how they pronounce it, or will you teach them to do it right?
Also, nope, waiting to enter a project on Ravelry can’t be cheating because there’s no contest. Not an issue. See, you’re totally off the hook. I love the happy socks picture, too!
Childhood toys are meant to be played with, not fossilized in the basement. If they survive another pair of sisters, great, and if they don’t, well, that’s how it goes. The old viewmaster might be sort of rickety; it might be worth the investment to get a new one and see if it works any better/different.
Shelly – I also don’t like Dora, but my daughter likes her and Diego… I say pehcahn too – my grandmother told me it’s not a pee-can sweetie, that’s in the bathroom! My son who’s 17 months also takes off his shoes and socks in the car – every ride… fun fun fun! Em