My dad’s Open House was a fabulous success! The food was a huge hit. Not all the invitees could make it, so we had about forty people altogether–most of them my dad’s friends and therefore a lot older than I am, and I didn’t know most of them very well. But I had an okay time, and it was most gratifying to see how many people attended and how long almost everybody stayed. Mom was always the person who maintained the social connections–as is often the case with couples–and I’m happy to see my dad doing some entertaining. He and mom used to do a holiday open house every year, but I think the last couple of years that mom was alive, she wasn’t feeling up to it.
I made all the devilled eggs in the morning when I got up, piping in the filling with the pastry bag for an agreeably squiggly effect. Of course, the eggs were the one thing that fell sideways and slid all over the place on the ride up, but fortunately they could be repaired. I’m always amazed at how popular devilled eggs are! I make very good ones, with mustard and horseradish and a dash of cayenne pepper and so on, I really put the devil into devilled eggs. 🙂 I like them, but I don’t go nuts about them the way so many people seem to do! We sent leftovers home with anybody who wanted some, and I have some quiches and petits fours packed in the freezer for my sister’s visit. On my way home, I stopped at the Ashby church and left a plate of petits fours and cookies in the parish hall for coffee hour the next morning. I saw two shooting stars as I drove home, which was pretty cool.
On Sunday, I made the most incredible soup from some of the excess party ingredients. I’m a sucker for produce on the “reduced for quck sale” racks, and I’d bought three containers of sliced mushrooms and only used half of one for the quiche, and some little zucchinis that I then decided I didn’t want to eat the way I usually do, and so on. So I made mushroom/turkey/vegetable soup, with mushrooms, zucchini, onion, green pepper, celery, the rest of the packet of onion soup mix from the stuffed celery, and at the very end I tossed in one of the baggies of leftover Thanksgiving turkey from the freezer. WOW is this soup good! Low fat and no carbs, too.
I had one of those minor pleasant surprises on Monday. Last Thursday, when I was shopping at Shaw’s in Nashua for all the party food, I lost one of my canvas shopping bags. I had four when I went into the store but only three when I got to check-out. It was a long day, everything everywhere was very busy and I still had things to do, so I didn’t go back to hunt for it. But I was bummed, because it was a tote bag that had been my mom’s, with the logo of the Monadnock Chorus she used to sing with. I had two of them, and I don’t think they meant all that much to mom, really. She had piles of tote bags, most of which I now have. But you know how it is.
On Monday, I drove my dad to the Manchester airport because he’s out visiting my sister this week, and the route home took me right through Nashua. I stopped to get some cat litter because PetSmart was completely out of stock of the size and kind I buy on Thursday, and I decided to go into Shaw’s just to see if maybe the tote bag had been turned in. I waited patiently in line at the Customer Service desk, and the sales asistant poked around in the lost and found box…and they had it. I couldn’t believe it! I was so delighted, I thanked the sales assistant copiously, which probably made her day. They hear a lot of complaining at the Customer Service Desk. From now on, I’ll be more careful with my shopping bags!
I mailed more than sixty holiday cards last week. So far, I’ve received four. 🙁 I’m still working on my gift shopping–snowstorms and the party left me all discombobulated. It looks like I may be getting a new computer. I’m doing tons of research. I really need something that can handle video authoring, audio editing and graphic design, and I’ve maxed out this computer’s capacity, as amazing as that seems!
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