And I thought Thursday was a bad day?
Yesterday, I got up, turned on the computer–and it wouldn’t boot. The first screen, with the Dell logo and the BIOS information, came on. There is a progress bar across the bottom, and that usually shoots across and then the next screen appears in about two seconds. This time, the bar stopped about 1/8 of the way–and that was it. The computer just sat there. Not a sound from the hard drive or a flicker from its indicator light.
Today is the 75th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition.
I know some people on my flist have seen snow already this season, some of you a while ago, but I just saw the first flakes of the winter here, drifting down prettily. It’s not going to stick, the forecast is for rain and it’s already sleeting. Most of the coming week is supposed to be average temperatures, well above freezing. I can’t complain! Lorden Oil showed up with a heating oil delivery on Wednesday, and I have no idea why. The tank took all of 59 gallons! At least it’s not a big bill. But I’ve never had an oil delivery in November, they usually come between Yule and New Year’s, every year.
I can’t believe that Monday will be December 1st! I can’t believe it’s already Friday again! I guess it’s been an eventful week…for that matter, an eventful month! I’m tired of “eventful”, I have to confess. I’m tired of working so hard around my house and yard, getting ready for winter and the holidays. On Monday, I spent an hour outside cutting up downed wood with my chainsaw, doing some last touch-up raking and putting things away, because of this big wind-and-rain storm they were forecasting. (We got the rain but I didn’t notice a lot of wind.) My yard hasn’t looked this tidy before snowfall for years–even dad commented on it. But…wah. I want a nice husky guy who will barter yard work for sex! (I may not look like much, but I sure am fit!) Okay, that was today’s inappropriate fantasy…at least the house is nice and clean.
I’m a guest blogger today for Lori Devoti’s 30 Days of Vampires blog carnival. She said it would be great if someone could write about vampires and Thanksgiving. I took up the challenge (I’m a sucker for those kinds of challenges, they put my Muse into overdrive) and came up with this: Harvest Feasts and Our Vampire Hearts. It’s not even silly. 🙂
I’m done with Christmas shopping except for one small thing for my niece, and my dad. I got my dad to “think outside the box” about what he wanted for Christmas, since he couldn’t come up with suggestions, complained that he had way too much stuff now, etc. I had him in a brown study with my urging to “think about what you spend your time on and enjoy, and then think of what would enhance those activities–doesn’t need to be something tangible, it can be a service, subscription, etc…” He came up with a couple of ideas that now he’s really excited about. I feel very clever. *g* He’s always calling me with computer problems, and I suggested that a newer laptop to replace this ancient little thing he bought on eBay might save him some stress, but he thought that was too extravagant. (Let’s see, this year I bought myself a $300 camcorder, a $380 netbook computer…oh, well!)
I sure did have a sensible Thanksgiving–I lost 0.4 pound! (Yes, I did my workout last night, grumpily.) Today I’m having steamed broccoli because I need green veggies, and I finished the sweet potatoes (yum!). Except for the turkey, I don’t have lots of leftovers because I only cooked enough for me and dad. I still need to strip the turkey carcass–don’t worry, it wasn’t stuffed, so it’s safe in the fridge–and I’m procrastinating because I’ll have to lock up all the cats to do it.
But the holiday is over, I better get back to work! Everyone who is out shopping today, drive safely and have a good time! Anyone on your list who likes vampire books would probably love a copy of Mortal Touch. I only mention it in passing. 🙂
I guess my dad and I had a pretty nice Thanksgiving.
I’ve been cooking and cleaning for two days, so I’m pooped! One of the challenges I had this year was adapting recipes for my new sugar-free regimen. Dad’s not supposed to have sugar and now I’m not eating it, either, so no cheating (which dad does, if we enable him). But dad’s tastes in food are very humble: he likes comfort food, mashed potatoes and gravy and so on, and he doesn’t like anything unusual. He loves my cooking as long as I don’t get too imaginative.
My first experiment was making cranberry sauce. I had just learned how to make my own jellied cranberry sauce last year, but it takes tons of sugar. I tried making a batch using about half the amount of honey as the recipe called for sugar, and cooking the cranberries in apple cider instead of water. The result is very tart, which is okay, but didn’t gel fully, which is odd because cranberries have tons of pectin. Next time I’ll try cooking it longer. But I had sugar-free cranberry sauce.
Dad only likes stuffing cooked outside the bird, in a casserole, and I don’t eat stuffing, so I don’t even stuff the turkey. I put some cut up carrots, celery and onion inside the cavity and roast the bird au naturel. I made a two-thirds-reduced stock from the giblets, mostly for the gravy. Usually I cook the neck, too, but this turkey didn’t have a neck–maybe because it was too small. It was only 11 pounds. The stock was cooking down and steaming up the windows all afternoon yesterday. I used some of it for the stuffing.
I made baked butternut squash with roasted garlic and carmelized onions. This is a dish I cook and eat all winter, but it seemed appropriate for Thanksgiving. I steamed fresh carrots to make peas and carrots. Dad likes candied sweet potatoes, so I made spiced-honey-orange sweet potatoes. This was something of an improvisation. I steamed the sweet potatoes, reduced the cooking liquid, and planned to make the sauce with honey, a bit of molasses, butter, and spices. But I was having an orange for supper and I got the inspiration to squeeze part of the orange into the sweet potato sauce. It was delicious.
Finally, I made stuffed mushrooms. These are not part of our Thanksgiving tradition, but I had mushrooms left over from the home made pizza and got inspired. The stuffing, which was a complete improvisation, was made from red and green sweet peppers, the stems of the mushrooms and onion, sauteed in olive oil,, a bit of my own whole wheat bread, some of the giblet stock and a little shredded cheddar cheese. Wow, were those good! I’m the only one who ate them, though. They’re gone. *g*
I cooked or prepped almost everything yesterday, so today I only needed to cook and mash the potatoes, roast the turkey, make the gravy, and get everything else into and out of the microwave or oven in the right order. I’ve got it all down to a science. Of course, it’s a lot easier when you’re only cooking for two!
I didn’t make any dessert. I actually ate very moderately, because I didn’t have any gravy, stuffing or mashed potato. I ate both the drumsticks (dad likes white meat), cranberry sauce, squash, sweet potato, peas and carrots and mushrooms. I wasn’t over-full at all.
Dad is a lifelong James Bond fan and really wanted to see Quantum of Solace, so we went to see that after dinner. We got in for free because I had some passes I’d gotten from a Hershey’s chocolate promotion earlier this year. It was okay–I like Daniel Craig, and I love Judi Dench as M, not only because she’s great, but because it’s such a trip to see an older actress in such a juicy role (especially in the notoriously sexist Bond franchise). But the violence kind of gets me down in these movies. I also had trouble following the complicated plot because the director and editor clearly need to lay off the methamphetimine. A lot of the movie looks like it was shot by a steadicam operator while he was being chased by a pack of Rottweilers.
As though making dinner and cleaning wasn’t enough to keep me busy, today was the New Moon, so I did a New Moon ritual when I got up this morning. This was an especially significant New Moon because the Sun and Moon were conjunct both Mercury and Mars, and Uranus turned direct today, as well. Uranus has been retrograde since June, so things should start shaking loose now.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Weekends tend to be work days for me. This is partly a holdover from the Job from Hell, where I worked all weekend and then had Monday and Tuesday off. While it was convenient to have weekdays free, they aren’t the two best days in the world for my particular habits, but I got my weekly routines settled around those days and it’s a pain to change them. I guess that’s a comment on the power of inertia. But I also get a lot accomplished on weekends simply because there are fewer distractions.
Yesterday, I had the church Youth Group from 5:00 to 7:00 (plus half hour drive time each way and the fact that Youth Group tends to run over). I wanted to take something for the pot luck, which I haven’t been doing up to now. I wanted to watch the Patriots game at 1:00 p.m. And I wanted to get my cycling done early, so I’d have the rest of the evening free when I got home from Youth Group. I decided to make homemade pizza, with an all-whole-wheat crust, for the potluck, because the Youth Group activity was cookie baking, and the ovens would be on. I could bake the pizza there at the church and not have to worry about keeping it hot in transit.
So, yesterday I got up, put on my workout clothes, got all the pizza toppings (mushroom, onion and green peppers) and ingredients ready, and worked on the computer until 1:00. I did my cycling, which takes just under 90 minutes, during the first half of the game. Football games are great to cycle to. Especially the ones the Pats win. *g* I finished cycling just before half-time, mixed up the pizza dough and set it to rise and took a shower. I finished up just as the second half started and I watched the game and worked on the computer until the pizza dough was done and I could assemble the pizza. I collected a tote bag of cookie-making equipment to take along for the Youth Group. The game ended about fifteen minutes before I needed to leave. I went to Youth Group, where just about everything I’d packed in my tote bag got used, and the activity ran until almost 8:00 p.m.
Whew. How was your Sunday? 🙂 Oh, by the way, the pizza came out just great. This is the first time I’d tried making my own whole wheat pizza dough and it was delicious. I’ll have to make pizza more often!
Today is the 45th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.
These words from his inauguration address could be spoken today.
