Eating in a Winter Wonderland

The cheer of the holidays arrived for me this morning when I woke up and found the ground covered with snow.  Yay!  I can see deer running across the fields and through the woods.  It's so much easier to spot them.  What an awesome weekend.  Well... except for poor Lucy (one of our yellow labs).  She appeared with the nastiest gash on her side and we never could figure out what happened...  had to take her to the vet yesterday.  Other than that it was lazy and wonderful!  My glucose level is 103 this morning and the fatometer reads 152.4 which is down a couple of pounds after the binge of the year.

This week is Thanksgiving!  My pantry is full of wonderful things I should not eat :)  Potatoes, fixings for pies is what comes to mind right away.  I am prepared to cook a feast for 15 or 20 people as usual but only Michele is coming over this year.  It will be a very quiet Thanksgiving.  How strange!  The boys can't get time off work to make the trip over and Amberlyn has traded us in in favor of Thanksgiving diner with her new boyfriends family.  We can't believe we are being abandoned like that!  :)  Katie will be fixing Thanksgiving for her own little family in California.  We will have left overs for a month!  Carol!  You better come over and bring Granny for dinner!  I am going to make a special treat for me.  Grandma Olsen used to make it because she always had left over pie filling.  Crustless pumpkin pie.  I'll experiment with sugar free sweeteners on this one and leave the normal pies fully loaded.  I'll also make a baked sweet potato for myself rather than eating piles of mashed potatoes.  I hope :)  My daughter Michele is coming tomorrow and we will mix up the pie crust and stash it in the fridge.  Wednesday is pie day :)  I used to help my mom make pies for Thanksgiving so I always think of her on pie day.  I always think of my brother Gene as I pull the turkey out of the oven.  We used to pick the crispy skin off of the turkey as it was resting (much to my mothers dismay) and munch it down.  In my family we have a tradition of holding hands and singing a silly little song... "here we are together".  It's quite a process.  It involves calling out the name of each one present and that could be on some years up to 25 people.  It always gets a little confusing but that's ok - it's pretty fun :)  I spoke with my mother a couple of days ago who told me that she got a letter from my nephew Andy who won't be home for Thanksgiving because he is in Marine boot camp.  He thanked her for hosting the most wonderful Thanksgiving dinners and wanted her to know how special they were even though he knew it was SO much work for her.  Even with all the help from other family members it is quite a feat to pull off.  He said that he would be thinking of all the family on Thanksgiving day and asked if she would call out his name when they sang the song so at least he could be there in spirit.  Well drat him!  Now he's made me cry twice!  I told her to call out mine too :)  Everyone remember our military families in prayer this Thanksgiving.  They are the protectors of this great country that we are so thankful to call home.

So... Happy Thanksgiving!  Ciao!


This is just to get you in the mood.  :)