Week 48 - Thanksgiving

I know, it's already over but I wanted to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving from our house to yours.

We had a total of 10 folks celebrate the holiday this year.  Besides Mom, John and Me, there were Ryan and Terri and their girls, Erica and Shaylee, and Theresa and Jack and Mary.  John spatchcocked a 13 pound turkey. The only problem being that this was the largest turkey we could do the spatchcock procedure in the Big Green Egg and, sadly, there were no leftovers.  Oh, well, there were bones and bits that John will make the most incredible turkey noodle soup with, but no turkey sandwiches in my immediate future.  Sigh!

Moist, tender, and cooked to perfection in just about 2 hours!

We also had a ham (home-grown), dressing, candied sweet potatoes, butternut squash, green beans with onions, bacon, and slivered almonds, cranberry relish, spinach tortellini salad and assorted olives and pickles.  For dessert there was pumpkin pie, mince pie, and pecan pie - all with mounds of cool whip.  To say we were stuffed is an immense understatement.  

I love it when John's family comes for Thanksgiving.  We only see them once a year, in spite of living fairly close.  So getting together with them is really special.  

We both had a good number of days off work for the holiday.  John pulled down the Christmas boxes from Christmas attic yesterday and assembled the pencil tree (I wanted the slimmer tree this year).  I have any number of other boxes to unpack but I'm not in the mood yet.  It will have to be done before next Monday, the 4th.  I have my old Bunco group coming for a Reunion Game Night and want the house to be decorated for the holiday...I work better with a deadline!  

While pulling items from the pantry to make the dressing for our feast, I reached in to get the chicken broth and accidentally knocked over a jar of artichoke hearts...the small jar fell directly onto my foot and made me say bad words!  For a while I thought that middle toe might be broken but thankfully, it's only bruised. Yes, purple IS one of my two favorite colors but not on my toes, thank you very much.

My buddy, Gilligan, says to wish you a happy week.  He's contented and looking for a quiet place to nap.

Thanks for stopping by.

Week 46 & Week 47

I have no excuse...simply have no excuse.  I'll leave it at that.

Several days ago, I received a text from my daughter(-in-law) and it contained a photo...she was so proud and wanted to share it.

This is our son in the middle, with Satya Nadell (the CEO of Microsoft) on the left and Senator Orrin Hated (R - UT) on the right.  It seems our son hosted the annual Hall of Fame Gala the is put on by the Utah Technology Council.  These gentlemen had no idea they were in the company of such a wonderful man.  We are so proud of him.  And then we found out that John and Jill also took our two oldest granddaughters to the Gala...

Charlotte, Jill, John III, and Emily.  They make a stunning picture!

This comping week is going to go quickly...I only work on Monday and Wednesday.  Thursday and Friday is our Thanksgiving holiday and Black Friday.  While I don't participate in the insanity of Black Friday, I can certainly appreciate having the day off!  John and Mom and I are going to do the Christmas decorating this next weekend.  

I found this the other day and liked what it said.  Enjoy the rest of the autumn season.

Thanks for stopping by.

Week 45 - Fast Internet

One of the drawbacks of living in the country is slow internet.  Yes, we have few neighbors...Yes, we see so many more stars than you who live in the city...Yes, it's quiet and peaceful.  But the lack of internet speed has driven Mr. Wonderful nuts all 13 years we've lived here.  A few months back he spied work being done on the internet hubs along the highway and stopped to talk to the workers...it appeared that they were upgrading the fiber to allow for faster service to the outlying areas.  This past week I talked to our internet/phone provider and found that it was up and running and we were eligible for the newer-faster service.  We had to change our home phone number to accommodate the bundled package but, since all the changes they required resulted in a much lower monthly price, we agreed to it.  Yesterday was our day!  Our home phone number has changed.  You can email me at quiltersal53@gmail.com for the new number. I honestly don't know if the internet service is as fast as they said it would be...by the time I logged on to my computer, it was late, I was cranky, and it didn't seem all that much faster.  But it could have been me...I'll wait to hear from Mr. Wonderful if he thinks it's faster.

The holiday season is upon us...that means it's time to think about decorating for Christmas...shopping for Thanksgiving dinner, and finishing up the holiday shopping.  I knew Mr. Wonderful was going to take a load of processed beef out to Nebraska a couple of weeks ago so I hurried and finished most of the 'big' shopping for the Utah family and he took it out and gave it to Young John.  That sure did save on the cost of shipping it all out!  I only have gift cards to mail to Utah now.  I'm almost, but not quite, done with the shopping and/or creating for the family here in Missouri.  Then I only have cards left to do...easy peasy!

Mr. Wonderful took all 3 of the lady cows to the vet this last weekend to check on their pregnancy progress.  Our Rosie is about 4 months pregnant, Belle is about 3 1/2 months pregnant, and Garnet is not pregnant at all. Evidently she is elderly (not normally a problem in an 11-year-old cow) but she's also quite fat and that stopped her from getting pregnant the last 2 times she was bred.  Our philosophy is that if you don't earn your way at Pieceful Harbor, you don't stay.  Therefore, Garnet has an appointment at Freezer Camp at the end of January (the first available date they could take her).  She is about 1800 pounds and will yield just under 1000 pounds of meat.  Some of the cuts one gets on a younger cow are not going to work for this older one...but those items can go into hamburger.  And I love me some home-grown hamburger.  We will most likely end up with around 400 pounds of the stuff along with steaks, roasts, brisket, cube steaks, and stew meat.  Now I need to defrost one of the freezers and organize so we have room for 1000 pounds of beef.  Frankly, that's one of the jobs that make me happy!

Here's a picture of my companion lately...he gets on my craft table and plops himself down in front of me so I can't knit, or work on the computer, or anything except pet him...smart boy!

Thanks for stopping by...