Well, Did Your Diet Survive?

Mine sure didn't.  I'll be being an extra good girl today and make sure I climb the basement stairs a few extra times to make up for that full plate of yummy that I made disappear.  As we drove away into the sunset snowflakes began to fall but fortunately they only flurried and didn't pile up anywhere.  Whew.  Because I was on tap to drive home and I for sure didn't want my first winter 2013 snow drive to be on Hwy. 29 in the dark.

The newest member of the family, baby OWZ, was in attendance charming everyone in sight and being a colicky baby through the meal and almost until he and his family left.  It took a bit of convincing to assure his mama that no one minded the crying baby, we just all wanted a turn to try to soothe him, especially Grandpa Doc.  It was fun to see him so wrapped up in that little scrap of humanity.  OWZ's favorite soothe spot was under the exhaust fan in the kitchen so there was a rotation of adults leaning against the stove swaying from side to side.  DIL1 was the one who got him to sleep, but not for long.  Oh well, he'll grow out of that, they all eventually do, and he sure is a cutie patootie.  Can't wait to have our own baby of our blood, not just our hearts, to walk, rock and trot.  When DS & DD wouldn't be soothed by rocking in a chair, when only standing and rocking would do, Durwood and I called it "giving 110%."  We did a lot of that; these new parents will serve their time standing and rocking and shushing while mostly asleep too.  I think it's a rite of passage.

Oh, but the food was sublime.  The turkey, our first roasted instead of fried turkey in many a year, was succulent and done to a turn, the gravy was lump-free, there was cornbread-sausage and sage & apple dressings, green bean casserole with those crunchy onion things on top, AS's homemade mac & cheese, roasted root vegetables, corn pudding, cranberry sauce & relish, traditional green jello with pomegranate seeds sprinkled on top, each one more delicious than the next, and a lovely red wine on the side.  For dessert there was pecan pie with bourbon in it, traditional pumpkin pie, and my pumpkin bread pudding with rum sauce (I put in extra dark rum this year, it was extra cold outside) and decaf.  See what I mean about diets crashing and burning?  I took a tiny spoonful of everything and my plate was nearly overflowing--and those were some good-sized plates--but I managed to make it all go away, except I only had pecan pie for dessert, I just couldn't face "some of each."  (Dad used to say he'd have "Russian dessert" [someovich"] I couldn't go there, I was just too full)  The company was lively and entertaining.  We missed W&AZ but they stayed home since they're expecting in less than a month too, and GZ, OZ's daddy, had to work.

I just took a step further down the road toward being a real Grandma--I ordered a Pack & Play from Overstock.com.  Half-price!  Yippee!  Pretty soon our baby will be here.  I'd better lay in some diapers.  I already have a rocking chair.

OMG, Durwood's watching Sale of the Century on the Game Show Network and one of the prizes was a fabulous cellphone that cost $3000 and lived in an aluminum spy-type briefcase; and one of the defeated champ's prizes was a typewriter.  A typewriter!  Turns out the show's a rerun from 1974.  Good lord.

November 28--Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Harvesters.  The last field was too steep for the reaper and tractor so Levi and Tom harvested it by hand.  They joked about stepping back in time as they pulled scythes out of the back of Levi's truck.  They walked to opposite corners of the one-acre plot, each man settled his wide-brimmed hat more securely on his head, then they got to work.  Each of them soon got into the rhythm of swinging the scythes, blades flashing in the late afternoon sunlight.  Tom found her.  He was in the middle of the plot when he saw something blue.  At first he thought it was the reflection of the sky, but on closer inspection it was a blue skirt that was half-on and half-off of the slender form.

Okay then, that's not too bad for midnight on Thanksgiving.  I'm off to collect eggs and get my nails done, oh, and pick up bananas at Kwik Trip, a person can't pass up their 38 cents a pound price for them.  Are you out shopping today?  Good luck finding what you want, I'll be over here where it's quiet.
--Barbara