Friday, October 26, 2007

Paula Dean's Thanksgiving

Ladies Home Journal arrived with a lovely cover photo of Paula Dean and one of those beautiful, golden brown turkeys on a platter. Inside is a several page spread of Paula's menu plan. This treat included a recipe for something interesting to do with canned jelled cranberries. I'm personally anxious to try that one! It was a nice spread: corned bread stuffing, a cola basted ham to go with the turkey, sweet potato casserole with 900+ calories per serving. Yep, good stuff all the way around. There were however, some glaring omissions. Nothing pumpkin. I can live with that. But there were no mashed potatoes! Can you imagine? No mashed potatoes. You know what that leads to: no gravy!!!

To cut Paula some slack here, there were potatoes, but they were new red potatoes and cooked with the green beans. Now Paula, that's a lovely idea, but seriously!

What I haven't told you is that Paula deep fried the turkey. While some might say that explains why she didn't make gravy, no pan drippings. Why would she make mashed potatoes if there's no gravy. DUH! You have a whole fryer full of oil! Make all that into gravy! Hello!!! Have these people never planned a meal before? That's food utopia, a deep fryer of gravy and the stuffing and mashed potatoes to absorb it all!!!

Can we work cheese into that equation? Just asking, sheesh.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Big Thoughts

Marrianne Williamson gifted the world with these words in her book, "A Return to Love."

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?” Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

R U KIDDING ME?

Like all of you I got catalogs in the mail yesterday. It's that time of year. What freaked me out was the one with the nativity scene on the front. Little children dressed in felt outfits with pretend head coverings is one thing, but an inflatable manger. No, I'm so not kidding! There was an inflatable manger holding the plastic baby Jesus. It looked like a small, brown air mattress. Ugh!

There was further tackiness in this particular catalog, but that takes the cake.

Monday, October 15, 2007

Is it Legal?

When can you turn on the heat at home? Is it a certain temperature outdoors? Is it a date on the calendar? Last week the dog and I decided it was cold in the house based on the thermostat indicating it was 60 degrees. We made the executive decision to flip that switch over to warm. I'm curious how others decide. Is there a formula? Do you consult your dog? Is there a law?

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

The Words We Choose


Easton, my grandson, turned 1 a month ago. He's walking like Frankenstein, absolutely adorable!

He has a limited vocabulary at this point. Limited in the sense that there are only two words that we clearly understand. He says lots of other things, but none make much sense. The two words: Woof! referring to all dogs, no-no.

Could we get by with less words in our world? He gets along just fine with those choice morsels of communication. What could it hurt? What would be your words of choice if you could only choose a few?

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Weekend report -- Cheese Rules Our World

My sister and I went to Cedar Rapids, Iowa for a wonderful time away. Wish I had kept a running log of all the things we discussed. It was long and varied.

We both arrived late Friday night so settled in without much talk. Saturday morning we talked nonstop for several hours. Amazing what you don't say to people on the phone or via email. We made the 20 mile trip to Amana, Iowa where we lunched at a restaurant we had visited as children on a family vacation. I remembered a bear on the second floor of the Ox Yoke Inn that she had no recollection of. Sure enough, the bear is still there and is now on a postcard. We had a fabulous meal of fried chicken, jaeger schnitzel with spaetzle, and amazing sides.

I must comment specifically on the cottage cheese with chives. We had just come to the conclusion that, 'cheese rules our world' when we happened upon this delicacy in a dish. This was full fat cottage cheese like you don't find in the grocery store. The chives had become part of the whole thing imparting an amazing flavor.

Following the wonderful lunch we strolled shop after shop of darling gifts and treasures. We made a few choice selections and headed back to Cedar Rapids.

The Husker game Saturday night shall go unmentioned here, along with the restaurant I selected for dinner. Really, both were quite unmentionable.

Sunday we ate a burger at the Texas Road House and went our separate ways.

We talked through ideas for my upcoming presentation, reminisced and shared, talked about mom's impending move to a retirement apartment and what should happen to 40+ years of accumulated stuff. It was a marvelous weekend. Can't wait to do it again!

Friday, October 5, 2007

Running away from home

I have dreamed of this day for a very long time. I am running away from home for the weekend with my bestest girl friend. We are meeting in a town neither of us have been to, halfway between our houses. We will explore, stay up late, watch the Huskers, whatever we want to do without having to please anyone but ourselves. I can't wait!!!

Thursday, October 4, 2007

R U Kidding ME?

Do you watch Top Chef? If you didn't see the finale last night then this is a spoiler alert.

Hung is the Top Chef! Are you kidding me? That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard!!!

Speaking of ridiculous, I'm confessing right now that I watched 5 minutes of Cavemen on Tuesday night. It was the biggest waste of my time in recent memory. An absolutely terrible show. I can't believe someone wrote the script and actually spent the money to produce it. Good thing the actors wear serious amounts of make-up, otherwise they would never be able to show their faces again. Yes, it's that bad.