Day: November 7, 2008

I like to plan things.  I may never execute my plan, I may never hope to see it as a reality, but I still enjoy planning things. I love to share my plans with people, even though they don’t always love to hear them.  My poor brother has endured thousands of party schemes and outfit ideas.  I like to set goals too, but the ‘setting’ is much easier than the actual undertaking and achievement.  My diary is solid proof of that!  Anyhow, Thanksgiving day is in 2 weeks and 6 days and I have already started to put together a menu and a shopping list. I am very, very excited! Since Christian and Dad are not exactly partial to hearing my plan, I thought I’d share it on the blog.

Menu: (With the people who are making each dish put in parenthesis)
Turkey (Collaborative effort)
Cranberry Sauce (Out of a can (tee hee), or Grandpa makes it)
Grandma’s Gravy (Not sure whether Grandma will actually make it or not…)
Spicy Mashed Potatoes (Grandpa’s specialty)
Dinner Rolls (Christian, the dinner roll expert)
Sweet Potato Casserole (Christian)
Salad (Christian)
Some sort of vegetable, I’m thinking green been casserole (not very appetizing, but it’s a classic) or asparagus with garlic (Kelly)
Ambrosia Salad (Kelly)
Fresh Baked Bread (Kelly)

Dessert
Fancy Apple Pie (Kelly and Christian, with some help from Martha Stewart 🙂 )
Pumpkin Pie (Kelly and Christian; I was trying to decide which one to make, but it was so hard that I just chose both.  I think I’ll make them ahead of time.)

I have a chronological list of when we should prepare each dish, but that might be pretty boring to read.  Oh, and I did consult this list with Christian and he’s fine with it! Anyway, Grandpa already told us he’s making the mashed potatoes and he’s always been the cranberry sauce guru.  And Grandma’s gravy recipe is amazing.

So I think we’re all good! The only thing that really has me worried is the centerpiece…

We ran like crazy for the last month. The trip to Mexico, Cousin Julia’s visit, and the excitement of the election are now over. Tonight and this whole weekend, we plan to do nothing more than hang out together as a family. That will include comic drawing, McDonalds for breakfast, a trip to Costco, and some quality time at the bookstore with hot cocoa for the kids and coffee for Lorena and I on Saturday morning. We will talk Kelly into baking us some bread. If the weather is nice, I think tomorrow would be a good time to give both Kelly and Christian a lesson on how to grill steaks. I need to work up lesson plans for the next couple of weeks that includes the new ACT preparation materials we plan to buy on Saturday. I also need to get my materials ready for our annual meeting with the North Carolina Department of Non-Public Education on Monday. The following is Christian’s rendering of the Betty Blonde comic strip characters. I thought I would post it as I thought it was nice and I did not have much to say this morning.

Update: Christian, check out this search engine. Amazing. It makes associations and suggestions on searches.

November 6, 2004 – Wayne the Mexican (comic strip)
November 7, 2004 – Rocket launch (photos)