Category: General Page 56 of 116

We have started preparing for Thanksgiving.  Everyone is in the kitchen except me (I might wreck or eat stuff so I am banned).  Updates will follow.

Thanksgiving Prep Crew

Grandpa’s Stuffing Sausage

The new Thermador put to good use

Flowers for the table

Dad gets banned to the blogging couch

Lorena makes FLAN!!!

“If I put it in at 11:43 and want it to be in for one hour, when do I take it out? They did not teach me this when I took calculus.”

Grandpa Milo cooking with Kelly and Christian

Here is what they were cooking

She was not going to tell me how she lit the candle without burning herself

The only thing for which Dad is qualified is mashing the potatoes–this year Grandpa Milo added a special mix of chipotle, fresh roasted corn kernels, and butter

Grandpa Milo Carves the turkey while Christian watches on

Grandma Sarah makes the best gravy in the history of the world

A wonderful feast

A wonderful feast – a second picture to get everyone in

They’re here!  Christian and I are looking forward to a nice long weekend of cooking!  Grandpa brought Sunset magazine with him, and our Thanksgiving plans have been somewhat changed:

Wine smoked turkey (instead of the regular, butter smothered, roast turkey)
Italian Chard Stuffing
Cornbread Chorizo dressing (aka: stuffing)
Grandpa’s version of Sweet Potatoes

Then all the other normal stuff like rolls and salad.  Grandpa is also planing on making bananas foster, a very fancy dessert.  We won’t make it for Thanksgiving, but we will make it sometime this week.  Mom took us to CostCo yesterday and we got 2 pumpkin pies, an apple pie, and a key lime pie so we’re pretty much all set for Thanksgiving dessert! I’m so excited! 

Right now we are getting ready to go to Christian’s guitar lesson so I have to go.  Sorry this is so short, but I will have many stories in detail soon!!!

I picked up Grandpa Milo and Grandma Sarah yesterday evening right on schedule.  Lorena had stew and a nice salad waiting for us when we got home.  We are awful glad to have them here.  We have decided that we are going to divide the cooking up into three events.  Tomorrow, we are going to make a traditional Thanksgiving meal with turkey, mashed potatoes, dressing, black olives, etc.  Lester, Esther, and their family will come over tomorrow evening for dessert so the Finnish ladies can meet each other.  Then, one evening, Grandpa Milo will make a gourmet meal that he will teach to Kelly and Christian.  Finally, we will cook a second turkey on the grill on Saturday just to see if we can do it.  We have a really small grill, so we are not so sure how it will turn out.

Christian, Grandpa Milo, Grandma Sarah, and Kelly

Grandpa Milo is going to help us plan our yard.  We want to do something next summer that is not too expensive, but that will be fun when we entertain.  Grandpa Milo has some ideas on a fire pit.  I think that sounds great.  Maybe we can run down to Home Depot to look at materials so we can know what we need to buy when we get started.

I went into work a couple of hours later than usual today because I have to pick up Grandpa Milo and Grandma Sarah at the airport a little before seven tonight.  Lorena is going to run to Costco after Kelly’s piano lesson to do her Thanksgiving dinner shopping.  Everything is coming together for our big dinner.  Our friends, Lester and Esther will come over to for dessert with Esther’s folks so they can meet Grandma Sarah and Grandpa Milo.  Both Grandma Sarah and Esther’s Mom have Finnish mothers, so it will be fun to listen to them compare notes.  I will try to put up a few pictures as we pass through the holidays.  We really do not have much planned other than to cook a lot and eat a lot without gaining too much weight–as if that were possible.

This weekend we went to a get together up in Charlotte.  Very fun! I saw a bunch of my friends that I hadn’t seen in a long time, which was nice.  We played Winkum, Mafia, Spoons, All of the Bears are out Tonight, Do you know how Mary died?, Scream, Tangle, Guitar Hero, and a weird game where you hold up yourself and three other people like a table using only your knees and legs. We played soccer too, which explains why I ache all over.  But it was worth it. Christian and I also learned how to play football.  When we told the kids that we didn’t really know the rules to the game and that we’d never played before, there was a shocked silence.  But they were nice enough not to tease and patient enough to show us what to do. I don’t understand the fascination with it, but I think I know enough now to follow the game! That counts!  I also attempted to play volleyball for the millionth time.  And again… it didn’t work out very well.  Dad says he’ll show me how to play sometime, so I’ll at least be passably good next time we go to a get together.

Christmas carols started playing on the Radio on Thursday!!! 🙂  I was so excited and happy to hear them, but I am restraining myself until after Thanksgiving. If I start listening to Christmas songs too early, I get disappointed when Christmas actually rolls around.  It’s too much of a good thing. So I’m going to revel in the Thanksgiving spirit while I can, and save all the Christmas-y stuff for later. It’s killing me though!

We drove to Charlotte for a big, weekend long get-together with a bunch or our friends from both the Raleigh-Durham area and Charlotte.  The kids played soccer, volley ball, and parlor games with their friends.  The stayed up half the night talking and carrying on.  Rex, Linda, and Amy worked for weeks to get the whole thing ready and then worked even harder while we were there to make everything just right.  It was a weekend to remember and for which to be thankful.  We got up at five in the morning to get home in time for meeting on Sunday, but promised to stay for meeting if they do this next year and have the lack of foresight to invite the likes of us again.  It was very, very good for our kids and encouraging for Lorena and I, too.

An old buddy, Kirk, was there with his family.  He started at Oregon State U. just a little after I, but moved to North Carolina after he graduated.  On Saturday evening, I noted that the Beavers were down by one point with less than three minutes left in their game against Arizona.  They had to win to stay in the running to play in the Rose Bowl.  I quit checking the score because I knew they had no chance.  When I checked this morning, I saw they had won on a field goal kick on the last play of the game.  The funny deal is that Kirk and I are about the same when it comes to OSU football.  We are interested in the score and like to see the Beaver’s win, but neither of us are that interested in watching the games or are particularly devastated when they lose.  I always say I like to talk trash about the games over the water cooler at work a whole lot more than I like to see the games themselves.  My favorite team by far is whoever is playing the Ducks.  The Beavers are a distant second.  It is way more fun to hate the Ducks than love the Beavers.  That is especially true after having lived in and around Corvallis so many years.  At any rate, my two favorite teams are playing each other next week:  whoever is playing the Ducks and the Beavers.  If the Beavers win, they go to the Rose Bowl.

A little know fact is that Oregon State beat Duke at a Rose Bowl played close by in Durham, North Carolina in 1942 due to considerations associated with the on-going World War II.  It is amazing that OSU has significant sports connections to this part of the world.  The other big one being that OSU beat the University of North Carolina for the college baseball national championship two years in a row in 2006 and 2007.

We were going to do Rubix, too, but Lorena would not let us.  Lorena, Kelly, and Christian are going to drive to my work this afternoon, so we can leave from there to Charlotte for a get-together with a bunch of great kids (and grown-ups, too).  My work is about a half an hour closer to Charlotte than where we live.Now that we have our haircuts, we are all cleaned up for the big party.  We have very much been looking forward to this weekend, but it is about a three hour drive so we want to get started as early as possible from the right side of town.  It was snowing when I drove to work this morning.  I hope it is not going to be snowy and slick on our drive there.  It looks like it will clear up for the drive home tomorrow.

Grandpa Milo and Grandma Sarah are driving the new machine built by Grandpa Milo and his buddy, Del Weber, over to Quality Corners in Idaho.   It allows us to make some great additions to our product line.  It is a funny deal that we are picking up business like crazy during this downturn.  A lot of it is business we won away from China, but there are some new products in the mix, too.  They were going to drive from Portland to Pendleton last night which is about half way.  I hope there is not too much snow on the pass for them.  They are scheduled to fly to Raleigh from Portland on Tuesday, so they will be in a whirlwind of travel for the next few days.  I am glad Dad went over to install the machine.  I am excited to hear how it goes.

Kelly and I are entering into a “no bad snacks” pact for healthier eating.  I have been staying about flat on the weight loss death match with some serious ups and downs, so I am trying to rework my system.  I have two areas where I need serious work.  First, I do well all day long during the week, for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but I pig out on all kinds of stuff when I arrive home from work.  I promised that I would restrict what I eat when I get home to some health stuff in reasonable amounts.  Second, I absolutely have no self control on the weekends, so I have promised to stick to a more health diet with not a lot of snacking then, too.  For her part, Kelly is going to quit snacking so much on unhealthy stuff and go from 90% ranch dressing and 10% carrots to 98% carrots and 2% ranch dressing.  We are both going to be more measured in our mealtime consumption by putting reasonable amounts on our plates and eating it slow.  Kelly has promised to hold my feet to the fire on this.  If I do not do something, both Lyle and Brad are going to catch me.

We have several computers around the house, we use for a variety of different tasks.  None of them are particularly special and a couple of them are getting toward the end of their useful life.  Our plan to reorganize the computers over the holidays has more to do with the fact that we want to have an excuse to fool around with the computers than with an benefit we might derive from the reorganization.  On the other hand, we might learn something.  Today, I will list the computers and how each of us uses them.  I hope Lorena, Kelly, and Christian will correct me where I am wrong.

The HP computer in the living room

• Specs:  AMD 64-bit microprocessor, 512M RAM
• OS:  Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex
• Internet:  Wired connection to the router
• Printer:  HP PCS-1610 Printer/Copier/Scanner (shared via Samba/CUPS)
• Lorena:  Reads the “news” with Firefox, talks to Mexico on Skype, emails with Thunderbird
• Kelly:  Manages her blogs/facebook/myspace with Firefox, emails with Thunderbird, writes reports with OpenOffice.org, prints recipes and craft projects
• Christian:  Performs administrative tasks when Kelly and Mom cannot figure it out or something is not working
• Dad:  Scans and prepares Betty Blonde comics with GIMP, prepares and prints homeschool schedules with OpenOffice.org

The Dell computer in the bonus room

• Specs:  Intel Pentium, 512M RAM
• OS:  Windows XP
• Internet:  Wireless
• Printer:  Uses printer connected to HP/Ubuntu computer in the living room
• Mass Storage:  MadDog 500Gig external hard drive
• Lorena:  Cleans up the computer table and dusts
• Kelly:  Rosetta Stone Spanish, Teaching Textbooks Math, and CLEP U.S. History II
• Christian:  Rosetta Stone Spanish and adminstration
• Dad:  Nothing

Christian’s Dell Laptop

• Specs:  Pentium Dual Core, 1G RAM
• OS:  Dual boot:  Windows Vista and Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex
• Internet:  Wireless
• Printer:  Uses printer connected to HP/Ubuntu computer in the living room
• Lorena:  Nothing
• Kelly:  Teaching Textbooks, report writing with OpenOffice.org
• Christian:  C++ programming, Inkscape, Administration, Teaching Textbooks Math, GIMP, general experimenting, NerdHow management, etc.
• Dad:  Nothing

Dad’s Dell Laptop

• Specs:  Intel Core Duo, 1G RAM
• OS:  Windows XP
• Internet:  Wireless
• Printer:  Uses printer connected to HP/Ubuntu computer in the living room
• Lorena:  Nothing
• Kelly:  Nothing
• Dad:  Python w/Eclipse (BleAx), C++ w/Visual Studio (Volcano computer), Firefox, Thunderbird, GIMP

We will wait until Kelly and Christian to finish with Rosetta Stone Spanish two before we make any big changes.  We plan to turn the HP desktop computer in the living room into a server that will host files and an internet site I want Christian to learn how to manage.  We will add RAM and a better graphics card to the Dell desktop upstairs, install Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope on it and bring it downstairs to replace the HP.  That is about all.

Mom and I are planning a different sort of party for December!  We’re going to have Cookie Exchange for all the ladies in our meeting.  Each person will bring 3 dozen homemade cookies to the party, and we will trade them so everyone gets 5 of each.  We are also planning to have a cookie decorating table, homemade soup and if we’re lucky we might even get a call from Delilah herself!  I’m looking forward to it, but I have no idea what kind of cookies I’m going to make yet. Maybe coconut macaroons or walnut truffles.  I want to make something different than the usual chocolate chip or oatmeal raisin.

I passed my Spanish CLEP practice test 1 today with flying colors! I got 96 out of 120 questions right, giving me a scaled score of 80, or an A. I just need to clean up a few things, study a bit more, and I’ll be great! I am very excited, because if I pass this test correctly, I can get 12 credit hours!  My other CLEP test, the US History one, is a bit more tedious and there is quite a lot more to remember, but I can pass it.  It will just require more studying and concentration than the Spanish CLEP test.  Knowing the language kind of helps. 😀

Also in my plans… I really want to start doing some cooking videos and newsy podcasts soon.  I’ve really been wanting to make kimchi. Dad says we should try some gourmet dishes too.  Maybe in December I’ll start.

I can’t wait for the get-together! I haven’t seen (most of) my friends since convention!!!

Kevin Wilson interviewed Kelly about Betty Blonde for a very nice post he put up on his blog here. I hope he does more of that in the future as it seemed quite professional both in the questions he asked and in the way he introduced the article. Kelly was excited because she thought it might translate into more people signing up for the Betty Blonde daily emailing. We added Kevin’s blog, Uncle Dub’s Rambler to our blog roll.

I finished writing my program that accumulates the scanned panels into a finished comic with a title, by line, copyright, drop shadows, and a thumbnail image. It also uploads the images to my website automatically. It works well on Windows, but I have to make a few adjustments to handle the different directory structure for Linux (and Macintosh, Bryan).  That should not take too long.  Next, I will add the ability to post the daily strip and update the archive. After that, if I am still inspired, I will add the ability manage the daily emailing. It is a good, stand-alone program now, though, and has cut the effort required to administer the daily comic by about two-thirds. I named the program BleAX for Betty Blonde Aggregator of Comix. Catchy name, don’tcha think? If anyone wants to publish their own comic, let me know and I will send out (or post) the program with some instructions on how to use it. Here is a screen shot of the finished program:

BleAx

Update: Andrew, my buddy from work, brought me three Wendell Berry books this morning.  They are Fidelity, Life is a Miracle, and Jayber Crow. I am really looking forward to reading them.

November 30, 2004 – Back in the saddle

Last Saturday I made some fudge and handed it out at meeting the next morning. It was scrumptious, but it did not look like it was supposed to and it was a bit too sweet. I think it was because I added real milk chocolate chips instead of semisweet chocolate chips but that’s OK. The more sugar the better, right?

I’ve been doing very, very well in my school today. I’ve been staying on schedule, catching up on math, and really applying myself. Applying oneself is a hard thing to do though, so I might just help myself to some of that fudge when I’m done. 😉 Yesterday, Dad took Christian and I out for a walk. Walks are very enjoyable when the sky is blue and there’s a nip in the air. You are cold at first, but after you get started you warm up and have fun! Hot summer days were just not made for walking. When you start you’re already warm, so what’s the point in getting warmer? And if it’s humid too… yeesh!

Let’s see.  Today I started a new module in my biology book about ‘The Cell’. It’s been really cool to read things in my biology book that line up with the Evolution book that Dad is reading out loud to us. I know it is not a good thing to argue, but it’s nice to know that I have a reason to believe what I believe if someone ever challenges me.

Well, not much is going on again. I’m still working on my petite, blue, polar fleece pig. I will post up a picture when I am done with it. Also, I’m sorry for all these short paragraphs. I have no idea how to limit myself. 😀 I’ll have to start paying more attention to how I format these blog posts!

We went for two walks around the neighborhood this weekend. We have walked one day on the weekend for the last little while and have decided that two is even better than one. We see the last fall colors. The air is crisp. This is just a great time of the year to get out of the house and walk in North Carolina. We went for our walks because we spent quite a bit of time holed up in the house to catch up on homeschool. We mostly accomplished that. I think the only items left are one math assignment for Christian and some math corrections for Kelly. My plan was to get started on some radio stuff, but when I looked at the schedule, I realized that we have one more book to read that goes with the Biology Kelly is studying this year and that Christian will study next year. At the same time I purchased Explore Evolution, I also purchased Understanding Intelligent Design: Everything You Need to Know in Plain Language. by William Dembski and Sean McDowell.  We really need to read that while the Explore Evolution material is fresh in our heads, so we will push out the radio work until toward the end of this year or the start of the next.

Lorena and I went to a company party on Saturday afternoon.  It was very nice.  The company hit some milestones that we wanted to celebrate, so our CEO made up some gumbo and invited us all over to his home.  It was nice for Lorena to connect faces with the people about whom I speak with her every day after work.  It really was a pleasant affair as such events go.

November 29, 2004 – Thanksgiving report
November 24, 2004 – Christian in Newspaper!!! (photo)

We are about half way through the book Explore Evolution. We are also about half way through The Trumpeter of Krakow. I had mentioned previously that we read a chapter from both a fiction book (from Kelly’s Sonlight series of books) and a non-fiction book. We are just now getting control of our studies after the trip to Mexico, so we want to start back to work on projects and studies we have had on the back burner. In particular, we want to start our study of electronic broadcast. We have Broadcast Voice Handbook, Sound and Look Professional on TV and the Internet, a couple of books on amateur and commercial radio licensing, and a radio kit for Christian and I to assemble (Kelly is less interested in the technical elements of all this). We will start the Broadcast Voice Handbook as our non-fiction read-aloud after we finish Explore Evolution. We will start studying for the amateur radio license test after Kelly finishes her Spanish CLEP test and Christian finishes his Freshman English Composition CLEP test. Christian and I will try to get set up to start the radio assembly this Saturday.

I made great progress on my Python program that builds up a comic strip and puts it up on our web-server. The part that does the image processing and FTP uploading is already complete. I got the main structure of the GUI built that allows a user to input the source image directory, title, author, number of panels, and the FTP site information, then create and upload the comic and thumbnail. There is still a little bit of debugging required and the display of the completed images, but that should not take me too long. It has been a super fun and interesting exercise that has helped me come up to speed with both the Python programming language and the wxWindows/wxGlade cross-platform GUI toolkit.

November 23, 2004 – Homeschool slowing, linux, and the dentist
November 22, 2004 – Preparing for Thanksgiving

The company where I work sent out their holiday schedule for the coming year. I still have not figured out whether I am going to get any time off for this year’s holiday season and will probably not find out until sometime next week. It surely is hard to plan around stuff like lab trails and build schedules when it is impossible to know whether or not you can invent the thing you have been tasked to invent. The very thing that makes the job frustrating is the thing that makes it most interesting. I suppose if it were easy it would not be so rewarding. In the meantime, I have decided we are focusing too hard on tests. It is time to do a project.

The kids often listen to music on the radio when they do certain types of school work. I like them to listen to classical music when they work. Whether that is Rachmaninoff, Beethoven, and Bach, or The Beach Boys, Simon and Garfunkel, Johnny Cash, and The Everly Brothers is not clear and cause for much discussion in this household. Last night we talked about the amazing technology and culture associated with broadcast radio. Some might have read earlier on this blog that we bought all the materials necessary to build a Ham radio as part of a program to learn what is necessary to get a Ham radio license. I think now is a good time to spin that project back up. This is a good inside project for the winter. We can set up a table in the bonus room up stairs where it is warm and toasty.

The balance between the reading we do every night while the kids work on their comics, homework correction, and radio work will be a little delicate, but I think we can do it. If we can finish the Ham radio license before the end of the school year, we can take on the General Radio Operators License (GROL) in the summer. If that is possible, it well could lead to work at a radio station. Who knows?

November 15, 2004 – 39th Anniversary of Lauro and Conchita (Photos)
November 19, 2004 – Missing posts and recital photos (photos)

Meet Mr. Bun, Mr. Bean, and Sweetiepie Lambiekins.  They are somewhat sloppy as I hand stitched them and they were my first attempt at making stuffed animals, but I love them anyway. I made them last weekend after some surfing on the Martha Stewart website and a trip to Target. They’ve got some really inexpensive gloves there in really cute colors. I’m thinking about going there again because I have a Mr. Bone and a Mr. Bell in mind. 🙂 Last night I finished  sewing the pink stuffed Sweetiepie Lambiekins. Christian wanted me to name it Rambo or Lambo, and then make a stuffed pig and name it Hambo. Boys.

Nothing terribly exciting or worth writing about is happening in my life. Just school and exercise and piano and meeting and more school as usual.  I did start my ACT prep and trigonometry this week though. All that means is an extra math assignment to do a day. Fortunately I’m allowed to use a calculator this time around! It’s like cheating, only you can get away with it. Let’s see… this weekend we are going to a get together in Charlotte! I am very excited for that!! And of course, Grandma and Grandpa are coming for Thanksgiving. Lots of things to look forward to, but not much going on at present.

Bryan sent us this great picture of his Dad and Mom, Walter and Arlis Joyce. He took the picture when Walter, who served in Korea, put on his uniform for Veterans Day. We have very fond memories of past Veterans Days as the town in Oregon from which we moved when we came to North Carolina held the largest Veterans Day parade West of the Mississippi River.  Grandpa Milo is a veteran of the same era as Walter.  He spent the last year of his time in the service as a cook on the Eniwetok Atoll in the South Pacific helping with the testing of the newly invented hydrogen bomb.  The last time we went to the Albany Veterans Day Parade, there were several members of the Oregon Atomic Veterans riding in it.  It just happened that the parade stopped when they were right in front of us, so I walked out in the street to talk to them.  They knew of Grandpa Milo and had actually been trying to get in touch with him so he could join their group.  We had a nice little talk before the parade moved on.

We noticed that Raleigh had a Veterans Day Parade last Saturday as we drove very close to the downtown area on our way to Costco that day.  It would be nice to go to the parade if they have it again next year.

Update:  Check out this great (and hilarious) productivity tool Christian found and wrote about at NerdHow.
Update 2:  I just noticed how good Arlis looks after following Bryan’s weight-loss program!  Congratulations to both of you.

November 12, 2004 – Adjudicated recital
November 15, 2004 – Busy weekend

I went to a meeting with the North Carolina Department of Non-Public Education (DPNE) yesterday. The meeting was in a small, kind of shabby conference room on the floor right above the North Carolina Governor’s offices. There was a very nice, not too knowledgeable lady there to review my paperwork. I had the required attendance sheets, immunization records, and nationally normed standardized test results. The lady with whom I spoke had a masters degree in education and was working on a second masters degree in public administration. While she was very gracious, I was underwhelmed by her knowledge of homeschool topics both with respect to North Carolina and in general. I asked her whether there were any members of the DPNE who homeschooled their children and was told there are not. Oh well.

So, I went home, just to find out that we had a problem at work that required my presence. I grabbed something to eat and headed out the door back to work while Lorena, Kelly, and Christian ran off to Gospel Meeting in Fuquay-Varina. Another day in the life. I do not know what I was expecting out of the whole review, but it was a little bit of a let down. The lesson I took out of it is that no one is really interested in my kids at all. If I do not do the right things by them, no one will. I was thankful for the reminder.

November 10, 2004 – Lorena passes the 2nd test!
November 11, 2004 – Logic and critical thinking

Christian, Kelly, and I went to the Borders bookstore on Saturday morning while Lorena, shopped at CostCo. My plan was to find an introductory trigonometry book and a book on the writing part of the ACT test. I did pretty good on the trig book. The kids will cover trigonometry comprehensively in their when they study pre-calculus, so the idea is to give them a good coverage of the basics of trig between now and when they take the test on February 7. I think we found a book that will be quite good for that. I am not so sure about the writing part of the ACT. We found a book that covers the entire ACT with a good big section on writing. Who knows whether it is adequate for our needs. We view this pass of the test just as practice anyway. We decided to read the instructional part of the writing preparation aloud together to try to get the most out of the material possible. Only Kelly will take the optional writing part of the exam this year, but it will be good for Christian to have this more formal writing practice, too.

We planned to grill some steaks this weekend. We changed our mind on Saturday morning and bought salmon to grill instead. Then, when it came time to grill, we were not that hungry, so we decided to hold off until tonight or tomorrow night. When we got home from shopping, the kids worked on some craft projects. Kelly has taken to sewing plush toys from knit gloves. She got the idea from a Martha Stewart magazine. They are very cool. I hope she puts a picture of here work up here. I think Christian started to sew one, too. Christian decided he wanted to paint one of the walls of his bedroom a denim color, so Lorena ran down to the Home Depot to get him the paint he needed. It sounds like a very fun project. It looked cool in the pictures we saw. The guy at Home Depot explained the whole thing and even had a brochure on how to do it. I am looking forward to seeing how the wall turns out.

I plan to talk to my boss about the Christmas holiday today. We are in the middle of field trials with our biggest customer–it always seem to work out so that the important stuff happens around a holiday–but I want to try to get a block of time off so we can plan something very cool and interesting!

November 8, 2004 – Tim to meeting
November 9, 2004 – Kelly’s statewide assessment results

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…