Happy Thanksgiving

Here followeth a Casa de Crazy Thanksgiving Day Tradicion:




And a new (old) addition to our warped holiday hilarity:


We hope you have a pleasant, tasty, mellow, comfortable, healthy, not-at-all-contentious Thanksgiving day if you are in the USA and an all around good one if not in the USA or not celebrating.

Here are the links if you want to view on YouTube:  Alice's Restaurant , Thankful and Turkey Drop

Thankful

I have a few traditions on Thanksgiving. Not many - the menu, Mom recording the Macy's parade so we can watch it together at Yule and fast-forward through all the crappy pop music, commercials, and talking heads to see the twenty minutes of balloons, floats and high school bands we’re actually interested in hidden among all that junk, and my day-before-Thanksgiving list of some things for which I am thankful, in no particular order and in no way complete:

What remains of my left foot, Nubbly, which perseveres and does its best not to pain me even when I deserve it
The doctors, nurses, and techs who probably saved my life and helped me get back to living it
The care that family and friends have given me while I return to upright living (or what now passes for it, which is pretty darned good) once more
The Evil Genius
Sprout
Mom
The house in which I live (beloved Casa de Crazy)
Gypsy
Kerri
T, who may be my ex-husband but remains a staunch friend
Mr. Grey
Mizz A
Kit
Sam-I-Am
PJ
Mizz Beth
Martha 'n' Milo (who lives always in our hearts)
Avalon
My band mates
Dica
Donna
And all of my friends who put up with me when I am most myself and therefor least likable. They are the net beneath me when I fly and fall
Bread
The scent of leaf loam and woodsmoke in the crisp autumn air
Apple cider
Books, music, and art
Clean, plentiful water
Clean air
Clean clothes
Freedom
Nature and the ways she finds to show me something new of herself every day
Words
Song
Dance
Adversity, that joy is all the sweeter (Okay, okay, the joy is sweet enough, so basta with the adversity for a minute, please)
Every creature and plant that I consume to sustain myself, because without the life I take, I would have no life to live
Love - that it exists at all is a wonder, and I feel blessed to know it in many forms
Chocolate, gift from the Gods (yes, even the perversion called "candy bar") (Mmm...candy bar...)
The cats by whom I am kept
Honeycrisp Apples
Strong hands
Strong spirit
Strong will
Laughter
Cussed determination not to curl up and die just because life can sometimes be a succession of truly awful, bleak, and desolate days...but sometimes it isn't
The Internet
You

I hope you have a blessed day, and that the things for which you're thankful outweigh the things for which you're not.

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all, from us at Casa de Crazy to you out in the Blue Nowhere and beyond.

Counting Down

It is the week before Thanksgiving and there is much happening here at Casa de Crazy.

The kids and I are terrorizing the cats...er...tidying up a bit.  Poor house is a right mess as a result of some serious depression, chaos, and stress (so what's new?), and it WILL BE CLEAN for Thanksgiving.  Or, at least, the parts our guests will see will be clean.  Probably.  Maybe.  I hope.

This is a somewhat traditional post for me - every year I write a little something about this week, as it is the lead-off to The Silly Season (aka Christmahannukwazakyule) and often one of my busiest here at the Casa.

So, here we go.

Wednesday (today) - Band practice, because really, who doesn't band practice right before a holiday?

Thursday - More housework.  Lort, the housework.  Then there's the laundry.  Oh, lort, the laundry.  Hopefully we will also finish shuffling the garage so I can park in there before it gets really, actually cold outside (nothing to do with Thanksgiving, but I'd be thankful if it got done).  Grocery shopping, because there's nothing like looking for obscure ingredients at the last minute.  Panicking about the butter - is two pounds enough for the day?  Gah!

Friday - cleaning, cleaning, more cleaning (I move slowly, the Casa is enormous, and I am not a good housekeeper so when we DO clean, it's a job).  Making sure the table linens are washed and ready to use and pulling out the "good" flatware**.  Also going up to the HAHC to shoot pics and make FB posts and maybe apply to offer a class this winter.

Saturday - Thawing and then cutting up bread for the dressing.  I bought it ahead of time and froze it because supplies have been unreliable, and T might just cry if there's no dressing.  Can't have that!

Sunday - Washing the "good"* dishes and serving bowls/platters.

Monday - Making a list of ingredients for baking so I can make some donations for the Friday HAHC bake sale, because I don't have enough to do this week.

Tuesday - Remove turkey stock from the freezer so I can make dressing and gravy with home made stock.  Cut vegetables for the dressing.  Do a little dance.  Probably more housework, which may include mopping, so maybe say a little prayer for me.  Gather ingredients for bake sale shenanigans.

Wednesday - Prep the dressing for baking.  Make keylime pie (including shortbread crust since I cannot buy them ready-made any more, waaaah).  Make the mashed turnips and carrots.  Bake cookies, miniature keylime pies, and banana bread for the bake sale.  Sit down for a moment and ponder my life choices.  Probably last-minute cleaning, mopping, and table setting.

Turkey goes in to bake.  Dressing goes in to bake.  Green beans are steamed.   Finishing up any last minute cleaning.  Children are shooed outside to frolic.  Friends and family trickle in.  Set the table.  Fill the water pitcher.  Watch TV and baste the turkey.  Make food, food, more food.  Start Dutch apple pie baking and start chocolate silk pie thawing (because Marie Callender does pie so well, I'm happy to let her).  Serve.  Eat.  Coma.  Dessert and coffee/tea.  More coma.  Play games.  Pack leftovers to go for guests.  Pack baked goods for mom to take to the bake sale.  Eat more.  Sleep well.

Friday - More food coma and maybe go up to the HAHC to shoot more pics so I can write FB posts for 'em.  Or maybe just continue the food coma from Thursday.

Saturday - Start baking holiday goodies for shipping to family and friends.

Sunday - Rest.  Possibly interspersed with napping and more baking.

How is your week shaping up?

*These are dishes that Mum and I bought one piece at a time from a grocery store a long, long, looooong time ago.  Service for fourteen including serving dishes, either free or bargain priced with purchase of a certain amount of groceries.  I love them.  Not fancy, but pretty and simple and I like them.

**Not sterling, but some rather lovely and solid stainless steel flatware from the Oneida Company, back when there was a Betty Crocker catalog and we clipped Betty Crocker points from boxes and saved them in a tin on top of the refrigerator.  Service for twelve, and some day I hope to expand it and add more serving pieces and other cutlery, but that'll have to wait a bit because it's a discontinued pattern and getting the pieces I'd like to have will cost a small fortune.  I adore my pattern, bought a few pieces at a time through the mail with little bits of cardboard and postage paid.