It's The Little Things

Thanksgiving came and went with much delight. I have to say that it was one of my favorite Thanksgivings so far. The grandparents came it from the sunny southwest to celebrate with us. Auntie came in from the east to relish in the non-stop football games. It was good, very good.

Thanksgiving can be somewhat of a crazy holiday with all the baking and shopping that centers around that Thursday. This is year it had potential to be even crazier with the stores open on Thanksgiving day so that one would not miss out on any deals. One could choose to bake from the Saturday before until that Thursday. This year we chose to neither shop with the masses or bake until we were too tired to enjoy our feast.

For the first time ever, we ordered our Thanksgiving meal from Salty's on the Columbia. We happened upon this offering while enjoying my hubby's birthday dinner there. Looking at the menu and what they had to offer we thought, "Why not? Let's just try it for this year."

Thanksgiving week and morning proved to be very quiet in our kitchen. No large bird was hovering around in the fridge. No recipes were being pinned to the outside of the fridge for quick reference. It was quiet, almost too quiet for my liking.

That morning we decided to make turkey cookies from the Betty Crocker website, with the addition of peanut butter cups to make them extra rich, to have something fun for dessert. As we were sitting around the table, decorating funny turkeys, I realized how I was telling my kids that making the cookies with grandma and auntie was what Thanksgiving was meant to be. It was the little things that were meant to be focused on, not the shopping, the large dinner, or the endless hours in the kitchen. It was time spent together.

Other little things such as turkey hand prints for place cards done by the kids and the grown-ups, playing endless rounds of board games, and standing around in the kitchen before the feast, hands linked in a circle, and saying how thankful and grateful we were for this time together. Those moments do the heart good and say to my children, "This is what is important."

Next year, will I order my Thanksgiving dinner to-go? I am not sure because I did miss the homemade dishes that typically grace our table. Will I spend hours in the kitchen? No because I will be busy making the little things a priority on Thanksgiving day.

Random Thoughts and Candy Bars

Last week we were walloped with a nasty virus which is why I haven't posted in over a week. It was a brutal virus that took everyone of us out. Starting out on a Saturday night, it took aim at each one of us so by the time Wednesday rolled around, we were all horizontal in the living room, unable to move.

With nothing to do but wait for the next person to give up their cookies, we watched a lot television (sigh). We had to balance between kid cartoons to satisfy the kids and cooking shows to satisfy the adults. Watching cooking shows was a bit of a torture for us since we are so food oriented in our house that watching someone dish up an amazing dish made us crave the process of eating. Our stomachs, though, did not crave the process of eating but railed against it very adamently!

After about five days of this virus and once the ability to keep some food down arrived, I broke down and just had to eat something. Just to enjoy the act of eating again. I chose to eat salty popcorn and a candy bar. I know, I wasn't necessarily kind to the stomach right off but man, it sounded GOOD!

So, as I was sitting there with my book and bowl of popcorn plus the candy bar balanced on my lap, I had one of those random thought moments. Now, the book that I was reading is one of my favorite authors whose series I follow closely and collect. The character in there I like to think of as my alter-ego. One tough, kick-ass (sorry) cop who works in New York City and can take someone out with just a glare. This character wears a long, black leather coat as she solves mystery and crime. Tough (maybe a little), kick-ass (sorry again) doesn't necessarily described me but I certainly enjoy reading these books. I mean, if I was to take someone out with my glare, I would immediately feel bad, apologize profusely, and offer to take them to the closest emergency room.

In the book there is a candy thief who steals this character's candy bar stash, which I was reading about as I was enjoying my candy bar that night. This led to my random thought which I had to share with my hubby at that very moment. Looking up from my book, I said to him, "If I had to do a top-five list of candy bars, Snickers would definitely be at the top of the list." My dear sweet hubby looks at me with a perplexed look on his face like I have never done something this random before. (He has known me for 18 years and knows that I am great at random thought moments!) His reply to me was, "Thank you SO much for sharing (note sarcasm). And you were thinking about this while reading???"

Along with being the queen of random thoughts, I am also the queen of multi-tasking. Having three kids makes that an essential survival skill to getting things done in life. After saying that Snickers was at the top of my list, I proceeded to list Butterfinger, Twix, Carmello, and the good-ole stand-by of Hershey. My sweet hubby just shook his head and we went back to reading/computer browsing. 

No more than 5 minutes later, he looks up and says, "Is that commercially made candy bars only?" Aha! I am not the only one with random thought moments in our house! So grew our conversation that night about candy bars, both commercially and locally made, all because of a random thought moment by me. Maybe I can use that for my next ice breaker at a meeting or dinner party. "Quick! Name your top five candy bars of all time!" Might get a few looks like the one my dear hubby threw at me that night!

Grandma's Bread

I have heard the people say that once one thing breaks in a house, the rest of the things are soon to follow. Seems like my house is living up to that phrase. We have lived in our house for 10 years now and love being here. But I forget that my house is much older than 10 years. 30 years to be exact. That's getting up there in house years.

Our house was built in 1980. So let's see, in 1980, I was 8 years old and living it up in 3rd grade. 80's rock music was blaring out in the old Dodge van my mom could manuever like it was a Volkswagen Bug. My older sisters, who have children in high school, were just breaking into junior high. That puts it all in perspective, now doesn't it? I have to keep reminding myself that my house has been around the block and then some.

What brought me around to this post is that we have been noticing that certain things around our house are beginning to give out. Our front doors are starting to let the blustery winter wind in and some daylight too. Not good.

This morning as I was cleaning the shower, I managed somehow to put a hole in the wall. Okay, now, granted I am doing my Pilates with Sally at the gym, running, and doing what is called power yoga, I am not that strong. Which means there is something much more serious going on behind the tiles. Sigh.... It looks like I am going to be waving good-bye to some of our hard-earned money as we begin to fix what is ailing our house.

Amid my stress and surprise of being able to move a wall with my muscles, I decided this afternoon to make homemade bread to de-stress. This is my grandmother's recipe that she used to make the bread that always graced her table. This is the recipe that I distinctly remember loving as toast in the morning when we visited her house.

For quite some time, I have been asking my parents for her recipe so that I could make the bread that I grew up with. But no one seemed to have a copy and Grandma had already passed away. Then, one day, my mom and dad found the recipe. What a treasure! It was written in Grandma's handwriting from many years ago and was the bread I remembered. The recipe even had her cross-outs on it and notes of what worked and what didn't.

This is a bread that requires a little muscle because you do not use a bread machine or a stand mixer, if you do it Grandma's way. It requires one to strap on an apron and get the hands nice and messy. But it is incredibly satisfying as you knead cup after cup of flour into the dough. Ten minutes of moving a mound of dough around on the counter with the knowledge that for dinner there will be fresh bread with melting pools of butter. Ten minutes of knowing that this was the way Grandma did it from the age of twenty well into her 80's. Satisfying....

Now that the bread is rising in a warm spot and my hands are free of flour, I am in a better place about the hole in my bathroom wall and the breeze seeping through the front door. Having a home that is almost as old as I am means that there will be more and more TLC needed as the years go on. Having a home that is getting older also means there will be more and more days of making bread as more and more things decide to give. So, be ready, you might be getting a loaf of bread from me as those house moments happen more frequently and I need to de-stress myself. Not a bad deal, I think!