Writers' Block

So stealing from Cranium:

12 Thanksgiving Questions


1. If you could stuff a turkey with anything, what would it be?

I'm a traditionalist, I'll admit it. I don't like turkey, but my mom's cornbread dressing (don't hold back on the sage, yes, it's SUPPOSED to be gray-ish green, tyvm) is about as good as it gets.

2. If you designed a giant balloon for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, what would it look like?

This one is hard. I've never actually seen the parade, I mean, I've seen PICTURES, but I've never even seen TV coverage - that's part of being the youngest child in a house full of football fanatics (seriously, I once asked, DURING Thanksgiving dinner, if anyone cared who won and when they said no, I asked "WHY are we watching this during DINNER?!" and the answer was "we like football") the parade was never on the TV in my house.

I guess maybe a really cool sweater carefully showing all the stitches along with the ball of yarn and needles (I'm telling you Ravelry - the pull is strong)

3. You can pick anyone to prepare Thanksgiving dinner for you, who would you choose?

Wait a minute, *I* have to cook this dinner? Ummm, no thanks! Next question, please!

Now, if I'm sharing this meal with someone, let me see. Al Gore, Grace, Tanya, Rani, Jenny, KCB, Sally, Jules, Colin Beavan, Sara, Robert Redford, Ed Begley, Jr., Bill Nye, Paul McCartney - well that gets me started.

4. What invention are you most thankful for?

Toilet paper

5. What’s the best part about sitting at the kids’ table?

The corny elementary school jokes.

6. If you had to eat only one kind of Thanksgiving food for an entire week, what would it be?

Ummm, were you listening? My mom's cornbread stuffing!

7. What’s your favorite Thanksgiving memory or tradition?

I don't really have one. Thanksgiving as a kid meant the day at my dad's aunt's house with all his siblings and their kids plus the cousins and their kids in a 900 sqft house. The only good thing was that the weather was always good and we could go for a walk on the farm.

We're working on making our own traditions. Now we live too far to be expected to go home (I am so NOT complaining) so it's ours for the making.

8. What’s the one thing that could make you brave day-after-Thanksgiving shopping?

Pretty much nothing. Maybe an amazing sell on organic cotton yarn (I'm telling you, Ravelry!)

9. This fall, instead of a pile of raked-up leaves, I’d like to jump into a pile of _______________.

Hmm, how about a walk on the beach and jumping into waves? That sounds about right!

10. A Thanksgiving food I wouldn’t want thrown at me in a food fight is _______________.

Definitely the cranberry sauce - the whole berry kind (since I don't like that kind and it wouldn't feel like a waste).

11. Next Thanksgiving, everyone should wear _______________ to the dinner table!

Crowns!

12. How many times can you say the word “cornucopia” in ten seconds?

I have no idea. There's no one around to time me.

In which I grow a spine

I talked to my mom this afternoon. She asked if I knew what our christmas plans were yet. I told her I didn't for sure other than that we were going to be in Oklahoma. She asked me if we thought we could make it to family christmas (bear in mind, this is my father's extended family). I screwed up my nerve and told her that I didn't really want to attend, even if it worked with our schedule. I explained that I didn't like how mean they were to me and that they weren't exactly nice to my kids.

She said "I never noticed that they were mean to you - what are they mean about?"* "Oh, pretty much everything". It segued into me being different and I said "well, I'm not going to hide that I'm a liberal". She told me that I just had to accept that they were all conservative. I agreed and told her that I didn't start the arguments and didn't answer back when they made fun of my beliefs. *I* don't perpetuate the shit.

I'm sure she'll call me up with a guilt trip in a couple of weeks and the guilt will continue until christmas. But I just don't care. I've re-read my letter and I've decided I'm taking a stand this year. They won't reject me because I'm not going to put myself up for their rejection.


*When I told Mr. Gaia that she said she'd never noticed it he said "That's the problem! *I've* noticed it and it's worse than you will even admit."

Happy Halloween

I'm tired and tipsy (the tipsy came after the T-or-T'ing, I swear).

We walked up and down 4 streets (about 3 blocks long each) and each child had their container filled. I now have about 100,000 calories in my house.

The good news is that I not only gave away all the candy we bought, but even some of the candy that's been taking up freezer space since last year (yes, I not only saved the candy but "re-gifted" it - so sue me, I tasted it, it was fine). Of course, now I have a huge bowl of candy my kids won't eat. Would it be bad if I put some of it in the treat bags for after the soccer game (in addition to the standard healthy snacks I would provide).

The kids looked cute in their costumes and Hyperion's thrifted/recycled costume turned out well.

Refashioning

Hyperion wants to be a king for halloween. I asked Mr. Gaia to check Target for a costume because I'm lazy - but no go.

So, off to the thrift stores I went. Looking for something red and silky that could be fashioned into a cape.

I've written about Wardrobe Refashion before and now I find myself in thrift stores looking at items figuring out how they could be reused. I spent a lot of time fingering the cotton sweaters, looking for extra large sweaters in a thick weight yarn, before deciding I needed to use up my stash before considering buying a sweater to frog for yarn. Besides, they were all white. Which has lead to me spending a ton of time searching out how to dye cotton yarn (too bad kool-aid doesn't work on plant fibers).

Anyway, back to the costume. I ended up with a red graduation robe. I figure I can take it apart and get a kids' sized cape out of it. I looked for some kind of fake fur, but didn't find anything, so I'm going to have to work on that one. Maybe some white felt? I have a red sash that I'll pin to a dress shirt for him, pin on a few medals (I have a few and I think I have trappings to fake a few others), put him in dress trousers and he's done. My only issue now is I'm not sure how to wash the acetate graduation gown.

Oceanus is going to be Harry Potter again. This is the 3rd year in a row. I can go along with it. It's easy and cheap and it's what he wants to be.

Halloween costumes has always been the only time my creativity has emerged. I once made a triceratops costume out of styrofoam cones, fun foam, a head band and glue. A bat costume was made from cheap black remnant fabric and a black sweatsuit. An incredible hulk costume from green knit pants and shirt with a pair of girl's knit purple pants (cut to look like they were torn - with the cut off ends pushed into the sleeves to make muscles). And a Link (from Zelda) costume made from an adult's long sleeved green shirt, white tights, felt and brown paper bags. No one knew who he was (everyone guessed Robin Hood) but he was happy. I'm hoping I can pull off a similar success this year.

Surprise Father's Day

I'm not sure how we managed it, but we managed to surprise Mr. Gaia. I'm very impressed that both boys were able to keep it to themselves. Of course, I didn't tell them the plan until Friday.

Mr. Gaia had a great day.

I mixed up some bread for the solar oven (finally a sunny day!). Of course, I got distracted and used gluten instead of the softer whole wheat flour (I usually mix 2 different grinds). I realized it when I took it out of the mixer to knead and it was tougher than a brick. Crap!! So, I quickly heated some more water, started mixing another batch - with no gluten this time - and then mixed them together. I'm happy to report the bread is really good, just a tad bit chewy, but a soft chewy. I've got a loaf in the freezer ready to pull out and bake next sunny day.

After we put the bread in the solar oven to cook, we decided to go to some furniture stores. Mr. Gaia and I haven't had a bed in 7 years. We have just had our mattress and foundation sitting on the floor. We also haven't had a dresser or chest of drawers in the same amount of time. I have open wire shelves to hold my clothes. We've decided we'd like to look more grown up. So we went to 3 different furniture stores, but none of them had what we want. We like simple, clean lines. Mission style is always good. We did find a lot that had the simple lines we wanted but the pieces were "Texas sized" and would be overwhelming in our room, not to mention that they would block our windows.

Then we went to Sam's to walk around and have lunch. That reminds me, I have to send an email to corporate. This Sam's never has Dr. Pepper on the weekend, or ice. How freakin' hard would it be to realize that you ALWAYS run out of Dr. Pepper and to order an extra canister? To make it worse, they never post an out of order sign on the machine - so you waste what little ice you can manage to get by having it covered in jet water. Today she told me the sprite and powerade canisters were empty too. None of them had out of order signs. Can you imagine the poor people that thought they got Sprite? At least with a cola you can tell the color is wrong.

Then we came home and the boys played on a Slip 'n Slide. These are so not fair, no one over 100lbs or 5' can play on them. Of course, it is wasteful of water so it's a good thing we aren't in a drought this year.

After they'd played for a while, Mr. Gaia sent them to the shower and mixed pina coladas for us.

Then he opened his gifts - a beer butt chicken cooker and a board game - The Game of Life. When I was a kid, my granny wouldn't let us play games with dice. So my mom bought us this game to take to her house (we still had Monoply, etc at home). Let me tell you, the game has changed since I was a kid. I swear I remember retirement was either rich or poor house, now it's comfortable or rich. It was a fun game to play with the kids and it provided some good teaching moments. Oceanus bought a house when he was a starving artist with a salary of $20,000 per year. He had to take out a bank loan. At the end of the game when he was last, we talked about how much money he had spent to buy his house. Hyperion was in a hurry to finish and kept treating it was race to the end. We'd explain that like real life, longer was better. He came in 2nd last.

Starting (I hope) a new tradition

In the morning, I family will awake to find that I have done some chores for them. For my kids, they will find their clothes put away correctly - hung up or folded neatly in drawers. DH will find his clothes neatly folded and ready to put away.

DH will also find his baking mess cleaned up and possibly (if I stay up late enough) the dishwasher unloaded.

I'm hoping this will start a new tradition of everyone doing chores for someone else for a holiday.

Well, a girl can dream right?

Regardless, I make a pledge to continue this tradition for my family.