Thanksgiving

There are so many traditions behind Thanksgiving- family, food and sport. There is of course the annual Turkey Bowl--which I should admit that I haven't played in years. It is where all the "young" kids from church and all the "old" men at the church get together and play tag football. Basically in the past it was whoever was the first to "cry" at the hands of Mr. J. was the loser! I am sure that has changed over the years, but the phrase "Blood, Sweat and Tears" apply/applied to this tradition.

Of course having family together on the holidays make it even more fun! Now that the majority of the grand kids are of legal drinking age, the holiday fun and conversation gets a lot more lively!It's not the holiday's without the sound of laughter filtrating from the living room. Whether it is trying to see who could be "tricked" into eating the cracker with cheese from the cheese log along with a slice of fresh strawberry as a topper--we got 4 people to eat it! Oh and jury came to a conclusion that it wasn't bad and wasn't good either--it was unexplainable. Or the laughter erupting from the poor drugged out dog, it was prescribed from the Vet for anxiety, who laid on the floor snoring so loudly that the TV volume was jacked up to the highest sound level. But the best part was trying to find someones good side in the pictures, no I am not going to say who it is!

Then there is the actual preparing of the meal. While my Aunt Paula is very methodical in splitting up the "dinner list", I seem to be asked to make the Green Bean Casserole every Thanksgiving. The irony behind it though is I can't stand Green Bean Casseroles! I don't understand what is so appealing about cream of mushroom soup and green beans combined in one dish and having crunch onions added to it. While people who are reading this may disagree, I ask you to please explain to me what is so good about this taste. I think the best part of the meal has to be the turkey.
Now this year we had a 44 pound farm fresh turkey. I know there was a lot of measuring and a trip to go get a bigger baking pan for this bird. Usually fresh birds taste gamy, but this bird was delicious! I must add that my aunt getting up at 3 am to put it in the oven so we could eat before midnight was well worth it--she did a fantastic job! Who knew baking a turkey would have a tougher schedule than having a new born baby in the house! If you look closely at the aluminum pan the side not covered with foil is actually the pan and it is lifted up, this pan was a round cake (?) pan.


However, I think the best part of the entire day is the turkey coma that everyone seems to get in once the meal is eaten and dessert is being plated. While Uncle Mark is working on his dishpan hands the rest of the boys can be found spread out in various positions on the living room floor and or furniture. Now if you are lucky enough to be able to move after the meal that you just scarfed down than the possibility that you will be going for a walk around the block with Uncle Doug is in your future. I have no idea why I didn't go this year--oh yeah I had heals on, but Stephanie was able to kick off her shoes and get bundled up and walk and talk with Uncle Doug.

Of course just like any other house where red blooded American men who are the guys guy football was on the television, people were yelling at the TV and more than once during the meal someone would get up to check the score of the game of the minute. While the Pats were on and we are from Massachusetts, the game of the day of course was the Cowboys/Saints game. Now the Saints did win in the last minutes of the game which meant that there was more yelling and saying how they couldn't believe that Dallas lost. It was like the major disappointment of their lifetime!

Now after all the prepping, eating, yelling and sleeping I think we are going to be ready for Christmas. I think Thanksgiving is actually the pre-game of Christmas! When it is all said and done, it is all about family--however you wanted to define it.

Moving Sucks!

Let me start off by saying that moving SUCKS!!! I have been slowly moving from one apartment to another. I have been packing and purging my old apartment at a snails pace! While the move was a little unexpected at the time--I probably could have prepared better for this in the week or so that I knew I was going to move. However, it wouldn't be me if I didn't wait until the last minute to get everything packed and moved! How people ever pack everything up in a million boxes and move in one swoop is beyond me!

So with all of these boxes sitting in the hallway of my new apartment and probably a million more boxes in need of packing at my old apartment I decided that I would spend today getting some of the boxes unpacked and the clothes put away in my closet. Now I will say that I was going to do this without any complaints. But let me say I was happily surprised when my dear friend Laurie called and asked if I would like her to come over and have her help me. First after having a puppy hanging out with me for the last 8 days a little adult conversation would be nice and secondly she is Miss Organized--so of course I said I would love help!


Laurie was just through the door when she started motivating me to empty some of these boxes. We had spoken that emptying 3 boxes would be a major accomplishment ontop of putting away all of the clean clothes that I had moved up to the bedroom!

I can say that the accompanying pictures are of Laurie's handy work! Who needs Niecy Nash when I have Laurie to help me out! Yes as you can see in the side picture here she organised my sweaters (1st and 2nd shelf) by color! I know what you are thinking..."I wish I had someone like Laurie around".

We got numerous boxes unpacked (6 total), 2 bags of clothes that I don't need that were sent to the Good Will box, the bathroom organized, the kitchen straightened up a tad and tons of clothes put away. While I know I got a lot accomplished tonight, I also know what awaits me tomorrow at my old apartment and that just makes me want to...well scream/drink/faint/run as fast as I can -- you pick the perfect description!

I have 12 days before I need to be out of my other apartment and fully in my new one--so I guess I am spending a lot of quality time at the other place packing, cleaning and loading the remaining items into vehicles. I already know now that I have about 3 or 4 boxes of laundry left to move over and from these photos I question where I am going to put them.

I also know I have a lot of books, furniture, dishes and food left at the GR-residence ontop of more I am sure. I have learned that when you live in a place for so long you collect a lot of unnecessay "junk"...with this move I am purging all of that crap out of my life.
The one thing that I could say is--let me spend 2 more full days at this other place to remove the things I would like and then have the dome form over this other apartment and zap the remaining "junk" out of it like in Monsters, Inc.

The one thing that I learned about moving and packing is that a person needs to have a game plan. Tomorrow when I drive across town to my old place I will be driving into the "battle" and planning this out like a war! Each room needs to be conquered- with little to no causalities on my side (seeing that I am packing on my own casualties are not an option). I have my orders and I am ready to go in and attack like it is nobody's business.

I know that it seems odd that I compared packing and moving to war, but I needed to give myself a pep talk. Oh December 1st how I long for you to show yourself so I can stop worrying about you showing up!

Frankie!

This summer I had made a new friend--now he wasn't like a lot of my other friends, he was a four legged puppy named Frankie. He was about 3 or 4 months old when I met him. Such an energetic little puppy!

Frankie belongs to Gwenn, the wonderful woman who owns the cottage on Lake St. Catherine. You might remember the name or the cottage from an earlier post about the skunk (if not you need to go back and scroll down to that blog, worth the read!)!

I have been very lucky to spend some one-on-one time with Sir Franklin while his mommy has been out of town. The first time I watched him I didn't think it would be that difficult. I mean, come on, I have watched numersous puppies that my grandparents had while I was in high school & college and most recently Abbie (I am sure more on her later), so how difficult can it be?!?!?! The one difference between Frankie and the others...Frankie thinks he is the Alpha Male! For a tiny little thing he seems to think that he is 7 feet tall!

He seems to always be full of energy, but there are some moments where he is just calm and loves to snuggle. Even right now as I am typing this he is curled up under the blankets right againts my leg. Yes, I did say under the blanket--because he is a mini dachshund he likes to be warm so he burrows under the blankets and stays there for hours during the night.

While having Frankie these last few days I have never laughed so hard! Yesterday he decided to take my flip flops and carry them around my bedroom in his mouth. I wear a size 9 shoe, which is about the same length as him! Then there are the leaves on the ground--he decided that he was going to run through them! It looked like the Tasmanian Devil from the old Warner Brother cartoons--but instead a pile of dirt/dust it was a pile of foliage!



Now granted it hasn't been all easy--the shreading and eating of papertowels, him grabbing something and running under the bed where I can't reach him and the playing outside in other dogs poop...I have learned a lot!

1. My stomach isn't as strong as it once was--found out when I was pulling a poop covered leaf from his mouth!
2. That no matter how tiny one is--they don't make beds high enough like they use to!
3. A puppy as tiny as he is puts off so much body heat in the middle of the night! (A fan may be needed before he goes home)
4. Everything is play for him!

We have done road trip--his first experience at Home Depot was thanks to me. Granted, him and his blanket were placed inside my giant purple purse once I saw that pets we on the list of things not allowed inside the store. Poor Frankie didn't have a shirt on or shoes--he had 3 strikes against him! On the upside though, we ended last night with a playdate with his buddy Rudy! Rudy and his mommy joined Frankie and I for a walk at Cole Field. The amount of dogs there was incredible and he played so well with all! He did get a little scared so he was picked up and carried around like he was a baby until he was ready to get back in the fold of things. I should say that my favorite though was when he met the great dane! The dane had about 110 pounds on Frankie but was so cute trying to play with him. Kinda reminds me of that old Walt Disney movie The Ugly Dachshund.

Frankie has won over the hearts of many, but one is still not a fan! My Nana's dog Abbie!!! Abbie is use to be the one getting all of my attention so there is a little bit of jealousy on her part! A few weeks ago when I had Frankie for the first time he went to Nana's with me for Sunday lunch. Frankie and Abbie did play, but she made sure that he know who the boss was.