Ingenuity Saves The Day

We had 2 casualties during our Thanksgiving meal preparation. Our oven took a dump. Last night when the kids made refrigerator biscuits it took almost an hour. I thought maybe they were playing, but when I put Anastasia's tray of stuffing in the oven and she checked on it 45 minutes later the oven shelves weren't even hot. (The oven was set to 375 degrees and we later raised it to 450. Still not hot and the burner was lit.) Anastasia didn't think anything of it when she took out the pumpkin pie and it wasn't set yet, she thought we'd pop it back in after the stuffing.

How did I save the day? My gas grill! It has a thermometer on the hood so I was able to get some temperature control. (More than the damn oven!) So when it got up to temperature I popped in the tray of stuffing and the green bean casserole. Later I swapped out the casserole and popped in the pumpkin pie to finish. When we took the pie out the pyrex dish cracked. (2nd casualty.)

Thank goodness the gas grill Anastasia got me for Christmas 2 years ago had a thermometer on the hood. And thank goodness for my Nesco Roaster that I had the turkey in.

Everything was delish! Hope you all are having a great Thanksgiving.

We skipped going to Anastasia's Mom's house. Don't ask how we got out of it, I don't even know. Anastasia thought she was going to have to do her sitting gig tonight and was looking forward to the usual triple holiday pay, but the client's daughter told her to spend Thanksgiving with her family. Arghhh! We were looking forward to that bit of extra money, now we will be short because she didn't work today.

I didn't even run to get a holiday paper for the ads. I figured the less I know about what I'm potentially missing the better. Lol! I've decided Friday will be craft day instead of crazy Black Friday. Our daughter is looking forward to it. (Our son is with his dad.)

Lola's Diner
©2008-2009

Grocery Shopping Crazies

Why do all the crazies come out to shop for their entire Thanksgiving meal the Tuesday before the holiday?

I had less than 10 items on my list. I knew exactly where everything was, except for the Durkee Fried Onions. There were people standing in the spice aisle like a deer in headlights. I have no idea what spice they were looking for...maybe they didn't either, but there were about 6 people blocking the spice aisle just standing there looking up all all duh-like. Maybe they were looking for help from above?

I saw people with large frozen turkeys. Just how do they think they're going to manage to defrost those suckers this late in the game?

One woman was in a daze in the dairy section blocking the entire selection of creamer products. Finally she got a clue and asked if she needed me to move. I said 'yes please, I need half and half'. She moved her cart directly in front of the half and half, so I had to repeat myself. Finally she moved.

Heaven help anyone who has to pick up a few things at the grocery store on Wednesday. I'm sure it's going to be much worse. The hard core procrastinators will be shopping.

Lola's Diner
©2008-2009

Random Tuesday Thoughts

How's everyone's plans for Thanksgiving going? Anastasia made room for our 16 pound Turkey tonight, so I still may be doing the water bath thaw method (frantically) on Wednesday. We are currently having a bit of an issue with the stuffing. I have made my mother's stuffing for the last 25 Thanksgivings. It's (ahem!) a tradition. It's your basic stuffing (bag of stuffing; celery, onion, gizzard, liver, heart finely diced; chicken or turkey broth.) It's delicious. No funky business, no fruit, no meat that didn't come from the turkey. I used to add diced roasted chestnuts, but Anastasia doesn't like them. This year Anastasia wants to make her Mom's stuffing recipe. Let's just point out that Sunday night Anastasia told me that her favorite comfort food that her Mom made was to brown a pound or 2 of ground beef and add it to a jumbo can of Chef Boyardee Spaghetti. Not exactly my Mom's Bracciole. Anyway, Anastasia wants to do the stuffing with pork sausage and use toasted bread instead of store bought stuffing cubes.

As I type this in the early am on Tuesday we still don't have a definitive pick up time for our son. The ex is going to leave him hanging...till the last minute no doubt.

I just heard one of our kids talking about the wedding to one of their friends tonight on the phone. "My dad is re-marrying. The wedding is in 2011." So if the wedding is not next year, why is he even saying anything now to our daughter? This means she has almost 2 years to ruminate about this. Damn this pisses me off!

Our daughter is making progress at bowling. She's pretty much a newbie at it, but definitely willing to learn. Saturday we met one of her teammates at the bowling alley and she bowled a game with the girl's family. Nice people. I remembered them from the golf banquet.

Our daughter's coach told her she was going to get her a ball last week. I told our daughter that hopefully she meant ball and bag 'because otherwise you'll have to carry the ball loose'. Right away our daughter said, 'oh no, I can't do that because my school would deem it a weapon.' I was only joking. It was pretty funny though. I found out today a bag was included.

Anastasia played Clark W. Griswold on Saturday. She took the lights off the huge spruce in our front yard and reversed them. (Shhhh! Don't let her know I told you all. She put the lights on last year with the male end of the cord at the top of the tree, therefore, we couldn't light the lights. If you've ever tried to put lights on a 16 foot (or larger, I'm guessing here) tree, it is a real pita.) I picked up one of these babies from Ace Hardware:

It's a telescoping pole that extends 11 feet. Last year her and our son were out there for several hours with a ladder and a lot of swear words. This year she got the job done in under an hour. Well, she didn't exactly play Clark W. Griswold. She just did the tree, put some lighted garland on the porch and a lighted wreath on the door. We worked with what we have since there's no money in the budget to add on new decorations this year. Still, it will be nice to have that big tree lit this year.

Both Anastasia and I are pretty depressed about the holidays. We worked the numbers last night and it's pretty grim. I did manage to order a gift card using reward points I earned with my debit card. That would be awesome if the card came by Wednesday, but I'm doubtful. I'm keeping my fingers crossed though since Black Friday is usually the best deals and that gift card will go further.

I've taken at peek at the Black Friday ads and there really don't seem to be any 'must haves', so I don't really feel like I'll be missing out on anything. That makes me feel a little but better. Lol!

Lola's Diner
©2008-2009

Check out my guest post

Be sure to check out my guest post @ Good Mourning Glory.

It's part of Diane's Coexist Celebration Of Peace.

Lola's Diner
©2008-2009