KirstenL4W

I did it!  Thirty days in a row with a new post every day.  Yay me!

I have to say, I am wiped from the effort.  It’s tiring to think of something to write every single day, just for the sake of posting something that has a bit of meaning to it.   I don’t think I’ll be doing this again next year.  What I am going to do, however, is this - Blogging Without Obligation.  I actually came across this a few years ago, and I think I had the badge on my old digs over at Blogspot, but I never carried it over to the new place.  Now I am.  For those who don’t want to click over, here’s the hows and whys of BWO:

• Because you shouldn’t have to look at your blog like it is a treadmill
• Because it is okay to just say what you have to say.  If that makes for a long post, fine.  Short post, fine.  Frequent post, fine.  Infrequent post, fine.
• Because it is okay to not always be enthralled with the sound of your own typing
• Because sometimes less is more
• Because only blogging when you truly feel inspired keeps up the integrity of your blog
• Because they are probably not going to inscribe your stat, link, and comment numbers on your tombstone
• Because for most of us blogging is just a hobby.  A way to express yourself and connect with others.  You should not have to apologize for lapses in posts.  Just take a step back and enjoy life; not everything you do has to be “bloggable.”
• Because if you blog without obligation you will keep your blog around longer, because it won’t be a chore.  Plus, you will be doing your part to eradicate post pollution.  One post at a time…

Don’t think you’ll never hear from me again.  That’s not what this is about.  This is about blogging on my own schedule, whatever I decide it may be, however regular or irregular it may be.  That was the hardest thing about NaBloPoMo - trying to fit in a blog post every single day.  While I know that I can publish posts to come out at a future date, I rarely do that.  I generally like my stuff to come out every day.  Also, I never keep stuff in draft, because if I don’t put out a post right away, I will look it over and see that it sucks or is just really an incoherent thought.  So I don’t use those features because they don’t work for me.  So if I don’t get to it, I don’t get to it.

On the other hand, participating in NaBloPoMo did get me thinking about my blog a lot more, and reminded me that there’s a lot more out there that I can blog about.  I don’t need every post to be perfect.  I was getting too hard on myself as far as what quality I would accept for posts I would publish, and I needed to stop doing that.  NaBloPoMo helped, and on that end I do hope I will post more frequently.

So that’s it.  I finished NaBloPoMo.  And now I will be Blogging Without Obligation.

I know that there are some who get all excited at the prospect of hitting the stores at 4am on Black Friday for all the deals.  I’m not one of them.  I value my hard-earned money and want to get good deals, but I value my precious sleep even more.  So Friday, Mister and I only ran out for a few errands that were nowhere near the mall and came home to relax.  I will admit that there is something exciting about hitting the stores at the height of the holiday season, though, so today I ventured out.  I slept late, of course, and took my time getting ready, and didn’t leave the house until noon.  I had to compose my thoughts and make a bit of a list.

Traffic wasn’t too bad going to the mall, and I found a parking space fairly easily in my favorite parking section of the mall.  I had already heard that the crowds were a bit thinner than in years past, so that gave me hope.  When I got in the mall, more like a typical Saturday than a major shopping weekend.  I wandered the mall, bought a few things, ate lunch, and headed out to a few stores across the street from the mall, including the insane asylum known as Toys R Us.  But I was able to find all the things I was looking for, even the hard to shop for people, and I’m fairly sure that the recipients will be happy with their gifts.  I still have a few more things to get, but will be doing that shopping online since the stores and/or items cannot be found locally in a bricks and mortar store.

Oh, were you hoping I would be telling you all what I got everyone?  Not a chance - not this early.  Too many people I know IRL read this blog, so just like them, you are going to have to wait.  I’d love to gush, but I don’t want to spoil the surprise.

Did any of you venture out to the stores this weekend?  Did you find it as crowded as in years past?

So yesterday I cooked my very first Thanksgiving dinner.  In the days leading up to it, I was getting a bit nervous.  I’d never done such a big important dinner before, but I’d seen it done dozens of times.  It always looks so easy when I was over my mom’s or my grandparents homes for the holidays, so I was sure that there was going to be some big thing I was going to mess up.  I’d never even cooked a whole turkey before, not even a roaster chicken.  Then there’s just the sheer quantity of food, and trying to coordinate it on 4 burners in a small kitchen to all be done at the same time.  It can seem impossible when you start to think about everything that goes into it.

Before we even get started, I did get my Bell’s Seasoning.  My mom sent it express mail, so it was here on Tuesday except the postman didn’t leave me a note.   Wednesday when I got home from work I still didn’t have it, so I called my mom and she gave me a tracking number.  It said a delivery attempt was made and a notice left.  I never got a notice, not in my mailbox, front door, in my yard, anywhere.  I printed out the tracking info from the computer and went to the post office, where they did in fact have my package.  Hooray!  Now I can make my stuffing properly.

I woke up with much reluctance around 7:30am.  I really wanted to sleep in, but I knew I had too much to do.  I went downstairs, had my juice and sat down for a few minutes to finish waking up, found the parade on tv, and started.  First I baked cinammon rolls (from the can!) for breakfast, because it’s kind of a tradition - my mom does this quite often on holidays.  Then I made cheezy puff pastry sticks for appetizers.  Once that was done, I got to work making the stuffing.  As far as I’m concerned, there’s only one way to make stuffing, and it does not come from a package.  The night before, I had ripped up my bread and chopped my onion and celery.  I’m glad I did, because that is very time consuming stuff.  So in the morning, all I had to do was cook the onions, celery, and sausage, chop the apple, and mix it all together.  I got that all mixed up and got the bird out.  This is where I started having a few questions.

My sister told me to make sure I rinsed the bird well, and I knew to take the giblets out, especially since they were in a plastic bag inside the bird.  That would not have tasted very good if I forgot those!  I rinsed the bird, including the cavity, and plopped it in the pan.  My sister will rub plain old butter between the skin and meat to keep things moist and give it a bit of flavor, so I did that before I stuffed the bird.  At my sister’s suggestion, I put about 1/4 inch of chicken water broth that Mister has 3 large cans of in the bottom of the roasting pan, again for moisture and a bit of flavor.  Then I put it in the oven, which was set at 400°F from the cinammon rolls and puff pastry sticks that I had already baked.

An hour later, I took the bird out of the oven - it was a hair under 12lbs - and basted it.  It was then that I realized that the oven was still at 400 and I was supposed to cook it at 325.  I turned the oven down, finished basting, and put it back in.  It still looked fine at that point, so I took a watch and wait attitude.  I took a shower and came back downstairs to start cooking up the side dishes.  When I took the turkey out at hour 2 to baste it, it was looking kind of done, so I called Mister over.  He took the temperature and the bird was done, but when we tested the stuffing, it was a bit cool so I left the cover off the pan and put the turkey back in for another 20 minutes or so.  I continued cooking, and our friends arrived as the last mad dash was done to get food on the table - mashing potatoes, broiling those last few dishes, and of course making gravy - again with chicken water.

I have to admit that I was a bit nervous when we sat down to eat.  This was the big test.  Mister didn’t make any comments when he was carving the turkey, and it looked good, so that was sure to be good.  The stuffing, I knew, was delish because it was my mom’s recipe and it looked just like hers does.  Mister did have to make a comment about the spices in the stuffing seeming a little off.  I knew what he was getting at, because of my minor breakdown over not having Bell’s Seasoning, but he got away with a dirty look.  Amber’s comment on my last post, I think is the best commentary on how my dinner was.  Mister and I have been eating it, and Mister wants to make his favorite turkey leftover dish of turkey enchiladas.  That’s one of those California things, I think.  I was all set to make soup from the turkey carcas, but Mister reminded me that I don’t know how and will I really eat turkey soup?  No, and probably not.

For dessert, Mister made a pumpkin trifle, and Amber brought a chocolate tart and some pink champagne that she mixed with pomegranate juice.  It was all devine.  I’m glad we didn’t have a huge spread of desserts though.  I can control myself through the turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes, but I lose all control with dessert because I have to try it all.  We had 2 kinds of desserts, so I had 2 desserts.  If we had 10 different pies, I would have had to have 10 pieces of pie.  Dessert is where I stuff myself silly on Thanksgiving, so the amount we had was just right.

Also just right were the amount of people I was cooking for on my first Thanksgiving as hostess.  Mister and I are both away from our families here in Vegas, as were our friends that came over, but we enjoy their company no matter what day of the year it is, so it was a very nice day all around.  I hope all of you had as good a Thanksgiving as I did.

I survived cooking and hosting my first Thanksgiving dinner - and so did everyone else.  I’ll give you details tomorrow.  I’m exhausted.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Yesterday’s post gave me a great idea for today’s post.  This isn’t a story so much, but a series of small anecdotes that have to do with a dog and fireworks.

Growing up, we had two dogs at home.  One was a German Shepherd - a very smart, intuitive, scary looking but very gentle dog named Bambi.  She’s the dog that a lot of people remember very fondly.  The other dog was a mutt, a mix of a lot of who knows what - large breeds, mostly, because he was a pretty big dog.  Not the brightest creature, though his lack of intelligence was the source of much amusement for our family and friends.  His name was Rascal.

Rascal, as we discovered, liked loud stuff.  Our vacuum cleaner was greeted with tail-chasing and happy barking, and was subjected to lots of playful biting and duct tape surgery.  Shaking out a new garbage bag to open it up before putting it in the trash can brought the same reaction from Rascal.  The thing that excited him the most, though, was the Fourth of July.

In the States, we celebrate our Independence Day by blowing shit up.  We purchase specially made explosive devices and detonate these in the air to elicit ooohs and aaahs from the people around us.  Rascal loved this - it was his favorite part.  He’d spend the day getting ready for The Great Fireworks Chase by stalking the grill, waiting for choice pieces of meat to find their way to the ground so that he could fuel up for his big night.  He’d also go cool off by the pool, because it was really exciting when people would jump off the diving board and make a big splash.  The most exciting part of the day was after dark, which was the best time to see the fireworks.

My dad and his friends figured out early on that Rascal loved bottle rockets, because he’d jump up in the air after them.  He’d hover dangerously close to the bottle, waiting for the rocket to take off, so someone decided that instead of shooting the rocket straight up, they’d shoot it straight across the yard (the typical bottle rocket will travel maybe 100-300 feet, and my dad’s yard is much, much bigger than this).  Rascal loved the bottle rockets going across the yard, because he could chase them much better than he could jump up after them.  That dog sure got his exercise.

I don’t know what breeds Rascal had in him, but one of them must have been a fast one, because Rascal caught one once.  Oh yeah.  He caught a freaking bottle rocket.  In his mouth.  It blew up in his mouth.  He came running back to the launch area, panting with excitement, smoke pouring out of his mouth, and he was just waiting for the next one to be set off.  He was a bit annoyed at us trying to hose him down.

Another type of firework that Rascal liked was Jumping Jacks.  These are firecrackers, but they spin and take off a bit before exploding.  One thing I should mention - Rascal was a longer-haired dog, with really thick fur on his chest.  He went running after the Jumping Jacks, and one of them got caught on the thick fur on his chest.  A small flame erupted as it exploded, so Dad grabbed the hose to put the fire out.  Rascal was having fun, and this time started barking, biting at the water and chasing his tail.

I want to stress that Rascal never seemed to get any injuries that required any sort of aftercare - other than exhaling smoke and a bit of burnt fur, he was fine.  He was always ready for another go, always having fun.  We never deliberately let him catch any, either, because we didn’t want to cause him harm on purpose.  Keeping him in the house or on a leash would have done more harm to him - he would have hurt himself pretty bad trying to get free to experience the excitement, so we just let him run.  The best thing was to just let him be, and he was happy.  A happy dog, as dumb as he could be, was a great dog to have.

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can….   I’m getting towards the end of NaBloPoMo, I’m still in the running, but I’m running out of ideas of things to blog about on a daily basis.  But my friend Robin gave me a few suggestions, so let’s try that, shall we?

1. Why do they have Christmas decorations and Holiday music playing in department stores before Halloween even got here? 2. Small dogs or big dogs, which are better? 3. Three things no one knows about me. 4. My fondest childhood memory.

Ok, #1.  Do you really think I have any insight into the hows and whys of retail marketing other than to make money?  I used to work retail myself, but as a minion, not a decision-maker.  While I get excited at all the decorations and how the stores go all out for the holidays, I also take serious issue with the rush.  I mean, we have 3 holidays at the end of the year that are pretty big in retail circles.  Halloween means you need to buy a costume, candy, and other ghoulish stuff.  Thanksgiving is a huge day for supermarket.  And I don’t even need to mention how much retailers love Christmas.  But why do we have to rush them?  Why can’t we enjoy these things one at a time?  It’s no wonder people feel rushed these days.  The women’s magazines give you the whole holiday planning schedule - basically, they schedule out your entire fall and winter season for you, starting in August.  Great.  Now we feel like if we don’t follow their suggestions, we’ll never get it all done.  Just… whatever.  Just have fun.  Holidays are for enjoying.  And the Christmas season officially begins the day after Thanksgiving.  So there.

#2.  Small yippee dogs suck.  They’re too needy, and my mom’s cat can beat up your teacup chihuahua.  The German Shepherd we had when I was a kid, on the other hand, was a great dog - very smart and intuitive.  Her bark meant something, whereas a smally yippee dog is just annoying as heck when it barks, because it tends to bark incessantly, like those battery powered toy dogs they used to have in front of the toy store at the mall.

Three things no one knows about me?  Um, well, my husband knows everything about me (as far as I know, but there’s the chance that I myself could be forgetting something).  But I don’t think he would appreciate me telling those kinds of secrets to the great wide interwebs, so you’re out of luck there.

And now for my fondest childhood memory.  It’s hard to pick just one, but the summer that our dog (the previously mentioned German Shepherd) mated with our big stupid mutt that chased fireworks, and puppies were born.  Having lots of puppies to play with when you’re 9 years old is pretty cool.

Ok, I’m out of ideas for now.  Hopefully I can think of some more by tomorrow’s post.

*Idear is the Boston pronunciation of “idea”.  Though we generally drop our R’s, we will add one at the end of word that ends with an “a”.

It’s the last week of NaBloPoMo, and so far it’s looking pretty good for me as far as accomplishing this.  I am finding it increasingly difficult to come up with stuff to blog about on a daily basis, at least when I’m trying to tend to my own life, Mister, the housekeeping, and getting ready for Thanksgiving.  Usually I end up sitting at the computer with just a few hours left in the day, desperately reading blogs and rapidly scanning the internets for inspiration.  It shouldn’t be like that - I believe that especially with a personal blog such as mine, the posts should happen more naturally.  For those of us that blog, we either think about it every day or we don’t.  If you’re in the group that thinks about it every day, then it shouldn’t be too difficult to find something to write about at least once or twice a week.  If you’re in the group that doesn’t think about it every day, or even once in awhile, then why do you blog?  Do you get a lot of personal satisfaction from it?  Even when I’m only putting a few posts out there per month, I enjoy blogging and reading blogs very much.  I think that’s the purpose of blogs.  I don’t think of my blog as something that can pay me, or as a job, or a way to get rich.  It’s a personal blog.  Personal.  What I get out of it isn’t monetary, it isn’t to boost my ego or make me famous.  It’s just because I like to write, and I like seeing something that I created out there for everyone else to see.  That’s all.

So, anyway, now that I really went off on a tangent there, let’s change the subject.  There’s only one month left until Christmas!  Do you have your shopping done?  Are you braving the crowds on Black Friday?  My answers are no and no, respectively.  I’ve done some shopping and have some ideas in my head of what to get people, but I really need to sit down and make a list and get my shopping organized before I hit the mall.  My card list is done, though, so I’ll be sitting down this weekend to make cards.  I’ve always wanted to do that, and this year I’m crazy enough to try.  Yeah, I’m nuts like that.  But it will make me appreciate throwing a few boxes of cards into my basket next year.  There’s a reason for everything, right?

24 down, 6 to go.  I can do this!

Today I went to a different store to find Bell’s Seasoning.  They don’t have it either.  I give up.  My mom will be sending me a box of the coveted spice blend via overnight delivery.  I could keep looking, but she needs to send it out tomorrow to make sure I get it in time, so I’ll just relax on the seasoning and focus on lactose-free whipping cream.  I’m sure I saw it at Whole Paycheck…

I know I should always listen to Mister when he tells me something, because he’s always right.  He doesn’t like a certain local grocery store that starts with an S because, well, I don’t know why.  He just never shops there.  It’s not that close to us anyway, so it’s not a huge deal.  But tonite I went grocery shopping for the Big Dinner, and for tonite’s dinner I thought I’d make macaroni and cheese.  I like to use a 4-cheese blend, and Kraft has just the product - it’s a blend of American, Wisconsin cheddar, Vermont white cheddar, and Monterey Jack, and that with a dash of Dijon mustard makes the absolute best mac and cheese ever.  I’ve been having a hard time finding it for quite some time, though, so I went to their website and it said I could find it at my local S store.  Liars.  They didn’t have it.

Know what else they didn’t have?  Bell’s Seasoning.  How in the heck can a major grocery store not have Bell’s Seasoning this close to Thanksgiving?  I asked a clerk, just in case they were hiding it somewhere, and I was told that they aren’t stocking it this year.  They did have tons of flavor injectors, though.  No thanks, I’ll go to another store for Bell’s.  Flavor injectors are like, so 5 years ago.

Then, as if my shopping experience wasn’t bad enough, I had to get in the wrong line.  I thought I had picked the shortest line.  In fact, I had.  But I think it was short because everyone else had left to go to other lines.  The customer in front of me was apparently still shopping with 1985 prices in mind.  He had a budget and went way, way over, so first the checker had to explain that he was over, then go over the price of some of his items, then wait while he picked through his already packed order and decide what to put back.  Meanwhile, I was joking with the guy in line behind me about the bottle of Jaeger he had that had a security cap on it and how it would be nice if that cap wasn’t there at that point in time.  By the time I left the store my turkey was nearly thawed, or so it seemed.

So the moral of the story is that when Mister has strong feelings against a certain establishment, I should really listen to him.  But I’m just too stubborn sometimes and insist on finding out for myself.

I still have a headache.  It wasn’t totally unbearable, but I’ve had it all day and it has not budged, no matter how much aspirin I took or despite the nap I had when I got home.  Mister thinks it might be related to Aunt Flo, since she arrived today, and that could be a very plausible answer, but I’d need to keep more accurate notes on that before I can make a definite determination.  In any case, I’m going to the doctor on Monday about this and hoping that it goes away before I wake up tomorrow morning so that I can get some stuff done around the house before the holiday.  This headache is really getting on my nerves.