The Thanksgiving We’ll NEVER Forget!

It was 1997 and hubby and I were living in Dallas. We were getting married a month later. I was in college and you know how broke college kids are. No one could afford a trip home for Thanksgiving and Christmas, so most of my classmates saved the money for the big one. we invited a couple of our friends over for Thanksgiving. Joey and Charlanne were dating and both in my class. We all had a good time together, so it was kind of a no-brainer to celebrate Thanksgiving with them.

They came the night before and spent the night in our guest room. Joey brought his smoker and we were going to have smoked turkey. YUM! He set up the smoker at the bottom of our stairs  on the pavement with the plan that he’d get up in the AM and tend to it. Unbeknownst to us, the sprinklers came on in the night and put out the coals. Rather than waking to a delicious smoked turkey, it was a half-cooked, food poisoning invitation! Oh well, at least we have a ham too.

And yes, it does go on from there. I’ll give a little background here first. I do not and never have liked sweet potatoes. I don’t know if it’s texture, taste or both, but i’ve never been a fan. But for Joey, they are a Thanksgiving must have, so he made some. He put four of the biggest sweet potatoes I’ve ever laid eyes on, in a foil loaf pan, along with maple syrup and marshmallows and put it in the oven.

Did you know those foil loaf pans arent’ made to hold 5lbs of stuff? Yeah, they’re really not. when I took it out of the oven, the sides buckled and turned into spouts, spewing hot sticky goo everywhere! thankfully I had on jeans, otherwise I think I probably would’ve gotten 2nd degree burns on my legs. I dashed to the shower and hosed myself off, jeans and all. Remember what I wrote about sweet potatoes? Yep, that ‘incident’ cemented my dislike for them.

Even for all of the misfires, we had a great time with Charlanne and Joey. A year later when we were moving out of that apartment, I was still finding sticky spots under the cabinet doors (sticky goo really splatters!).  And it has given us years of good laughs, as well.

I hope your Thanksgiving doesn’t involve any food problems like ours did. I hope you enjoy your family time together and you are able to take the time to give thanks for the good things in your life.

No New Year’s resolutions for me, I’m trying to cut down.

Ha ha! I know, I know. Every time I make a resolution, it’s gone out the window two weeks in. One of  my friends made a comment on her facebook page that she could resolve to do anything at any time and New Year’s shouldnt’ be the only time she did it, so she was resolving not to make any resolutions. Hmm. Ok. I get it.

Here’s what I came up with a couple of years ago. Rather than making resolutions, I made promises to myself, things I wanted to do better in the new year, or change even. So, in keeping with that, I’ll make my promises now and we’ll see how far I can get with them. Feel free to join me!

I promise to….

be better organized and get my bills paid on time. I really hate getting those nasty notices in the mail.

finally finish that book on parenting so i can be the best mom I can be for my kids. It’s a really great book and will help me not only be a better mom, but eliminate a lot of the stress and yelling that always seems to happen around here.

post all of the recipes I’ve been talking about for so long. And the photos of my gorgeous new kitchen. Really, I do!

get back into my regular exercise routine and stick to it. I have no excuses. On the other hand, I will not berate myself when I eat a piece of cheesecake, but rather get on the elliptical and ‘pay’ for it.

find a better way to de-stress myself than just spinning like a top, that really doesn’t do me any good, and I don’t want to kick my dog. Any suggestions?

Be the best me that I can be. I am not perfect, nor do I believe in the ‘perfect’ anything-mom, wife, friend, sister, etc. which is a good thing, b/c I am far from it, but I will do my best to be the best person I am able to be.

FINISH MY *&%$@ NOVEL! I have almost half of a chick-lit novel finished and languishing on my hard drive. My friends who’ve read it like it and want me to finish it. I would love nothing more than to get published. So, I will set a schedule and stick to it so that I can finally get Eliza’s story completed.

So, now you know my New Year’s promises to myself, what about you? Any resolutions? Promises? What are you going to do differently in the new year? Spill!

The deadly (to my jeans) siren song

You know, the holidays are hard on us. Everywhere we turn there are baked confections of every sort, flavor and color. Delicious dips, snacks and treats. It’s very hard to control one’s self, even just having one of a few things can completely blow anyone’s diet, or figure, out of the water.

Alas, having just returned from a wild and crazy road trip on which I indulged in probably way more than I should have, I ‘attempted’ to put on a favorite pair of jeans, only to find I could barely breathe and nearly had to lay down to get the zipper up. *GASP* At which point i went into that whole panic-stricken-throw-up-how-did-I-do-that? mode and determined to lose the offending 5 lbs in the next week by not eating anything, save for hot tea and apples.  Ok, well, maybe not quite that drastic, but I’m going to definitely do better, eat better and get back into my exercise routine. I have to.

My kids are out of school today. Why? The gods of school calendars decided today would be a good teacher work day, since it’s been a whole week since we came back from Christmas break and everyone is getting tired.   Today is also my son’s best friend’s birthday. He’s double digits today. He’s a good kid, I like him a lot and since we are out of school and it’s his birthday, I said, let’s have a sleepover. Well, not me, but the boys could have a sleepover. Just to be fun, and because my kids have been begging me, we went to Krispy Kreme this morning. Oh the sugar-coated, warm and fluffy goodness is just too much! We walked in and had to watch the donuts going thru the grease and then through the bath of frosting.  MMMMM

Then, when I couldn’t stand it any longer, we got our donuts. Hot and fresh. The best way to have Krispy Kremes. Oh, I was in heaven for that whole two seconds it took for me to devour one little ring of sweetly flavored empty calories. Before I knew it, I was only holding a piece of paper. How did that happen? It was gone and I don’t think I even chewed! Oh, I must have one more. I’d resigned myself to having only one. But it was gone so quickly, I couldn’t resist having another. Just one more. That’s it. I ate my second and there were still more in the box. Beckoning me. Seducing me with their luscious, warm, fluffy goodness. Like a siren calling the sailor to his death, they were calling me to the death of my single-digit jean sizes. I was strong. I resisted their lure and I am proud of myself. I survived and will make up the caving of my willpower to the second donut on my elliptical.

Oh, but only if they were not so delicious, it would be much easier to ignore the magnetic pull. This is the reason we keep driving past every time we see it. I will now break my arm patting myself on the back for this feat of willpower.

Can I please just have a few more?

Hours in the day, that is.  Hours that don’t involve work, laundry, chasing my children? Hours that I can use to relax, read a good book, chat with my husband?

Today is my last day of freedom, my children’s last day of school before our two week Christmas break. So far on my list: wrapping gifts, grocery shopping, exercising, hmm, it seems like I”m missing something, but isnt’ that enough already? Oh, and I have to be at their school by 2:30 to help with my son’s Christmas party.

I am looking forward to having some fun time to spend with my children, I just hope they can find other things to do besides fight with each other, tattle, bug me, or drive me insane! Here’s hoping our weather is decent enough I can throw them in the back yard to play every now and again!

Wish me luck!