Happy Thanksgiving!

It's finally here, and I'm glad. It's nice to have a little break from the monotony of everyday life and spend some time with family. That's what I love about the holidays. I got an early start yesterday because we were let out of work at noon. My boss held me a little longer because he heard I was in desperate need of guidance on how to cook a Thanksgiving dinner, so he spent an extra half hour giving me tips and printing things out from Cooks Illustrated. Everything he gave me is going to be really helpful, so I was really grateful for that.

Then I needed to rush off because I promised my grandmother I would take her out for lunch (which really ended up being the other way around since she never lets me pay). We went to Perkins, and it was slower than I'd ever seen it there my whole life. It was kind of nice for a change.

Today we're heading out to my parents' house for dinner around noon. It will be the first Thanksgiving I've had at their house in a while because we're usually at my grandmother's. This means I need to get off my butt and start cooking what I'm bringing over. Boy, this is going to be a busy weekend...

So what are all of you doing today? Since we're supposed to get snow today, I loathe all of you in warmer climates.

The Ball's In Your Court

Ever do something wrong and feel like a sincere apology does absolutely nothing? That's how I've been feeling the past week, and I'm one of those people that likes to have everything running smoothly, so until I'm assured of that, this is going to be bugging me for a while.

Thanksgiving 911

Thanksgiving is coming up in less than a week, and I'm a little nervous. Next Saturday I'm planning a dinner, and Ron and his wife, Monica, get to be my guinea pigs, so to speak. I've never undertaken anything like this before, so it should be interesting. I'm a little stressed out about it, but I'm excited to be trying something new. I figure, one day we're going to end up being the ones fixing holiday dinners and having company over, so I may as well start perfecting it now.

We got a 15-pound turkey, so I'm thinking we either need to have a couple more people over or we're going to have way too many leftovers. I want to stuff it, but I haven't a clue how much stuffing I need. One of the sites I was on said I needed 6-8 cups of stuffing for that size turkey. That seems like an awful-lot of stuffing. Maybe I'm wrong, but I can only clean out about 4-5 ounces of stuffing at a time if that's all I'm eating.

I've decided to enlist the help of my parents, so I'm not going into this completely blind. I asked my dad if he could type up a recipe for me, and he's going to give it to me on Thursday, but I think there are some things I need to get cleared up this weekend. For one, I have no clue how exactly he boils the giblets (if it's in water or in some type of stock) and how long because I love those [Cue the "ewww"'s.]. If it's in a stock, then I'm going to need to get something before Black Friday. I grabbed up those turkey-sized roaster bags, so it should only take about 3 hours to cook that turkey. Thankfully, they have some instructions on the inside but no indication to how to cook it with stuffing inside. This is sad: Anyone have a clue?

Any outside help I can get, as well, would be appreciated because, as you can see, I'm completely clueless.

Blogger Meetup

I know this is kind of late notice, but our monthly blogger meetup is tonight at BrewErie at 7:00. Come and socialize with all of us! We're nice and don't bite...too hard.

Proof Google Works!

I was logging into my MySpace when I noticed my supposed sponsored links. Typically, these are supposed to be tailored to you based on your searches and websites you look at, right? These are my links [Please note the first two from the left.].

Boy, Google, you've got me down to a 'T'.

No Customers But An Abundance Of Idiots

I may not have any complaints about customers anymore since I'm not in retail, but I'll never run out of content. Why? Because there are plenty of stupid people left out there that I encounter on a daily basis just while driving to work. In fact, I almost got into two accidents this week alone that weren't my fault in any way.

The first happened on Tuesday when we got our first bout of snow for the season. Usually, people drive either too fast or too slow. I would rather the latter, but it doesn't always turn out that way. I was driving down Peach Street on my way back to work after my lunch break. The roads weren't too horrible at that time although it was still snowing/hailing, so it's smart to be a little cautious. I was driving about 7-8 miles above the speed limit, but the person behind me thought I was going too slow, apparently, because they were attached to my rear end for blocks. Once we hit 26th Street, he moved into the right lane while I stayed in the left. The entire way down, he kept switching lanes and wasn't making any headway because we were still pretty much side-by-side the entire time. It was ticking me off to watch it too since he was within inches of everyone's bumpers every time.

When we were between 7th and 8th Streets, I noticed a car to the right with its four-ways on, so to accommodate the people in the right lane, I moved to my left slightly. This guy apparently thought that was his cue to push me further to the left because he kept moving closer and closer to my car until I was pushed to the side of the road while he took over the left lane. I held my horn down, thinking, What in the hell are you doing? I wasn't in his blind spot. I was right next to him. How could he miss me? I'm just glad I noticed because he strikes me as a hit and run kind of driver. After that, he took off at the speed of light--narrowly missing out on a rear-end collision with the car in front of him and the car to the right by swerving to (and shooting into) the right lane. Wanna slow down, dipwad? If not for your own sake (since the municipal building is right there), at least for everyone else's safety.

Idiot #2 came around this morning on my way to work. Again, I was driving down Peach Street [What is it with this area?], and I was nearing on 20th or 21st when a car sitting at the stop sign decided to go ahead and cross the intersection while I was right on top of it. I immediately slammed on my brakes and burned rubber as I slid across the road. When I finally stopped, I was only a few inches from her driver's side door. I did what anyone would do in that situation and honked my horn. She looked over at me with a blank expression and looked away as she drove off. It didn't scare you that I almost took you out with my car? It's not like it's that hard to cross that part of Peach Street. It's one-way at that point. You don't even have to look both directions before you cross. That's one less step! That should make it easier to avoid a collision...right? You would think...

The funny part about this is I had a dream last night that I crashed into someone while driving to work. Eek.

Nice Timing

It just figures that our first snowfall of the year would happen right on election day--which in itself will cause a traffic jam on my way to work. Still, it brings a slight smile to my face.

It's November Nostalgia Time

I'm so glad it's November [You didn't really think I'd write my next blog without saying that, did you?]! It gives me that relaxing feeling because I know the holidays are coming up. I get very nostalgic, and it's the most comfortable time of year for me (aside from being freezing cold half the time). I look forward to spending time with my family, putting up the Christmas tree with my husband, and all the other typical things that come with this season.

I'm also happy that this will be my first Christmas season outside of retail since I was in high school. I've never gotten to experience that normalcy, so I'm really looking forward to it. Those of you who have worked in retail during the holidays know how stressful that is. If you haven't, then you don't have any clue what true hell is.

Normally, my family goes over to my grandmother's for Thanksgiving/Christmas/Easter, but she's going to be having knee surgery in a couple weeks, so we'll be having to go somewhere else. Hopefully, my parents are still planning on doing something for Thanksgiving, so we'll most likely head over there. However, I still want to attempt something I've never done before: fix a Thanksgiving dinner. I'm trying to get better about doing general "wife stuff" by cooking/cleaning more. I've got the cleaning handled, but the cooking needs some work. I think I need to start getting this little bit down because eventually we'll be the ones having people over for Thanksgiving, and if I don't have this mastered by that time, I'll be in trouble. Wish me luck on that one.

What I'm most looking forward to is setting up the Christmas tree again. It had been so long since I'd seen it up before I'd gotten married. Last year was our first year with our own tree (courtesy of my parents donating their old one to us). Growing up we celebrated Christmas and Channukah until I was about 10, and then it was narrowed down to solely the latter. It was hard to adjust to when every other kid in school celebrated Christmas, and they had no interest in or respect for other religious holidays. To them, my sister and I were outcasts. There's no such thing as an open-minded 10-year-old in regards to religious tolerance. For quite a while I resented Judaism as a whole, but as I've grown and matured, I've gotten over that. Even though I don't personally follow it, I have a respect for it that I never had as a young child/teenager.

When my husband and I put up the tree last year, every time I looked at, I was reminded of all the times I would come home from school and turn the Christmas lights on and pop in a Christmas cassette to complete the mood; the numerous times I'd watch A Christmas Story the weeks leading up to the day (and I still do); and--most vividly--all the Christmas Eve nights my sister and I would be awake for in anticipation of the morning. We shared a room at the time, and we would try to find ways to sneak downstairs to see what Santa had brought us.
I recall one year getting caught by our parents twice (the creaky floors gave us away), so my dad shut the door at the top of the stairs and put an end table in front of it. It was about 3:00 in the morning, and our parents didn't get up until after 9:00, so for two, anxious kids that was an incredibly long wait.

It's memories like that that really make me happy when Christmas time does come around. Even though it's only the beginning of November, I still feel "in the spirit," if you will. Maybe I'm strange, but I'm starting to get into the mood of watching Christmas movies and listening to Christmas music. Even though I don't want the snow to come, on some strange level I do enjoy it for the last two months of the year. It adds a nice touch. We're starting to light the apple cinnamon candles and get out the fleece blankets in preparation.

It's almost time, and I'm excited. Is that strange?
That may be, but getting an extra hour of sleep this weekend is definitely not.