Thanksgiving day recap:

Served a 12-pound turkey, green bean casserole, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, cloverleaf dinner rolls (burnt), roasted carrots, lettuce salad, cranberry-pineapple relish (YUM!) a cherry crumb pie, and a pumpkin pie.

The turkey was nicely browned and crisp and over 180 degrees when I tested it with a meat thermometer but when Russ started carving, all the juices came out pink! I had a little flailing freakout and begged everyone not to eat the turkey or surely they would all perish. But both the dark and white meat were well-cooked and (so I was told) tasted delicious. I declined the turkey because I hate turkey and get nauseous every time I eat it. Everyone else spent a lot of time poking their forks at the various slices of turkey and saying, "Well, it looks okay! I'm sure it's fine." I'll feel a lot better in about 12 hours when I'm certain that no one has developed food poisoning.

My parents shared the day with us. My mom had all of her tests yesterday and no results are in yet, but her physician started her on a different medication which he feels will be helpful with her symptoms. It's a bit sedating, so she spent the first part of the Thanksgiving meal kind of blissed out and loopy. She snarfed most of the roasted carrots and I wished I had more for her because she hasn't been able to eat much of anything lately and it was great to watch her enjoy herself. After the meal we all piled on the couch and watched part of Home Alone until it was time to eat pie.

I've always hated pumpkin pie. I've never been able to eat more than one or two bites of the slimy, spicy goo without shuddering. Zack shares my hatred. But today we are pumpkin pie converts. I used homemade pie crust and tweaked the filling recipe a little and the pie was creamy and mild and Russ was very disappointed because he used to have a pumpkin pie all to himself. Now he has to share.

This is my favorite part of Thanksgiving. It's evening. We shared a peaceful meal with people we love. The dishes are washed and put away. Russ is relaxing on the couch watching ESPN. Zack is curled up in bed reading. We have enough leftovers to carry us through the weekend. We're all comfortable and cozy and looking forward to a long weekend together. I'm such a lucky woman.

Hope everyone who celebrated had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

It's been a long time since I last updated, and I'm very sorry for not responding to the people who last commented. Life has been pretty crazy this last month with work, attempting to take part in "extracurricular activities", and every spare moment spent on writing. But finally, I've hit a very short lull before my last bout of essay marking. It came very suddenly, but has been well-spent. :P

( what I've been up to lately) )

Checked my email tonight and found a notice that Alopex left a comment on my profile at HPFF. I went there and found that my story 'A Stocking for Dobby' had been featured for discussion on a podcast. I was finally able to download it and LovlyRita and SpringTime discussed my story and two others (one of which was 'Fragments' by Joanne K, which is a short story collection of hers. Most of the stories in it were written for the Last Drabble Writer Standing Challenge at eHPF that reallyginnyf presented. One of the stories in it was written for a weekly drabble prompt that I had posted at eHPF, so I actually felt like I had two stories featured :) ). I was hoping that someone was actually going to read the story on the podcast, but it was just discussion. It would be cool to hear someone read one of my stories aloud.

I did some checking and Alopex had nominated my story for inclusion in this. After she read my story for Staff Challenge 2, she read and reviewed almost every chapter I have on HPFF. She leaves detailed reviews full of CC, good and bad. It's nice to have someone like that, especially since I'm a bit of a niche author there and don't get tons of reviews. Because of what I write, I'll probably never be one of the most popular authors there, but I don't write for popularity. I write to tell the story in my head.