Mashed Potatoes Are For Everyone To Have Enough

Brad and I are not huge fans of the Thanksgiving Day meal. Neither of us really likes turkey and Brad wonders why an entire holiday built around food doesn't consist of a better menu. If turkey was sooo good, why don't we eat it any other time of the year? Don't get us wrong, we love getting together with family, cooking, watching football, playing games, being thankful...we just don't like the meal. I really don't like dressing, either. It doesn't matter if you make from great-grandma's secret family recipe or from a box, it's just soggy bread with vegetables in it. I don't like soggy bread. My family always makes cornbread dressing and it's a labor of love, but it's still soggy cornbread. My sister-in-law is famous for her sourdough-cranberry dressing and everyone in Brad's family raves about it, but I feel it's a waste of really good sourdough bread. The greenbean casserole is full of squeaky, under seasoned green beans and don't get me started on sweet potatoes!

The only dish we truly enjoy is mashed potatoes. I'm making the mashed potatoes this year and I make a mean mashed potato. Seriously. I'm not boasting and I'll be happy to share the secrets with anyone who asks, but my mashed potatoes are really something to write home about. Just ask Phoebe, who's entire Thanksgiving Day meal will consist of mashed potatoes. That girl loves her some mashed potatoes! Sarah, Carrie, and I are also making all the appetizers...my other favorite part of the meal. I think I could survive solely on snacks my entire life and be completely satisfied. I never go anywhere without a good snack. And just in case you were wondering, we are making cranberry salsa (sooo utterly divine that I took the recipe from a friend and made it a part of my own holiday tradition), homemade pico de gallo and chips, sausage balls, and some kind of yummy cheese ball that Sarah is whipping up. Yum. I can't wait.

If asked, Brad would tell you that he would like to have a really good steak and his mom's homemade chile rellenos for Thanksgiving. I'm a little more traditional. I'd love to have a honey-glazed ham...with mashed potatoes, of course, and "Eli's Favorite Green Beans." I make them for him and they are scrumptious. He tells everyone that his mom makes the best green beans so that's how they became known as "Eli's Favorite Green Beans." Everything else is a bit nebulous, but there would also be piping hot, yeast rolls. They don't have to be scratch rolls (Rhodes rolls are fine by me), but they do have to be warm and brushed with butter.

I think I'd better go have breakfast and sweep my floors before I wind up waxing eloquent on all my other favorite foods! Happy (Early) Thanksgiving! I hope it's filled with all your favorite foods.

When Bad Things Happen To Good People

Nobody panic...there aren't too many bad things happening around here. Just two and they aren't life threatening. Well, one of them is not...my mom might kill me over the other one. :)


Phoebe threw up all night. Since I don't hear my children wake up and call for me in the middle of the night (I know, it makes me feel pretty guilty) Brad was actually there for the first three incidents. Then he came downstairs and woke me up for reinforcements. She threw up three more times in the next hour or so and then slept the rest of the night. This morning she seems better. I don't think she feels great, but she did drink a little water and has kept it down. I gave her a bath after Eli left for school and then she was crying, "Ni-Ni! Ni-Ni!" (Night-Night, Night-Night for those of you who might need a translation) so I just put her back in bed. Eli was bummed that I would be missing his pajama day at KU, but I promised him a pillow fight when he gets home and he was okay with it after that. I even let him wear his Spiderman pajamas, Spiderman slippers, and carry his Spiderman pillowcase pillow...in years past, I've made him wear some cute pajamas that he has absolutely no interest in. See, I'm loosening up a little! :)


I have lost the tie that Eli is supposed to wear at my sister's wedding. (This is what my mom is going to kill me over.) I thought it was at my mom's house and she said she sent it with me when I came home last time. She's looked at her house, I've looked at mine and it's nowhere to be found. Now, by nature, I am a pretty careless person. I would probably lose my head if it wasn't attached and because of this I'm pretty uptight about where I put stuff. It's a sanity-saving strategy. It drives me crazy when I can't find stuff so I've become a place-for-everything-and-everything-in-its-place Nazi. I have special spots for keys, phones, money, pens, cameras, shoes, socks, contact cases, mittens, receipts, manuals, phone books, post-it notes, rings, CDs, hammers, nail-clippers...the list could literally go on and on. One of my pet peeves about Brad is that he doesn't have a place for everything. When he come in after work, sometimes he puts his keys in one place and his wallet in another. Another day he'll put them somewhere completely different. It drives me crazy because his stuff doesn't have a "spot." We've gone round and round about this, but I can't imagine it will ever change and really it doesn't bother too much unless he moves something that I need or have a designated place for...like the step stool or the TV remote. But, I digress. Sometimes something important slips through my stuff-radar and I cannot think of where I put it or where it might be because it's not in any of the places that make sense in my head. This tends to happen when I get stressed. You know, like after a move. So I decided to buy another tie. If we find another one, great, if not, we have a backup. Great plan, right? Well, Gymboree has already put it's Christmas dressy line on sale and I can't find the tie. It's not at the Amarillo store and it's not online. I'm waiting until 10am to call four Gymboree's in the Dallas area to track down the red tie with grey polk-dots and if they don't have them, then I'm calling the customer service number on the website. Who knew this tie was so popular? I know there is another tie out there somewhere. I know it will show up in Gymboree outlets stores next year. I just have to find it, purchase it, and then get it mailed ASAP to my mom's house before the wedding or she decides to kill me.


I guess I just needed a few more things on my plate before Thanksgiving! :)

I Threw My "To-Do" List Out The Window

And this is why:


Well, it's not the only reason why my to-do list for today keeps changing. It all started this morning when my alarm went off at 6am. It was waaaayyyy to cold to get out of bed so I just turned it off and got up when Brad's alarm went off at 6:45am. It was still really, really cold, but one just can't stay in bed all day when the weather is frigid no matter how much one wants to! :) Then while I was cleaning up breakfast, the children had a free moment and they started to play with the Little People. How could I interrupt such engaged, cooperative play? So I just sat down with them (camera in hand) and played too. With the move we haven't done that much lately so it felt good. I'm kind of "schedule gal" and we don't deviate too much in the mornings, but today seemed like a good day to let it all go. The laundry and sheet-changing and sweeping and mopping and office-paper-sorting and grocery shopping (the things previously on my list to do) can always be done later, but good play just has to happen when it happens.


Oh, in case anyone is paying attention to things to things like this, they were playing in Phoebe's room. The lighting makes it look a lot more yellow than it really is...it's more of a soft, creamy yellow. And yes, there are still boxes in the corner. It's one room we haven't really focused on.

I'm Finished!

I meant to post a little more often on this trip. Really. I mean it. But you know what the road to hell is paved with and I just didn't get it done.

We've had a pretty good time. I feel an utter sense of completion due to the fact that I have finished all my Christmas shopping! Some of you out there, like Brad, do not understand why this is such a great accomplishment and why it gives me such a feeling of peace. Then there are others, like my mom, who understand are incredibly jealous. Now, let me say that there are three gifts left to buy that can only be bought in Amarillo so I guess I can't say I'm completely finished. But I have ordered my online stuff and I literally only have three more to buy...and I know exactly what and where I am getting them. It's amazing what you can accomplish without your children.

As for the conference, I'm not sure how great it really was, but the Gaylord was beautiful. All their holiday decorations are up and sparkly! Our balcony looked out over the main atrium and the big, giant Christmas tree. We enjoyed some time just sitting out there and watching the people.

But I do miss them and now it's time to go home. We fly out this afternoon and it's none too soon because I miss my babies.

I'm Exhausted!

Literally.

I'm not sure I can think of one more place to put something...and yet I lie awake at night thinking of all the things I still need/want to do. Go figure.

The house is getting there. Most of the rooms are at least 75% unpacked. We still have nothing on the walls, but I am so nervous about making a nail hole! We're just going to wait on that a bit. The office is still a wreck! It seems we need to do a lot of organizing and since it's mostly Brad's stuff, I've been having a tough time getting it done. Clutter and disorganization doesn't drive him crazy the way it drives me crazy. He can sit and enjoy the new fireplace when the everything is "higgeldy-piggeldy askew" (I borrowed that phrase from my sister-in-law, Sarah, who was talking about her Starbucks holder and cup being perfectly aligned...apparently she can't stand it the other way!) while I find myself making labels for the utility room at 11:00 at night or finding a new, better spot for the phone books and directories we seem to accumulate. I think it has something to do with the way we view the "home." It's his retreat and it's my career. I keep telling myself that we will survive...we really will. We might even make it through Christmas! :)

Luckily, we are off to a conference with Brad's work the next few days. I'm so very, very excited. I actually have nothing to do at the conference, so I've decided to get all my Christmas shopping finished. I'll also throw in a trip to The container Store...it'll be heavenly. Brad's mom came to stay with the children so they will have lots of fun being spoiled completely rotten.

At least I'm getting a lot of help from my little "helper-girl." I got a bee in my bonnet about the dust all over the floors and set about to scrubbing the tile and grout in the utility room and pantry. The difference didn't amount to a hill of beans so I might not be doing it again for awhile...or at least until the dust keeps me up at night again.


Okay, that took an extremely long time to upload so no more pictures for tonight.

Next post from the Big-D!

A Few Of My (New) Favorite Things

I know, I know, it's been awhile, but I'm still having to borrow Brad's work laptop to blog and that leaves me very little time to blog. Hopefully the glass that is going on Brad's new office desktop will arrive today and then he will set up my computer to use at home.

I've taken some pictures of my new favorite things around my house.

These are my new bath towels in the master bath. Aren't they lovely? So lovely, in fact, that my sister registered for the same ones at Target! I guess good taste runs in the family. :)


These are my cookbooks all lined up in alphabetical order in my pantry. I cannot describe to you how happy this makes me.


And finally, this is a package of whole wheat bowtie pasta. I have been looking and looking for whole wheat bowtie pasta. We are trying to eat a little healthier here in the McCall household and so we use whole wheat pasta more and more. Bowties are our favorite shape, but I couldn't find them anywhere! It only took a trip to a great big Target in Dallas to find them. That Target...they always come through for me! I was going to buy three for four packages, but they only had two and my mom wanted one so only one package made it back to Amarillo. My mom said she was going to keep checking for me so maybe some more will make the long trek back to the middle of nowhere...or at least the middle of no-whole-wheat-bowtie-pasta.


Happy Tuesday!

We Will Survive

We are back among the land of the bloggers...sort of.

The move last Saturday went very well. We had so many good friends to help us move and it only took about three hours. It's amazing how quickly one's life can be completely turned upside-down. We didn't have any internet until Tuesday and then I was too tired or busy to sit down and think about posting. Things have slowed down a little. There are still boxes everywhere, but my kitchen, closet, and bathroom are mostly unpacked. With those finished, I can function so it doesn't feel quite so crazy. There are still lots of people in and out of the house. Today we've had trim guys putting up towel racks, toilet paper holders, and weather stripping. There are concrete guys outside pouring our front steps, back sidewalks (aka Eli's racetrack), and the driveway. Supposedly the fireplace guy and the sound guy are both going to show up later. I've learned to live with sawdust and drywall dust all over everything. At this point I've just given up. When everyone is finished and gone I'll figure out a way to remove the dust. I'm not sure how yet, but I'll just put my mind to it and come up with something! :)

In the meantime, I've thought of Five Things I Love About My New House:
1. I am much closer to Target. (Brad is really thrilled about this one!)
2. Eli' new bunkbeds.
3. Eli and Phoebe have made a "track" through the kitchen, living room, breakfast nook, and Brad's office. Because the concrete guys don't want them outside because
of all their big, bad equipment, I told them they could ride their scooters, trikes, etc. in the house. That was a big no-no at the other house.
4. Cooking on a gas stove is so much fun! Even when three of your five burners don't work, it's fun to do.
5.

And I've also thought of Five Things I Miss About My Old House:
1. Everything had a place and I knew where it was. I really hate to unpack and there have been a few times when my brain just cannot think of another place to put something. It's like it just turns off!
2. I was only three minutes from church. It was also Eli's pre-school and we were very spoiled.
3. My TV. I know, it's silly, but we don't have our TV's hooked up yet. There is just a time and place for vegging out in front of the TV.
4. It felt like home. This house will get there, but when I stopped by the other house on Monday, it was just empty and sad. That's where I brought my babies home and spent those glorious first years. We just need to make some memories in the new house! :)
5. Trees. The other house was in a lovely old neighborhood with big, old trees (quite a rarity here in West Texas) and fall was the most beautiful time of year. The red and yellow leaves blowing and twisting in the wind. Sigh. Giant tumbleweeds just don't have the same effect.


I have to keep telling myself that we will survive this...that this too shall pass. I just hope that in pushing through all this chaos and change that I don't miss something too important.

Please don't forget about us! I'll try to be a better blogger!