topaz119 | (no subject)

::waves::

Things that have happened since last we chatted:

Drove 400 miles with BabyBoy for company. Browsed a book store. Ate wood-fired pizza.

Searched fruitlessly for a non-foofy angel to replace our beloved lady who lost her head last year due to an unfortunate ladder-climbing incident.

Baked 10 dozen Gingerbread Kisses for my mom's cookie exchange. (If I don't bake some, she won't go, and it's an easy trade-off for me to get her some socialization w/o my dad.)

Saw Thor 2 again, this time with my parents. (At some other time, I will go into the blissful irony of explaining comics book canon to the people who literally burned any copies of said comics if they found them in their house.)

Concocted a ham dinner with all the trimmings when we all decided we weren't in the mood to eat turkey multiple times during the week.

Ate wild mushroom ravioli and pan-seared grouper over grits and was harassed by my favorite waiter (he was upset that the Beach Week crew dared to come in on his off-day last summer, so I promised we'd check his schedule first next year.)

Did not check work email, not even once.

Drove 500 miles back home (detoured to pick up Oldest.) Met the new GF, looking and feeling my best after 6 hours in the car, but apparently did not scare her unduly.

Made an assortment of cream-soup-based casseroles for the in-laws Tgiving.

Spent Tgiving keeping my mouth shut and reading by the fire at said in-laws, surfacing only to show my father-in-law pictures of his niece on the red carpet at the Catching Fire premiere. Made a valiant attempt to explain the plot and her role in it, but crashed and burned.

Threw out the remains of the cream-soup-based casseroles.

Ran around and dug the house out from under all the crap so the wonderful lady who cleans for me could, y'know, find the house to clean.

While out stocking up on general food necessities, saw that they had fresh, free-range turkeys for under a dollar per pound and decided to make an actual Thanksgiving dinner, mostly because #2 had spent the week being overwhelmed and didn't get any feasting in.) I had cornbread dressing in the freezer, so I hit the (clean) house at about 4:30 and we were eating by 7:30. I have to link you to Smitten Kitchen's Green Bean Casserole because it is SO FREAKING GOOD. Holy moly, I was mostly just making it as general cooking therapy for me, but guh, it was amazing even though I made it with 1% milk instead of cream. (I'm not even apologizing to the tumblr/pinterest people who are seeing this again because it is just that good.)

Cleaned up the kitchen. Made brunch. Cleaned up the kitchen again.

Administered oxygen to the Auburn fans in the house after that finish.

Made dinner. Left the kitchen a wreck.

Read some stuff. Watched some other stuff. Caught up on AOS and Arrow. Didn't quite get there with SPN or Sleepy Hollow.

Did not shop. Am not 'mostly finished' with my holiday shopping. Do not care.

My life. So exciting. ;-)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I had a glut of green beans this year so have bag fulls in the freezer, so checked out your link. It's nothing I've ever eaten, or seen before, but I am tempted. Better that than just boiling the things.

There's a version of the casserole with canned cream of mushroom soup and canned fried onions (and canned green beans) that ends up on every potluck dinner table. ::shudders::

If you do decide to give it a try, watch out for the onions. They stay barely off-white for forever, and then right when you take your eyes off them, they tip over to black and smoking in a blink.

holy shit that was a lot. i hope you'll get a bit of a break for now. hugs.

That was my week off!

Yikes! I'm exhausted just reading this.

Wasn't that Auburn game something. Couldn't happen to a "nicer" guy (NOT)--meaning Nick Saban.

You should probably consider catching up on spn. Just saying.

Thanks so much for the thoughtful birthday gift--I'm always amazed at your creativity.

In most happy news, Anne's umpteenth crappy math teacher in a row has been fired. Finally, there is hope.

In other, possibly happy news, Robert cannot stand the violin (even though he's sounding better and better), so he's thinking of taking choir next year. No instrument to buy.

Well, this got rambling. Hope things calm down a teeny-weeny bit for you. I say that only because it's THAT time of year.

Take care.

Wasn't Saban's face just *perfect* as he walked off the field? The very definition of I-just-sucked-a-lemon, hah.

I'm glad you liked the perfumes -- I had a grand time trying to decide which ones were 'you'. :D

Also, thank you for the cheeses! They were excellent and much appreciated! I ate them by the fire over my birthday weekend. (I managed to delete your email address during a mad clutter-clearing spree; can you send me something at my yahoo addy? Thanks!)

I've gotten to the Oz episode of SPN, so at least I'm into S9, yay me?

I'm a million years late on this, but that Auburn game was amazing. I had no horse in that race, so the finish was pure joy at how amazing a game can turn out.

D (and his whole family) went to Auburn, so we were *very* vested in the outcome. His brother & nephews were inside the stadium, while his sister and her family were just there on campus for the atmosphere. They'd all barely recovered from the Georgia game; this one practically sent them into convulsions.