Crazy busy holiday weekend recap

Happy Monday, all!

I hope you all had a great holiday weekend.

Ours was busy as all get out and while I enjoyed the time spent with people I love, I'm also glad that I won't be that busy again until crunch time at Christmas.  Thanksgiving Day, we were late because I had the assembly line for the sweet potatoes going and because I made so much, it took 10 minutes longer than it should have.  But they were so good, I didn't care...

My cousin, the one who says "if Anele makes it, you eat it!" ate these, looked me dead in the eye and said "I f**kig love you."  I guess you can't get better than that!  Bwaaahahaha!  We did have a lot left over though.  Actually there seemed to be a lot of everything left over.  The paper plates used are so small that you really only had room for a small spoonful of this or that and by the time you put the turkey/ham and a roll on there, the room was gone.  We all had to go vertical or go back for seconds.  My mom never said if she liked them or not (she's the one who usually does them) so I guess I'll wait until next year to see if I have requests for them and if not, I'll invite my cousin over and we'll gorge on them ourselves.  My pies went over well.  I did make a boo boo though.  I forgot to refrigerate my pumpkin pies and while I know some people say you can still eat them if they've just sat overnight, I'll just say there are some litigious people in the group and all they'd need is a reason.  So the Mr was kind enough to make a grocery run so I could redo them and they baked while we worked out.  No biggie thankfully since they're easy to make.

For those wondering about Grandma, she's about the same.  She had small outbursts here and there, one of them directed at me while I was talking to my mom.  It startled me because she kind of yelled for a second and my mom is like "we're used to it, she doesn't mean anything by it, just smile and nod."  Um, it's not my first rodeo, you don't need to constantly remind me every time she does that how I should react.  It's kind of the same way my grandpa used to feel the need to tell everyone her diagnosis when she was still well aware of what he was saying about her.  I don't know, it's just weird like I was never in on how she acted or something.  Doesn't everyone jump when someone yells their direction?

The look on my uncles's face when I brought out the 2nd apple crumb pie was priceless.  This is a man who doesn't get excited about much but seeing his jaw drop, eyes light up and a smile come across his face when he knew he was getting more pie later was my happy moment for the day.

So all in all it was good, I would say better than last year though I can't pinpoint why.  When a branch of the tree and the grandparents left, we broke out the ads and the dirty talk and probably stayed later than they hoped but it was fun.  Too bad we still had stuff to do.

While most of the house was clean, I was hosting an afternoon tea to send off my friend before she moves out of state this weekend.  I made as much ahead as I could but I still needed to stew my apples for mini apple tarts and set the table and then the Mr needed to clean up the kitchen.  But I managed to get everything done I needed to in time.

I'll do a post about our afternoon tea and some recipes probably after the holidays because I doubt with all of the regular entertaining y'all would want to try to cram this in on top of it!  HA!  But it was a lovely time even though she showed up 30 minutes early and threw off my whole time table.  (Don't do that to a Virgo)  She brought our Christmas gifts and I suggested we just have our Christmas so we did.  She liked what we got her and I'm glad she got the glasses I asked for so I can replace our wine glasses we never use.  We also got her some housewarming gifts including a local grocery store gift card that made her cry and she said I was the most thoughtful person she knew because I always think of things like that.  I love doing stuff like that for people.  It doesn't take much to go a little above and beyond and it's usually appreciated.  So we cried like asshats while the Mr laughed at us and took a blurry pic of us which makes me think he was crying too.  We talked and held hands and when it came time to pack her up I gave her a hug and held it together and as soon as I got in the house, I lost it.  I'm happy for her but it's hard knowing she'll be 16 hours away instead of three.

Saturday it was time to spend all day watching rivalry games and do our traditional appetizer spread.  People, the graze gene was so activated it's not funny.  I wish I could say we exhibited any kind of self control over the past four days but I'd be lying.  Then Sunday was refuel day for the grocery store and that meant grazing on leftovers to make room for "real" groceries.  (That was the justification.)

I was soooo friggin' exhausted, I could barely walk.  My back and ankles hurt and I felt like I could've fallen asleep in Target's frozen food section standing up.  It wasn't pretty.  I think a week full of worry then execution finally caught up to me.  Working out was not in the cards if I didn't get a little shut eye.  I took a 30 minute nap and felt much better (even though I'd say I only slept for about 10 minutes of the 30 with the other 20 being "rest.")  We did a circuit and I felt better about doing it instead of skipping.  I grabbed a shower while the Mr cut my veggies for the week.  We made our Sunday night hot cocoa and decided it was time to watch our first Christmas movie of the season, Scrooged. (affiliate link) 

That about covers it!  I'm so glad the house is fully decorated and we can hopefully enjoy the next week or two without too much entertaining.  I don't think my neck and shoulders can take the stress right now!

How about you guys?  How was your holiday weekend?

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