Howdy do jive turkeys! I hope you all had a great holiday for those who celebrate and put your stretchy pants to the test. I know we did once we got to it on Thanksgiving Day. I say got to it because ever since 2020, our tradition (which I didn't know would be a way of easing us into our 'new' traditions but hindsight and all) has been eating my low fat gingersnap pumpkin pie in bed whilst watching some of the parade. It's a chill way to start the day and is the equivalent of an unchaperoned child running with scissors since you're not 'supposed' to eat dessert first. Given we don't have to share with anyone, we do what we please. Pfft.
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| I believe my instructions to the Mr were "I want a piece of pie with an obscene amount of lite cool whip and coffee." We had a wafer thin chocolate "Fall critter" from Aldi as a topper. |
Once that was ready, it was time to make the trek to spend time with family.
We hit 9 graves in 3 different cemeteries on opposite ends of town to put flowers on everyone's graves for Christmas. I can only imagine how long it would've taken had I not done all of the prep work to cut the dry foam, pin in the moss ribbon on top of the foam, cut off all of the tags and pre-arrange them so I had to cram the foam in and be done. Well, I know it would've been about 90 minutes longer since that's how long it took and it would've been a lot more frustrating. As I placed each flower, we thanked them for the things they brought to our lives. Grandpa- a bright red face and ornery smile before telling a racy joke, my 18 year old step-aunt for being so kind to a kid several years younger than her and being such a good role model. My great grandma for being a tough old bird who somehow made her way to 100 years old. My grandma who recently passed for giving me my love of classical music and letting me obsessively stroke her perfectly polished fingernails as she knew I was a weird, tactile kid (who is now a weird tactile adult). To my other great grandma who was the quintessential grandma with a pearl buttoned cardigan, tons of costume jewelry with clip on earrings I used to try on and letting me play 'office' when I came over and torture her cat while trying to coax it out of it's hiding places in the basement. To my other great grandpa for being a strong but sweet presence in my early years with his navy cardigan and pipe that sometimes smelling certain loose leaf teas take me back to those days.
I noticed his and his daughters grave had that black stuff some granite stones sometimes get on them and it was the perfect time to try out a headstone cleaner I've been wanting to use.
I have to say, it did a GREAT job! I had to put some elbow grease into it and unfortunately it was windy so a lot of it blew away but I scrubbed and scrubbed two stones and they looked probably 80% better and that's only because I needed more water to rinse the stone off. I highly recommend it if you have a grave maintenance bag. Or am I the only nerd? Anyhoo..
Then, of course to my mom and grandma whom I talk to every night to the point they're probably like "you can skip us tonight." I told them I would be making Mom's sweet potatoes and grandma's noodles. They shouldn't be where they are and they were invited to pull up a chair to eat with us. We got home around 4pm and I fixed some of the cheeseball on crackers as I started heating things up.
I still had plenty of white meat Food Saved from last year's turkey which some of you may recoil at the thought of but it was delicious. I always make sure to freeze a 4 oz container of broth and pop it in with the turkey so it has it's own juices to be warmed up in. (I also used some of the fat from the broth to put into the turkey broth for the noodles I used which Grandma was probably rolling over about but I'm sure she understood. No turkey, no drippings.) I made the mashed potatoes Tuesday, warmed up sweet potatoes (Mom's dish) and got the broth boiling and noodles cooking. Within 30 minutes we were eating and done by 5ish. Super stuffed but never too stuffed for a slice of apple pie. Sadly, I didn't have it in me to make mine and I regretted that decision. Marie Callendar might be fine for some but it didn't cut the mustard for me by a long shot. I bought that by accident when I realized Aldi had a version (not frozen) but I forgot to take that one out of my cart. Womp womp. We watched Charlie Brown Thanksgiving while we ate.
We got the house cleaned up, the sofa slipcovers washed and wrestled back on and ready for my friend to drop by. I'm not going to lie, being mentally 'forced' to have the house decorated for an impending visit really sucked any joy or intention out of putting up Christmas stuff. I'm not saying it wouldn't have gotten done this weekend anyway but doing it at a leisurely pace over doing it to impress others due to your own impossibly high standards just stinks. Her exposure was through the roof in the days leading up to our visit, our Covid vaccine hadn't kicked in yet and she suggested we either cancel the visit and do it in January or all mask up. Well, 1) I just spent the previous week finally cleaning and 2) January is when the bathroom stuff recommences and I told her that was a no go (plus her husband would be with her and not that I don't like him but I really cherish our alone time when we get the chance). So we all just masked up for literally the first visit from someone that wasn't a contractor or service person in the house since 2020. It was nice but felt weird too. The house certainly was in no order for guests with it's canvas draped rails, torn off carpet on the stairs with cheap stair runners over the top of them and the like but it was cleaner that it had been in two years at that point between renos, Mom's stuff and then the contractor abyss that has been 2024. (A sump pump replacement requiring 2 visits, hot water tank replacement after 3 visits, chimney cap replacement and roofing flashing replacement with gutter checks and repairs after 3 visits, gas regulator replacement after gas leak in 2-3 visits, radon pipe restructure, and 4 visits from HVAC dudes ALL because we're chasing this noise we've had for four months for a part we will probably have to 'wait for it to die' before we can get it replaced.) That doesn't include the merry band of mooks who came in and destroyed the bathroom who we get to welcome back in next month. So yeah, the mood to clean fully when more and more people were just going to traipse through was not high. If nothing else it was going to be good to have the place in a state that didn't look like utter panic. (Just don't look at the rest of the house.) How we'll ever workout again is beyond me. We'll have to do band workouts in the living room or something to get strength training back in at this rate. Oh wait, Christmas tree. Nevermind. I think we may have just enough room in the basement for that but now that temps are in the 20's with wind, we need to be ready to do TV workouts so I guess that will need to be addressed this week. I can't afford to say eff it as I'm sure the doc will tell me at today's visit. (I really don't like her, she's an idiot. Who tests someone's hormones when they know the only med they're on is the pill?? A money grabber, that's who or she's a complete moron.) But I don't have it in me this year to start that process so I'm going to be as quiet as possible and only tell her the absolute minimum.)
Sorry, side rant.
I comically replaced the holiday pictures that would've been up if our reno was done by printing them, laminating them and putting them up on the primed sections of the bathroom walls. I have an internal bet with myself as to how long they stay up before dropping. Five days is my guess.
My friend came over yesterday and we had a good four hour visit. She marveled over how beautiful the house looked and it was the first time someone saw our kitchen that wasn't here to fix something. She said the whole place was like a boutique chalet. Well hit me right in the love language girl!! Then I showed her the bathroom and she said despite it being in disarray it still looked pretty damn good. So it was a lovely visit, it's amazing to have a clean home on the first floor at least and now the whole weekend is suddenly over.
How was your weekend?
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