On November--Long with Photos

I have had better months than this one. On more than one occasion I thought to myself that every thing happening in this month was a challenge to my desire to actually feel grateful. Cause I really didn't feel very grateful at times and I had to tell myself to.

It's not that calamities befell us. We are still healthy, still (somewhat) employed. There's still (a little) money in the bank.

It was just that things refused to work out. Or they worked out in the most complicated (aka expensive) and painful way imaginable.

So, as November ends and I do not wish it back again, I am posting a list of the highlights of our month. I'd honestly rather remember the good things in the month and forget the mistakes, failings, misfortunes, minor as they may be.

Highlight number one:
Seeing Charlie in his first Primary Program. All the children in our congregation got to go to the microphone and say a line or a verse. Charlie's line was "Loving one another" and he said it perfectly and then immediately put this look on his face that said "I'm ready for my applause." He then proceeded to sit back in his seat, take his shoes off, and play with them on his hands for the rest of the meeting while his parents helplessly mouthed at him from the audience to put your shoes back on. Yes, he even held them over his head and waved them around when the children stood to sing songs. Nice.

Number Two.
I got to sing in a choir that my mom directed. I haven't done that for many years. Probably since I was 12 or so. No one else in the world is like my mom. As a choir director, she's funny yet exacting. She can tell you you're not good enough in a way that makes you both roll your eyes at her and also try harder. She can teach you how to be better and sincerely help you see why it matters. She will stop you and make you sing it again as many times as it takes for you to get it right and remember it right, even if the choir members are grumbling at her. She wants it right, down to the details. Notes, sounds, vowels, Ts, jaws, energy. Everything. Somehow, it's fun. And that's what I've always loved about choir. Getting details right in combination with a bunch of other people to produce a moving effect. In Chorus. And I think it was moving when we performed. I was moved--by the power of the message in the songs and the culmination of the hard work of my mother and by us. I need music.

Number Three.
This year, Jeremy and the boys I were on our own for Thanksgiving. We probably could have worked harder to invite someone over or get ourselves invited, but I think deep down, we wanted to prove to ourselves that we could pull off a complete Thanksgiving Dinner all by ourselves. And we did. And every last bit of it was homemade. Here's what:
1. Jeremy made the pie crust himself and cooked two pumpkins we grew in our garden to make the pumpkin pie. Then he whipped the cream to top it.
2. We made stuffing from sourdough bread Jeremy had made. His starter is a little weak on the sourdough complexity right now, but no matter. He made the loaf, chopped it up, toasted it and added the sausage, apple, raisins, onion, celery, and herbs to round out the stuffing. I'm making it sound simpler than it was. But it was delicious.

3. We grew green beans in our garden again this year and ended up freezing tons. Again. I found a recipe for green beans with a little lemon vinaigrette that sounded perfect. We blanched the beans and I whipped up the dressing--lemon juice and zest with minced red onion, a little dijon mustard and olive oil. All topped with well-toasted (thanks Jeremy!) pecans. We were cooking basically all day, and when almost all the food was done, we remembered the green beans! We literally made them while each finishing five other last minute tasks.

4. Mashed potatoes with not gravy but the most delicious homemade ranch dressing ever. I know, add butter and heavy cream to the potatoes and you still need a buttermilk dressing on top? Why not? Delightful.

5. Sweet Potatoes. I love 'em. I found a recipe where the potato puree is flavored with orange juice and ginger. It called for crumbled crispy oatmeal cookies as a topping. I suppose I could have bought cookies for the topping, (I guess there are people who BUY cookies) but I decided to make them. A couple of days in advance. They are awesome and tasted great on top of sweet potatoes, especially with a few chopped pecans thrown in for good measure.

sweet potatoes and rolls in progress

6. Cranberry Sauce. Homemade with orange zest in it. People, just make it next year. It's so much better. I didn't always love cranberry sauce, but now I find that I like turkey a lot better with it.

7. Turkey, of course. Every bit of the turkey prep was handled by my amazing husband guy. Ok, so I bought it and, at the right time, took it out of the freezer and stuck it in the fridge. That's it.

8. Rolls. Also homemade from sourdough starter. They came out looking pretty rustic and I rubbed melted butter on their hot tops.
9. Egg nog ice cream. This is actually the farthest from homemade because while we made the ice cream here at our house, we really just poured store bought eggnog into the ice cream maker (plus a little half and half) and let it do its thing. Grab a bowl of this and sprinkle some leftover crumbled crispy oatmeal cookies over the top. Yeah.

It was fun and hectic and exhausting to cook all day. But so great that every bit of it was teamwork. I love cooking with Jeremy. And we pulled it off. Every last dish and detail came out just as we had planned. And I loved the meal.

Yes, I cropped myself out.

We had the Macy's Thanskgiving Day Parade on while we cooked in the morning. The boys made that fun by pretending to be the announcers. Johnny, while holding his pretend microphone, "Welcome to the PARADE!"

Speaking of parades, Highlight number four
was taking the boys to the Holiday Parade downtown this year. I haven't been to this since I marched in it with my junior high band. In ninth grade. But it was fun to watch the boys watch the parade. Charlie firmly refused any and all candy thrown to him or offered to him. Johnny didn't. They liked the little tiny cars the Shriners drove around in circles. They liked seeing the horses. But I think they liked the man riding a really tall unicycle the best.

After the parade we took them to the Old Boise Model Railroad display. They LOVED this. Johnny constantly shouted "a-NOTHER train, Mommy!" And Charlie was trying to figure out where all the tunnels led and where the next train would emerge. We may go back again before they take their display down right before Christmas.

The longer I sit here, the more highlights I think of. That's good. That means November wasn't really as bad as I thought it was. For instance, I also got to see two of my nieces who are both blessed with quick, bubbly, contagious laughter. And there were lots of those glorious moments where one of my kids did something that put a smile on my face despite the worries on my mind.

Goodbye November. Here's to a grand (and somehow, miraculously, inexpensive) December.