Food

In the middle of all the Thanksgiving drama, my sister and I decided that we would go down the night before and spend the night at my grandma's, then get up in the morning and help her prepare the food. Many of you know my food making talent...or lack thereof...so imagine my surprise when we were getting ready to go to bed that night and my grandma asks what time my sister will be getting up the next morning to prepare the turkey...say what??

(When I agreed to help in the kitchen, I was under the assumption that my grandma would be doing most of the cooking and I would just be there to help do things like peel potatoes and easy stuff like that...I am FULLY aware of my inability to cook.)

Wrong. Apparently my sister had made a deal with her that Cheri' and I would do ALL of the cooking. By ourselves. Meaning, if I botched up the potatoes, we wouldn't be having potatoes. Talk about stressful. But, hesitantly I agreed.

So my sister and I got up at 8:30 the next morning to get the turkey ready. I had already made myself very clear I would NOT be touching the raw turkey, but I would get my butt out of bed to supervise (aka watch my sister and make fun of her if she messed anything up). She did okay until it came time to get the gibblets and the neck out of the inside. Gibblets were no where to be found.

Me calling my mom: Hi Mom. Is it possible that our turkey didn't come with gibblets? We can't find them anywhere.

Mom: No, Amy, that's not possible. Look harder.

Me: Cheri' is looking very hard and none can be found.

Mom: They are probably in the white wrapper that's on the end of the turkey.

Me: (long pause) Hmmm...well that sucks. We threw that away.

So we dug it out of the trash, washed it off before my grandma got up and continued on our mission (my grandmas makes gibblet gravy-blech). After the turkey was in the oven, we spent the rest of the morning getting everything else ready.

I was in charge of the easy stuff: mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes (I really only wanted to put the marshmallows on top b/c that's all I eat of those), salad, cold stuff (pickle tray), deviled eggs, corn, and I helped a little with the stuffing. My sister did all the meat and cut it and made the stuffing.

All in all, everything was edible (thank goodness) and everyone was stuffed after we ate. But after all of that, I can guarantee only one thing: I will NOT get volunteered to help cook next year. :)

Thanksgiving is over

Thanksgiving has come and gone one more time, and sadly, I am thankful for that. I realized something this Thanksgiving that I think I always knew, but just never wanted to say outloud. I don't like Thanksgiving. I mean, don't get me wrong-I love the opportunity to give thanks for all the blessings in my life, and having time off of work is always nice. But I noticed something about Thanksgiving this year that just seemed to explode more this year than in years past. Thanksgiving brings out the negative in my family--too much stress and drama, and if it's all the same to me, I'd rather do without all that. I never have cared for the food, so I really wouldn't be giving up much. So despite my previous annoyance with people to skip Thanksgiving and go right into celebrating Christmas, I think after this year I have changed my opinion and it's very possible that next year I will do the same.

Mike and I decided that to avoid all of the chaos and drama next year, we'd just bump our New York vacation up a week and go during the week of Thanksgiving. Solves that problem. :)

This week I...

survived without speaking any negativity or complaining!
cropped at the scrapbook store for 7 hours.
ate my first of many more Thanksgiving feasts.
remembered how much I do not like Thanksgiving food.
came in second place out of 5 by granny bowling.
made a trip to San Diego and back to Tulsa in 48 hours.
ate dinner looking at the ocean.
stayed in the hotel that the San Diego American Idol auditions were held at for next season.
watched many more episodes of "Heroes." (I've only got 3 eps left to be caught up.)
realized we only have 5 and a half weeks left until Christmas.
wrote letters to NBC, CBS, ABC, and FOX to show my support of the WGA strike.
ate my second round of Thanksgiving feast...and now I am stuffed.

Say "no" to Negativity

Sunday morning our Pastor preached about complaining and negativity, and how it is one of the things that God despises. At the conclusion of his message, he challenged the congregation to make a commitment to go one week without speaking anything negative, no complaining, no sarcasm, etc. He gave us all a form to sign and date it and if we failed to make it the full week, he challenged us to resign and date it and restart our week of no negativity.

Now, I knew this would be a challenge, considering we like to gossip at lunch and when we do crop nights at the scrapbook store (which we happen to be doing this Friday night). BUT, I accepted the challenge and signed my life away.

I made it until Monday at lunch when a woman walked into Subway with some funky pantyhose on that I just couldn't pass up making fun of her for. Oops. So when I blew it, I told my sister (who was eating lunch with me) that I might as well say all the negative things I had to say before resigning....But I couldn't think of any. Sigh.

So, I have decided I may need to take a vow of silence for a week until I succeed. Either that, or walk around with my eyes closed and ear plugs in my ears.

What?? I just can't help it. Some people just need to be made fun of.

I'm sad.

REALLY sad at the news of the first day of the offical strike of the WGA. I am sad because of what this could potentially mean to an obsessed TV watcher like myself. I've been glued to all internet sites with updates on this strike and am hoping for a quick resolution so that my favorite shows, and yours, will not be drastically affected in their production. I'm going to be SUPER upset if "Lost" doesn't get to air as promised starting in February.

I understand the frustration of the WGA members and agree that they should get paid more for the DVD sales-it's only fair, since they are the whole reason the show exists in the first place. I just hope the networks realize this. SOON.

Here are some more sites with updates if you are interested:
WGA (the official website)
Strike Watch Blog

New obsession

Mike and I started watching the first season of "Heros" on DVD. We really knew nothing about the show at all when we first started watching it, just that everyone thought it was a great show. I'm really trying to be strong and not read ANY spoilers about this show so that every episode will be a surprise. I'm even avoiding media stories about the current season (2) that is on TV now, so that I don't get spoiled for season 2.

And after 4 discs, out of 7, that we have watched so far, I have only a few things to say:

Watching 11 hours of "Heros" in one weekend has caused me to have dreams that I also have a super power to "save the world." AND...

I Heart Peter Petrelli.