Holidays
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Wordless Wednesday
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Meme Monday
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, wonderful, peaceful, joyful holidays to all who celebrate them. Our Christmas plans include dinner at Ted’s parents’ house, which will be ‘white people Christmas’, as Ted put it. Standing rib roast, mashed potatoes, peas with pearl onions, and pumpkin pie. For Ted’s mom, who is pescatarian, salmon tikka masala. For Maya, who is also pescatarian but not really a big fan of most fish (??), fake turkey cutlets as she can’t think of anything she would like more. Our Hanukkah plans will be pushed back, as his family doesn’t celebrate. We will have latkes and such on the 26th. For those who are new here, we…
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Friday Randomness
First off, I received my gift from the Secret SANta gift exchange! It’s so fun to receive a gift in the mail (sorry Canadian friends! I hope your postal strike resolves soon!) and to see what someone has picked out for you. A big Thank-You to my Secret SANta, Penny, for this wonderful gift! What a fun holiday themed mug! And lots of treats to go with it! In other blog friend news, Kyria and I are having breakfast today! She’s in the area for the holidays. I’m really looking forward to meeting her. I think we need to do more local meetups, there are several people in Northern California.…
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Thanksgiving Recipes
Likely no one needs another Thanksgiving recipe, but here is my menu and my recipes nonetheless. We are hosting this year, there will be 6 of us, 2 vegetarians (well, pescatarians, they eat fish). I will do as much as I can tomorrow afternoon, assuming I get off of work early. Appetizers Wine I have 3 bottles of wine this year, which is too much for 6 people I suspect, but at least we’re prepared. I have a Cabernet Franc, a Cabernet Sauvignon, and a Chardonnay. Main Course Dessert Do you celebrate Thanksgiving? Any mashed potato tricks for me? I have some sour cream I might add…
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Happy Independence Day
Happy Independence Day to my American friends! Our plans today include a small family BBQ with Ted’s parents and maybe his brother. I am looking forward to a good hot dog, as that is something I do not eat very often. Ted and I had a lovely anniversary together yesterday. We started the day slowly, went for a walk early before it got too hot, went to the grocery store for things for today’s bbq, and lazed around a bit. Then we hopped on our local transit (BART) and went in to San Francisco for the day. We took a cable car from the Embarcadero to the end of that…
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Friday Randomness
Just a few random thoughts today. A while ago, perhaps 6 or 8 weeks now, we were out for our morning walk, and came across the potted plants in the picture above. They were lying on their sides on the ground. How did they get there? We don’t know. Perhaps they were stolen? We moved them into the positions shown in the picture, and assumed that if they were there rightfully (meaning if the grounds people left them there and were going to come back) they would be put into the ground. If they were not there rightfully (stolen or dumped for some reason) then someone would come get them.…
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Happy New Year
Ex-blogger extraordinaire (V-Grrl) Veronica is a Facebook friend, and she posted these wise words on New Year’s Eve. The sun sets on 2023, and my resolutions remain the same—savor small pleasures and ordinary moments, take care of my health, cherish time with those I love, be a good friend. I liked that a lot, a lot more than the idea of always trying to change who we are. So I’m taking her resolution and making it my own. I hope the holidays have been good to you. I had a lovely Christmas, and then the week before New Year’s was very busy at work, and now it is New Year’s…
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Merry Christmas!
Sending you all warm wishes for a very Merry Christmas! I haven’t been around much, this is a very busy time of year at work, and then on weekends there are parties and visits and so on. So I’m behind. I’ve read and enjoyed some of your posts, but have been too lazy to comment. I’m hoping that this upcoming week will slow down a bit and I can catch up. In the meantime, look at our ridiculous Christmas tree (which I love, btw). Our living room is TINY and there is no other place for it, so we bought the thinnest entryway type tree we could find. You can…
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(Almost) Wordless Wednesday
Thank you Sarah at The Shu Box for the lovely surprise that arrived on Monday! #SecretSANtaSwap2023
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Top 4 / Bottom 4 / Meh 4 Christmas Movies
Elisabeth had a Top 5/Bottom 5 Christmas movies post, which looked like fun. Here are mine, though I couldn’t come up with 5 of each category, so we’ll only have 4, so I added a meh category. Top 4 Bottom 4 Meh 4
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Throwback Thursday – Happy Hanukkah!
Tonight is the first night of Hanukkah! Let’s rewind to 2006, and you can enjoy Maya singing. The video quality isn’t great, it’s 2006 after all. We’re not Jewish, we just like to celebrate things, and when Maya was little, we wanted to expose her to different cultures. Of course, that confused her, when she was in first grade she told her teacher we were Jewish. Our celebration consists of a nice dinner with latkes and small gifts the first night, and lighting the menorah every night (if we remember – Ted is pretty good about this.) Today I’m working 1/2 day, then I’ll start cooking – brisket braised in…
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National Socks Day
I’m sorry it’s so late, and I am only now aware that today is National Sock Day. Had I known, I could have celebrated by: Any of these would be a good idea, but I didn’t know, so I didn’t do them. Oh well, there’s always next year. At least you get a picture of Mulder in my Totoro socks, which he hated. Not because they are Totoro, but because he hated ALL clothing, with the exception of his collar and his tie.
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U is for Updates
This whole NaBloPoMo thing has been great, and my idea of using the alphabet prompts has kept me very organized. I pre-loaded a lot of the posts, so I could spend more time coming to your blogs and reading. This has not always worked, since life does get in the way sometimes, so I’m a little behind in the commenting and reading department, but just like all of us, I’m doing my best. For today though, I thought I would catch you up on what I’ve been up to. I took a very quick trip to Portland a couple of weeks ago to say goodbye to my step-mom’s partner, Tom.…
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Dinners Last Week
Another week of figuring out what to make for dinner is in the books. I had it pretty easy this week, we went out a couple of times, but I made up for it by cooking Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday. Monday – We had this delicious Garlicky Spinach and Chickpea Soup. I love this soup, it is very tasty. Modifications made for my family’s needs: Ted’s doctor told him that beans are very good for him, but they also are carb heavy, so he needs to balance them out. WTF. I mean, what is he supposed to eat? Frustrating. He had some soup, and some leftover lamb curry for extra…
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Happy Thanksgiving
Happy Thanksgiving to my Canadian friends! This is our table from a couple of years ago, I haven’t gotten this far yet. Still in the ‘make a list for the grocery store’ phase. Enjoy your long weekend and family, if you gather together. We celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving, just the three of us, because Ted was born in Ontario. I wish it weren’t going to be hot today, and hopeful that the turkey breast we buy will fit in the toaster oven.
