The Lost Thanksgiving

*Bring bring* off goes my cellphone at 7:30 in the morning. Luckily we'd been up since 7 due to a dog who loves food and then going back to sleep but it has to be in the living room with one of us around.

It was my mom, "Are you coming home for Thanksgiving?"

"Uh, yeah. That was pretty well established. We were going to leave in an hour or so."

"Well we're all sick here so it's up to you."

Hm, a stomach churning flu for a week or a bit of turkey and fixin's for a meal? Tough call but gonna go with the staying in our house where we're generally healthy. I must say this was a bit of a surprise of fate.

This year it's managed to ruin every holiday generally through the weather, an illness is an interesting change.

My husband and I get dressed quickly, with the dog looking very confused as to why her warm pillows got up. Thanks god for 24 hour grocery stores still open on Thanksgiving because we'd spent the past three days clearing out the fridge of just about every and all leftovers and staples.

A bit of a mad dash through the store grabbing anything we could find we had a bit of a menu, a mushroom stuffing with pre-bought stale bread crumbs and pork sausage, green bean casserole with fresh beans, cranberries made from whole, and the wings and drumsticks of a turkey (we got the rare two winged three legged bird).

The store was full of bored employees and a few other people getting last minute bits for their sumptuous feasts. Then there was us two idiots trying to scramble together a Thanksgiving meal in 2 hours.

First thing we did once we got home was made a fast brine. Four cups of stock boiling to which I added 1/4 cup of salt and other various spices (remembering that we were all out of poultry seasoning, of course). Once that was saturated into the bag it went along with the turkey bits to soak for an hour and a half.

My husband chopped celery and mushrooms for the stuffing while I browned the sausage:

About half way through I remembered I'd used up the last of the butter on the week and forgot to get more. So a 1/2 cup of margarine was used to cook up the shrooms and celery and other spices I could dig out of our pot along with the pork.

Dumped that mixture along with some brother over the bread crumbs and in it went into the oven for an hour:

I put my husband back on chopping duty, this time prepping the green beans for which I pretty much followed the recipe on the back of the onion can.

It was as the beans were boiling away in the water I remember, oh crap we don't have any milk either! It was tossed around using evaporated milk but we found a bit of heavy whipping cream and I cut that in half to add to the canned soup mix and green beans were a go.

The cranberries are the easiest of the lot, just a cup of water and a cup of sugar brought to solution then in go the berries for about 10 minutes:

In that went to the fridge to cool down.

Both of the casserole dishes got done at the same time, I put the smaller in the microwave to keep warm and covered the larger in tin foil on the stove. Now it was time for the turkey bits.

Washing them off and giving a quick pat down in they went to the roaster after I cranked the oven temp to 375. Here I said a Tom Turkey thanks prayer for my meat thermometer without which I'd be guessing when the turkey bits would be done.

They only took about a half hour, plenty of time to get the dinner rolls from Pillsbury started.

We managed without any food in the house, almost no prep time, in two hours to come up with this Thanksgiving spread:

Sadly no pumpkin, cherry or apple pie. But we got some thanksgiving themed cupcakes instead.

Happy Lost Thanksgiving everyone!

Happy Thanksgiving

May you have a day full of yummy food and only slightly annoying relatives.

I did it!

Ahem *adjusts tie* Unfurl the banner boys!

In 22 days I managed to finish the NaNoWriMo challenge and get 50,000 mostly coherent words into a story format! (And I swear they weren't 'Screw Flanders' over and over.)

However, I'm still many many pages away from hitting any kind of an ending so the banner seems a tad apt. I promised to my husband that I would keep chugging along and not abandon it now that the magical number's been reached. But this seemed a good time to celebrate and what better way than by including a celebrity.

At night I camp out at the kitchen table, ear buds in, while Kratos chops people to tiny bits behind me to get my writing done.

I shall also, on occasion, do a bit of internet surfing when I come to a particular passage that's giving me grief or even dare tweet. Before hunkering down my brain made a little burp which lead to this:

"For some reason my brain read Garmin as Gaiman and I wondered what would happen if @neilhimself gave everyone driving directions."

And having entertained myself with the idea of directions from authors I dug into it.

Round about the 49,600 range as I can see the light I hear the little tweetdeck cry and look up to see this:

I may or may not have yelped out in surprise causing my husband to think that I had finished the NaNoing, which lead to lots of giggles and a drive to finish the last bits. I hope it's a good sign to get random beloved writers attention just as you cross the NaNoWriMo finish line and it isn't like saying MacBeth in a theatre.

Well, now to get back at it. This story isn't going to write itself unless I make an unholy deal with a strange little man with a jaunty hat and funny name.

Introverted Painting Sale

Hello one and all, the Christmas shopping madness shall soon be upon us and I would like to throw my jaunty hat into the ring.

To celebrate I have put my entire store on Sale. Enter the code BLKFRIDAY at checkout and you'll get 10% off your entire purchase.

Now might be a good time to show off my new Cardinal painting:

I've also recently created a video slideshow of most of my paintings. See if you can spot some of your favorites.


Happy Hunting!

A Day of Thanksgiving

I'm still trucking away at that novel idea (he he, it's a pun) but when taking small breaks my husband and I managed to finish a new iRiff.

And it's all about Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving - that national tradition of stuffing yourself so full of turkey and various other heart attack inducing foodstuffs to leave you comatose on the couch.

But due to a shortage in turkeys thanks to someone in the 70's needing to toss them out of planes (don't ask me how the economy works) in the 1950's the government was afraid all of the schoolchildren would turn communist. So this short was born, a warning to everyone that if you are not grateful for your small miserable little American life then the government could just break down your door and take your small popcorn bowl away when you weren't looking.

Perfect for anyone who's facing a huge family Thanksgiving dinner, a small intimate gathering, or planning on eating a Hungry Man in front of the TV this short will make you grateful that you're not stuck in their horrific little world being forced to recite at McCarthy gunpoint every democratic thing you're thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Here's the sample, can't pick a riff without a good sample after all:



A Day of Thanksgiving with a load of good red scare stuff thrown in for good measure.