many mundane moments

long post for the long weekend

in no particular order:

-I met Millie! We met up at the Seagull Monument and wandered around for a few hours. It was lovely. I'm a bad Utahn and had to ask the sister missionaries on Temple Square where the Seagull Monument was, exactly. I had a general idea, but probably would have been even later than I already was. Darn parking garages, and their being the black hole for any sense of direction. They should have which way you're facing painted on each wall. But enough about me not being able to navigate inside large concrete structures and coming out the farthest door possible from our meeting point.

We met. We ate. We wandered. We visited the furniture I want and said hello to the sales girl who must live there. Millie got a cute watch. She also learned that the ordinary and mundane title parts of my blog are accurate and not just self-depracating. We had some cookies and briefly mourned the loss of the Utes, mostly for how our husbands may be taking it. I had a great time. Roz is a doll. There were only a few minutes when we feared for our lives.

-This was possibly the best Thanksgiving I can remember. Food wise, I mean. Even after snacking all afternoon, I couldn't help but load my plate high and ate almost all of it. Even the stuffing and the yams. I think I hurt my aunt's feelings when I was going on about how it was the best I could ever remember because we ate at her house two years ago. Then it hit me. It was the butter, cheese, milk, cream (aka all things dairy) that made it so lovely. I've spent the last two years faking recipes and trying to get a close approximation. Creamy potatoes and real butter on your rolls (already two of my favorite foods) after being deprived so long will go far in making it the best meal ever. Not to mention all the options and my cousins did a fabulous job on the turkey. I'm a big convert to the brining method. Then there was dessert- we had about 28 people and 16 desserts (not that I counted)- more than enough to gorge yourself. The only downside of the day was that we didn't plan to stay overnight and it was a long hour and a half home with full bellies and a large amount of tryptophan coursing through our systems.

-The drive home was worth it because my cousins don't live near a Target and that was the one store we needed to hit for the Friday sales. I've gone shopping on black Friday most of the last few years, but not much appealed to me in the ads, and certainly not anything to drag me back out at 4 or 5 am. Howie graciously slept until almost 7 (after being up until 10:30) and we headed out about 9. We were back home within an hour and a half with all the items on our list plus a few more and having got some great deals. We considered grabbing a bite to eat, but it seemed silly since it was barely an hour since breakfast.

-We went home and put up our Christmas lights instead. It was the last warm-ish day before the snowstorm hit today. It was the first year we put them up and I'm wondering why we never did it before. They went up much more quickly than I had anticipated and it's fun to have them up. We're no Griswalds, just a single strand of large white bulbs along the roofline, but it suits us. I stocked up when they were 75% off after Christmas last year and I'm glad we did so that we didn't have any excuse for not doing it this year. We also brought the bins of decorations in from the garage and have been slowly finding places to put them. We didn't do much more than the tree last year since we were gone for Christmas. We're staying home this year and I'm excited to put everything up. Plus, I'm hoping to find my box of Christmas music at the bottom of one of those bins. I'm getting by with my new cd, the few that never made it out of the car last year and the two stations that play it non-stop.

-I accidentally took Saturday night off. I had requested it way back in May when I was first able. I wasn't clear if it had been approved. Turns out it was, but didn't realize it until it was too late to withdraw my request. I guess we could have been home for Thanksgiving afterall. Oh well, I think it worked out well the way it did. We would have had to drive if we went this week (blech!) and we were able to meet up with Matt's sister by going for our visit when we did. We took advantage of the free weekend evening and the three of us went out to dinner. It was a lovely date, even if it wasn't just two of us. I'm sure Matt only felt a little like a third wheel.

posted by Valarie @ 11:27 PM