Happy Thanksgiving

The turkey is in the oven and I'm caught up on everything -- for the time being. I made my own cranberry relish this year. It's GREAT and beats that canned stuff any day.

Cranberry Relish

1 orange
1 bag cranberries
1 cup sugar
1 cinnamon stick

Quarter oranges and stick in food processor until you get it to the size and texture you want. Remove and add cranberries, and then add all into a pot and on med/low heat and bring to boil and boil for about 10-15 minutes. Refrigerate until you use it. What's nice about this is you can make it a few days ahead of time.

My pies? I've never found anything better than Libby's recipe on the side of their pumpkin can. Awesome. I usually add an extra egg or so, but that's about it. And always toss out the old spices every couple of years and get new ones. Fresh spices make a HUGE difference in the taste! The only short cut I use here is I usually use Pillsbury's refrigerated dough found in the dairy section. It's almost as good as my home made crust and there's not all the fuss. You just sit at room temperature for about 20 minutes and then spread it over the pie plate. For the first time this year I added a layer of mini marshmallows on the bottom. They float to the top while baking and add a delish topping to your pie. YUMMY!!!

My sweet potatoes are made with fresh sweet potatoes. I add some brown sugar, stick of butter, dash of vanilla and bring to boil and then drizzle over my peeled and cooked sweet potatoes. Those will go in the oven along with the extra stuffing after I pull my bird out.

Speaking of my bird, he's a free range tom turkey and I, for the first time ever, bought a baking bag to put him in. I was in a Super Target yesterday evening and this lady was so excited about finding the bags that I questioned her about it. She said she's never cooked her turkey any other way and it absolutely makes a gorgeous turkey. Hmmmm ... I tossed a box in my cart and said, you ought to do a commercial for Reynolds. Ha ha ha ...

My dressing is Pepperidge Farms and I like whole grains, but could only find one that was half ww and half white. Darn it! But I melted a stick of butter and chopped up some celery and onions and cooked until tender. Then I poured over the dressing mixture and tossed. I added three cans of mushrooms and tossing until blended.

Of course we're going to have mashed potatoes and steamed asparagus and a loaf of Publix' white mountain bread to finish the trimmings. My hubby likes the asparagus steamed mushy and I like them steamed crisp tender, so no matter how they come out one of us gets our way. I get mad at myself though when I over cook them.

That is my menu. It's an awesome, hearty dinner which I'm sure we'll all enjoy. I have much to give thanks to this year.

*Harold and I survived our first year of marriage unscathed.
*Jesse, Harold's son, is something to be proud of. He moved in with us this past July and has made great strides in improving his life. He's working hard to get ahead and it's a great thing for his father to watch as he prevails.
*My son's ex girlfriend, Sarah, brought a beautiful little girl into the world this past September.
*My son, Matt, is humbled and respectful again.
*My daughter, Missi, is preggers with her third baby.
*Her husband, John, has graduated from college and now working at UPS. Go Brown!
*Katie is ... well, Katie is. What can I say about a 17 year old that is driving me crazy? Okay. Lets say what's she's not. She's not pregnant, nor does she drink or use drugs.
*My mom and dad are really getting old now and it's so apparent how one can't get along with out the other. Who'd have figured?
*I have a great new job working with a lot of Hispanic and Haitian patients and it looks like I'm finally going to be fluent in my first language, Spanish, soon.
*We all have our health!


God Bless!

Monopoly

What a day today was. The weather was nice. Warm and sunny and I decided to finish grouting the hot tub. That didn't take that long. Hubby and I drained the hot tub last week after pressure washing it and one day this past week I scrubbed it with bleach water, so I needed to get it finished so we could fill it up and enjoy it this coming Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

We then read the paper and had a short snooze when I conned hubby into playing Monopoly. Now this isn't just any Monopoly board game, let me tell you. I was in Sam's Club yesterday and saw this most AWESOME Monopoly game. For $79.99 and tax it is a phenomenal game. The game board is built into a drawer and the pieces are exquisitely made. No plastic houses and motels in this game. They're made of metal and the hotels have a gold hue to it that makes them resemble Las Vegas glitz.

And Jesse won the game. Katie took off with the lead and was grinning from ear to ear and then my spouse gave Jesse the third red property. I yelled, HAROLD ARE YOU FLIPPING NUTS, but to no avail. They made the deal. And even though I handed Harold over a thousand dollars by over paying him for some chump properties (the 3rd in the orange, St. James Place) Jesse won. Katie lost with a flourish also. Ha ha ha ... And the competition heated up between father and son.

Okay Bones, you did it. This time. Wait until next time though!!!

The New Clinic

Hello all,
I know I've been gone a while. Starting a new job isn't easy. As a matter of fact, it's exhausting. The one thing about nursing is there are so many different types of jobs that starting a new one is like you never did it before. Almost. And I've never worked in a clinic before, so this is all brand new to me. And take the fact that everything is on paper and not computerized. Okay, so I've been spoiled, or they're way behind times, whatever the case may be, but I'm seeing first hand how much computers have helped in the medical field. Everything on paper is so cumbersome. But there is light at the end of the tunnel. The clinic has bought a program and one of the offices are up and running on it right now. The bad thing is that my office is the largest and is going to be the last one to get with things. But on the good side? By then all the bugs will be worked out.

But getting back to learning a new job here, lets take in the fact that 69% of the clients speak Spanish and 19% speak Creole. Oh boy. And I speak English. Ha ha ha ... That makes things even more difficult with this new job. But I'm here to tell you that I truly believe I'll be walking and talking Spanish fluently within a year. I really want to learn the language badly. Why wouldn't I? It's the first language I spoke until I was three or so years old. It is in my roots. Roots that I'm proud of.

Meanwhile, I'm waiting for my 'walking' legs to come back. Pretty please, please! My goodness my legs are killing me. I know it's good for me to be active like I am, but please come back oh walking legs of mine. My friend, Deb, attributes it to age. I'm not so sure I agree with her. I never had a problem when I worked at the hospital and that wasn't all that long ago.

And Jake does, he really does love his baby sister!

Although Jake is sometimes a little rough with his baby sister, Leah, he does enjoy her also. Just wait a couple of years Jake and you'll have your very own playmate! I know. Just from watching my other set of grandchildren in Ohio.

Tigger is a tiger!

This little guy absolutely would not let me have anything to do with putting whiskers on his face. Nor his mom or his grandpa. Sheesh. This is the best we could do. Of course we did a better job with mama while trying to cajole him into cooperating -- to no avail.

Dear Tio Dodi

He has lung cancer and had his lung removed a couple of months ago. We went to visit him this past Sunday and I have to admit I was tickled at his appearance. My nurses eyes assessed him and although he looked peaked, he didn't look like he was on the downward spiral of life -- yet. I love this man deeply and am thrilled to have some more time with him.

My hero!

Meet Jean, my hero! When I was so hot and tired of shrink wrapping the skids for my truck, he would come over and work with me. I was grateful and showed him with a HUGE bag of candy. Then I became his heroine! Ha ha ha!

This is the last day of work at the LeeSar, the warehouse I was working in. I didn't stay there but 4 months, but it was difficult leaving there.

Or so I thought.

I was called today and asked if I could do the local run tomorrow night. I said I would be glad too. So I guess I didn't go too far after all.