This favorite holiday dish can be found lingering in the kitchens of thousands, if not millions of homes, around the world this time of year. I thought I would I share my personal recipe with you!
Take 1 major commercial holiday, add economic recession and stir
In a separate bowl, mix 2 parts family drama and 1 part personal career meltdown
Add a pinch of weight gain and self-loathing to taste
Finally, stir in a decision to move in the month of January to a new house because the one you are in doesn’t have central heat and you forgot what having toes feels like.
Combine all ingredients in a large casserole dish and wait for the manic explosion
This holiday recipe will not disappoint!
Yes you heard me right, we are moving to a new house in January. The new house part is great. The packing and moving at this time of year, with two small children might actually kill me. I suppose the good news about my impending death is apparently God’s house has many rooms, I am sure all of which have central heating.
Okay so this year, Thanksgiving dinner’s on me. No really, this year I am the cook, the chef, the master of the kitchen domain. Crap. Where is my mother when I need her? That’s right, she is in Turlock and no doubt preparing already for her scrumptious feast, of which I can not partake. Oh boy do I wish now that I’d helped out more in the kitchen all of those holidays. I knew that feigning diarrhea or cramps in order to get out of cooking would come back to bite me some day.
My first instinct is to run to Williams and Sonoma and buy all the fancy gadgets, as though that would make my cooking better. Given our budget constraints I am going to have to make due with what we have. The problem is, between the ratty cookware and my sub-par skills, we also have the problem of our heinous kitchen. My stove is quite literally from 1957 and has four partially functioning burners. My oven, as previously discussed, is thoroughly lacking in capacity to cook more than a chicken breast.
However, come Thursday, there will be 8 hungry people at my house - all looking to me to provide them with Thanksgiving sustenance. Lordy, I’m screwed.
Did I mention Kevin is supposed to fry the turkey? I’m not sure how I feel about a garbage can worth of oil heated to the point of boiling in my carport. Sounds like a recipe for an insurance claim.
Either way, the neighbors have offered their kitchen, since they will be out of town and my kitchen has issues. Can’t you just see me running back and forth between the houses with pots of boiling water and stuffing mix (drink in hand) while Kevin burns down our faux garage? Happy Holidays!
A few weeks ago my parents came to visit. Actually my Mom, the amazing Jane, was here all week watching my kids and then my Dad and little sister Kenna joined them on the weekend.
While my Mom was watching the kids, she also managed to get a jump start on cleaning up our hideous front yard. Seriously, weeds and rocks and dead plants littered the front yard from Day 1 and Kevin and I just hadn’t gotten around to making it look nice. My Mom however, had begun to make it look pretty and so by Saturday we were all in for a makeover of the lawn and flower bed areas. We had no idea what we were getting into…
If I could say one thing about my parents it is that they are total workhorses. My Dad grunts and groans like Monica Seles whilst toiling away and my Mom likes to act as the job foreman so together, they are a dynamite duo. At the end of the day, I had to take Advil just to fall asleep because everything in my body hurt like heck. I was a little worried that the parents might not make it out of bed the next day.
We all WAY overdid it, however, I think you will agree the results were nice. The Easy Swede is still in need of some real work, but she’s looking pretty good these days.
