Our first Thanksgiving in the new house was, as one would expect, quite different from before. For starters, it was our smallest Thanksgiving ever. Our daughter and her partner joined us, but my parents and brother weren’t able to. While it was a wonderful Thanksgiving, it didn’t seem right without them. Maybe next year!
We also had a baked turkey for the first time in close to two decades, ever since my husband discovered deep-fried turkey. In the past, he always fried turkeys for several friends in addition to ours, starting as early as 8 AM. But this year, it didn’t make much sense to buy all that oil just for ours. Our daughter is somewhat of a foodie. She baked a turkey for friends last year and wanted to do ours this year, so that’s what we did. And it was no ordinary baked turkey–hers had butter and herbs under the skin, and it turned out beyond fantastic! She says the number one trick to get a turkey that’s done on time and not dry is to not mess with it. No opening the oven door to check on it, no basting, no doing anything with it once it’s in. I’ll take her word for it!
Her partner had to work early in the morning and they didn’t get here until after three. Normally we eat by then! But this year was a late dinner, around eight. Not a problem since we often eat dinner late anyway. But by the time we were done with dinner, we were all too full (and too tired!) for the pumpkin pie I’d made.
We ate it for breakfast the next morning, and it was delicious, if I say so myself.
On Friday, we stayed around the house–that part didn’t change. My husband and our daughter’s partner got some work done on the property. I did a little cleaning, but mostly, our daughter and I took it easy.
On Saturday, we went to a Christmas tree farm and bought a real tree. My husband’s brother was allergic to them, so growing up, he never had a real tree. And the living room in our old house was too small for anything but a super-skinny fake one. We picked out a nice eight-foot tree, as high as the ceiling in our old house, then decorated. For the first time, my husband was actually excited about decorating. He didn’t have a great childhood, so has never enjoyed Christmas. But being in the new house, with the high ceiling and beams to decorate brought out his holiday spirit, and made the day really special.
What I’ve Been Reading
I read every night, but haven’t finished anything, so I’ll catch up on this next week.
What I’ve Been Writing
My easy goal for the week served me well. I got the writing in Sunday through Wednesday, then on Thursday, I made a point to do it while waiting for the kids to get here, making for five days. Win! Making a plan that took the holiday and having guests into consideration totally worked! This week, I’ll try going up to 250 words/day, for five days.
How was your Thanksgiving, if you celebrate it? Otherwise, how was your week? Did you do anything different or unusual? How are you doing on whatever goals you might have, writing or otherwise? Please share–I’d love to hear from you in the comments!
Jennette Marie Powell writes stories about ordinary people in ordinary places, who do extraordinary things and learn that those ordinary places are anything but. In her Saturn Society novels, unwilling time travelers do what they must to make things right... and change more than they expect. You can find her books at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, iTunes, and more.
What I read this week: One thing nice about having a few days off work is more time to read! I read several short works, both fiction and nonfiction, that I’ve had for a while. I also finished the novel I started two+ weeks ago, 
I also read a couple of short stories. One I’d been wanting to get to for a while, “Forever Thirty-Two” by Stacy McKitrick, was the prequel to her vampire romance, 
I’m not a big reader of holiday stories, but I do like one occasionally, and on Christmas night, I was in the mood for one, so I downloaded Meg Cooper’s erotic romance short story “
What I read this week: I finished the novel Speak of Love by Linda Madl. This is a historical romance set in the 17th century Scottish isles. The characters were well-drawn, interesting, and believable for the time period while still sympathetic, but what I especially liked about this book was the real history that was worked in. This did not have a lot of steamy stuff in it, but was definitely not a “sweet” romance either–IMO the sensuality level was just right for the story, the characters, and the other things going on. If you enjoy historical romance, pick this one up!
New Year’s Day was just like any Sunday in the winter when I was a kid, except that you couldn’t go anywhere because everything was closed. It was boring, because it was nothing but the parents sitting around watching football, which I was never into. Then the retailers started wising up, and realized not everyone was into football and there was money to be made from those of us who weren’t. Now everything’s open, so there’s shopping to do if you need or want something, and it’s less boring. Football is spread out for several days both before and after New Year’s Day, so that’s less of a Big Deal too.
The allure of this, too, escaped me for many years. Of course, the big attraction for many is drinking. I was a boring, rule-abiding teen and didn’t drink. In fact, I was usually babysitting for people with glamorous parties to attend. I didn’t even get dressed up, and I drank Coke. TV was usually boring–I never liked any of the entertainment on those New Year’s Eve shows (still don’t). New Year’s Eve got better when I met my husband, and actually had someone special to kiss at the strike of midnight, but it was still just another night at the bar. When we owned the bar for over ten years, it also meant I saw little of my husband, as he was always working, and I needed to help distribute the champagne. This was okay in and of itself, but there were always the one or two PITA patrons who either tried to scam us out of an extra bottle, or who bitched because we hadn’t gotten around to them yet (everyone always got their champagne before midnight). The best part of New Year’s Eve was having my best friend from college over–there is no such thing as a dull moment with her around, especially with alcohol! 😀 But that stopped when she found a significant other of her own, and they stayed closer to home.
