And that's a NaBloPoMo wrap! What a month!!

It started with a little vacation, returning on my birthday; there was knitting, sewing, football, food, some snow, fun & games with kiddos, Thanksgiving, and more.

I love that I get to announce the person who left the 30,000th comment on the last day of a successful NaBloPoMo — and on my 3,446th post overall in nearly 16 years of blogging! The comment figure is legit, as I delete/unpublish spam comments; the number of posts is actually more like 3,379 because there are 67 posts unpublished posts saved as "draft." (I've tried to go in and clean those up, but I get emotional and just can't.)

So…………………………………………………………

drumroll, please……………………………………..

Carole!!!

I love that!! Thank you so much, Carole, for being you! I'll be sending along a token (or two) in appreciation to mark the occasion.

Thanks to EVERYONE who stops by to read this ol' blog! I couldn't/wouldn't do it without you. xo

After yesterday's hullabaloo, it felt great to take it a little easy today… but not TOO easy.

I don't know about you, but it only dawned on me in the last few days that there's only a week between Thanksgiving and the first weekend in December instead of the more usual two! That Thanksgiving-to-Christmas snowball usually happens pretty fast, but this year… it's gonna get going even faster!

Our local parade is on Tuesday (Ali & the kids & the coffee camper will be in it!), I pick up Maddy & Viv on Wednesday, Maddy's BFFs Katy & Andrés are coming on Friday, my first party of the season is on Friday, we're all planning on going to another parade on Saturday (so Viv can experience it and the kids can watch it), we're having a family photo shoot… and/while decorating the tree on Sunday.

One of the things I did today was start clearing out the area where the tree will go, and that felt great. I tossed & recycled some stuff, and also added to my donation pile. There's a storm coming and travel might be limited over the weekend, so we chucked it & more into the car and took a trip to the thrift store drop it off.

Then we parked and went inside… ha!

Kate scored big time! Among her findings was this vintage-y cotton velvet jacket… similar to a big coat of my sister Sharon's that she's recently been wearing.

And now Rusty's making turkey soup! My favorite day-after-Thanksgiving meal.

_ _ _ _ _

Tomorrow is the last day of NaBloPoMo 2019! It is almost certain that someone will be leaving the 30,000th comment on this post, or at least after I hit "publish" (that milestone could happen on any recent post), which I didn't think would happen until closer to the end of the year, so stay tuned to see who it is… MAYBE IT'S YOU!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

I had a nice, fairly relaxed morning running a few errands, doing some chores around the house, prepping the turkey, and even doing some sewing. Ali & her family came over in the mid-afternoon to share a lovely meal.

Kate put together a lovely charcuterie/appetizer platter to begin… and even the kids loved it!!

I made Spatchcocked Roast Turkey & Gravy, Hasselback Butternut Squash, Smashed Red Potatoes, and Steamed Broccoli. Rusty made both pumpkin and apple pies. It was all really good… plentiful and filling, but not too much.

A spatchcocked turkey cooks quickly (relatively speaking) and evenly, and I had a nice-sized bird, just under 10 p0unds. I love making a turkey that way! The Hasselback Butternut Squash was delicious (even though I forgot the chopped pecans to finish) and is definitely a keeper; it got raves. Junah willingly tried pumpkin pie for the very first time… and LOVED IT! Ginny was content with ice cream topped with whipped cream for dessert. Ha.

There were Bananagrams! "What does this say, Nona??" I read every "word."

I hope you had a great day, too.

A quick & random catching up of a few things…

It's a little weird that I'm writing a "random catch-up" post in November during NaBloPoMo, when I'm blogging everyday, but what a November this is… in a good way, there's good stuff happening, but my free time is… mostly not really "free."

This is the tiniest portion of an epic spread for a buffet brunch/pop-up shopping event that my friend Peg & I attended last weekend at 313 Dodge. There were mini quiches, scones, almond-stuffed/bacon-wrapped dates… it was amazing. With a mimosa. (I never even had a share of that delectable looking brie!)

We were a bit more low-brow last night, with pizza delivery at home. Junah figured out/decided to raise a leaf on the drop-leaf table, and it turned into an impromptu kids' table! Malina wasn't originally in the mix, but she got her booster and started pushing it in that direction, so…

As established yesterday, Kate's taken up beading, and Ali was inspired to try making a little bead lizard like she used to make in high school. She remembered! This one's tail was cut too short, but there were two others… and a little hunt, with the help of three cell-phone-flashlights, when one went missing in the living room. Astonishingly, we found it!!

I'm not stitching nearly as consistently on this particular project during the current attempt at 100-days, but I am sewing… and also knitting… almost everyday.

I might even have some real stuff to talk about for Unraveled Wednesday tomorrow!