Pictures from the One Curtained Thanksgiving

This year has been dubbed the One Curtained Thanksgiving because we put off hanging our curtains till the night before Thanksgiving. Of course, one of the curtain rods was missing the hardware to hang it (all of the important stuff). Instead of taking down the other curtain I decided to keep it up so that I could show my mom the curtains (which are actually tablecloths cut down the center and hemmed).

This year we had 13 people for dinner. Last year we had 19 and had to use 2 tables. I was excited this year because I thought we could once again have everyone at 1 table but alas, my table only will only seat 12. We once again had to set up another table.

Here's the gorgeous turkey. We've been frying our turkey for at least 5 years now. I love it... especially since it frees up the entire oven for me to use on other things!

Getting the turkey off the stand is a 2 person job! Here's my hubby and my soon to be brother-in-law working on getting the turkey ready.

Here's me and my awful chin! The food was yummy!

Dessert is ready!

Here is my menu for Thanksgiving this year:

Appetizers
Smoked Cheddar Cheese and Apple Butter Fondue
Munster Cheese and crackers
Wrapped Cocktail Franks

Dinner
Turkey
Sweet Potato Casserole
Corn Pudding
Stuffing
Mashed Potatoes
Green Bean Casserole
Cranberry Sauce with Golden Raisins and Apples
Pumpkin Muffins
Cranberry Bread (made by my dad)
Macaroni and Cheese (made by my sis in laws soon to be mom in law)
Potato Casserole (made by same as above)

Dessert
Upside Down Pecan Apple Pie
Pumpkin Pie
Pecan Pie

It was great to have the whole family over! I love having the house filled with people. But now I better get to cleaning it up! I won't be posting for a week. We're using this week to spend as a family and going sightseeing. We're going to limit our computer usage while we spend time together. I'll post pictures when I get back onto the computer.

Thankful for my Family

Things right now are going a little crazy. I have a ton of things coming up in the next week and on top of that I was sprung with something very interesting yesterday. Sort of a friend emergency. Because of everything going on and the support I will also be giving to my friend I'm not sure exactly how much I am going to be able to post this week. Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to show you the pictures of where we ended up putting the door. We did put it up today but there was a slight problem with one of the hooks so it's going to have to be rehung tomorrow.

I do want remind myself and everyone else out there... do not take your family for granted. Stay connected together and be grateful for every moment you can all spend together. Right now I am just oh so thankful for my fantastic husband. He's such a great guy and he really supports me in the things I want to do. He's also very open minded and caring - I'll be able to share more about this in the coming months.

Tomorrow I'll be shopping for food for Thanksgiving. I just LOVE this time of year. I can't wait to cook! Wish me luck at the supermarket! I hope it's not too crowded...

Round and Round... and round and round and round and round....

These pictures pretty much describe how I am feeling right now. I feel like I am going around and around doing things but nothing is getting done! Plus everything is just way out of focus! For example, the shutters and trim are now finished but I have yet to decide on a door color so my door is still 3 different colors. I just can't decide! Since they are replacing the surround of the door (rotted wood) in a few weeks I asked them if they could just paint it them to buy me some more time in choosing a color.

Also - I'm working on the church directory right now and I'm getting close to being done but tonight I just realized that my card reader wasn't reading all the pictures that were on the church's camera. No wonder I was confused to where certain pictures were! Well, if I had realized that a few weeks ago I might have actually be a lot closer to being finished that I am right now. I just feel as though this project is never going to end!

Also - I can't find our stud finder and it is driving me crazy!!! I need it to hang our curtain rods and if it's not found tomorrow I might just go out and buy a new one. These curtains have been a project now for weeks. I've been getting stuff done on them but there's always something that holds the project up for a few days.

Whew. I am just in way over my head right now. But - you know what... I totally lost it this afternoon. Straight out I thought they might have to send me to the loony bin. Thankfully it wasn't for long though. I just cried a bit and out of my mouth came a prayer for help. In just a few minutes I was feeling a lot better. I definitely still have a lot weighing on me but it just doesn't seem so depressing right now. I'm ok with going around and around with things out of focus as long as I keep a smile on my face. I just want to stay happy during this time. With a little perseverance and prayer I'm hoping I can keep that up.

Until next time...

Thanksgiving Gravy

My favorite gravy... I make this every year! We fry our turkey so we never have drippings left over from roasting so I make the gravy about a week to 2 weeks ahead of time. I made the gravy today (although I usually try to make it a lot earlier!) and it is now sitting in the fridge overnight waiting for the fat to rise so that I can scrape it off tomorrow. Then it will go in the freezer until Tuesday. I'll then transfer to the fridge to thaw and warm up on Thanksgiving! I try to do most of the "work" ahead of time although I usually end up running around crazy on Thanksgiving!

I LOVE Thanksgiving. It's my favorite holiday and I always host it at my house. Even though it usually is a huge task and sometimes a hassle, I am so content while cooking for Thanksgiving. No matter what goes wrong - I just love putting this big meal together. Of course, I usually crash the day after (hence why I have NEVER gone shopping on Black Friday). This year we well have 13 people (last year was 20 but my cousin is heading up to NY this year for the holiday). It's a full day of eating. We start off by having a family breakfast of Overnight Blueberry French Toast... then it's appetizers mid afternoon followed by a huge feast and then dessert. Yum!!

Without further ado, the recipe I use for Gravy:

MAKE AHEAD TURKEY GRAVY

Ingredients:

• 4 turkey wings (about 3 to 4 lb)
• 2 medium onions, peeled and quartered
• 8 cups chicken broth
• 3/4 cup chopped carrots
• 1/2 tsp dried thyme
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 Tbsp stick butter
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper

PREPARATION

1. Heat oven to 400°F. Have ready a large roasting pan, 5- to 6-qt pot and 3-qt saucepan.


2. Put wings in a single layer in roasting pan; scatter onions on top. Roast 11/4 hours or until wings are browned.


3. Put wings and onions in pot. Add 1 cup water to roasting pan and stir to scrape up any brown bits on bottom. Add to pot. Add 6 cups broth (refrigerate remaining 2 cups), the carrots and thyme. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, 11/2 hours.


4. Remove wings. When cool, pull off skin and meat. Discard skin; save meat for another use.


5. Strain broth into saucepan, pressing vegetables to extract as much liquid as possible. Discard vegetables; skim fat off broth. (If time permits, refrigerate over-night so fat that rises to the top solidifies and can be easily removed.)


6. Whisk flour into the remaining 2 cups broth until thoroughly blended and smooth.


7. Bring broth in the saucepan to a gentle boil. Whisk in flour mixture and boil 4 to 5 minutes to thicken gravy and remove floury taste. Stir in butter and pepper.


Planning Tip: Freeze in an airtight container up to 1 month. Refrigerate 2 days to thaw. Reheat in saucepan, whisking often (see Note).

(Recipe and Photo taken from womensday.com)

P.S. Many of you left comments on my facebook profile instead of on here (although there were a lot of people that looked at the blog and just didn't comment! That's ok though - it's nice to know there are people out there in Blog world that are nice enough just to see what I needed help with!!). I started what I am going to do with the door today and hopefully it will be secured tomorrow. As soon as it is I will post photos! Thanks for all of your help!

Desperate for some Decorating Help!

Ok, so we have a new couch - it's what I've been waiting on to finish the living room (well, I need new chairs too but I can hang stuff w/o the chairs). I bought an old door to go over the couch but low and behold the greens clashed so that won't work. Then I thought I'd hang the door in my kitchen to discourage dirty handprints on the wall that leads into the dining room. Well, I looked at the back of the door today and it's white - so I put it above the couch. Yeah... it looks good. Just when I got used to the thought that it would be in the kitchen!! So... I need help!!! Here are the pics...

Door or....

(close up of the fabric... I wanted a burgandy couch but they don't make it in this fabric and I have spend 1.5 years now looking for a couch that I liked... this matched the carpet ok and the fabric is pet & kid proof so green it was...)

... or picture (it's a painting done by my great great Uncle... I think, well, its someone in the family!))
Door in the kitchen... or over couch?
instead of the door in the kitchen I could get one of these shutters...
Shutters are now green instead of reddish brown. I am going for "english cottage" look... yes, I know... I own a colonial. Anyhow... the bushes will flower orange red in the summer and I want reds, blues, yellows and purples in the garden beds next year. I can't pick out a door color though! I want it to be lighter than the shutters so that a wreath will stand out. We are replacing the surround around the door and the pediment on top of the door because of rot. The top thing will be a simple triangle instead of the acorn thing that is there now.

too yellow of a green on the door?a view of the door from the inside. Actually the original color goes better in the house because I've got some red accents but the color was so blah on the outside of the house. It was the same color as the roof and so much brown made the house disappear and also look way too traditional for me. I really hate having a brown roof!
Comments... Ideas... Suggestions... PLEASE!

Being with hubby...

I love my hubby! He's an awesome guy - I'll have to tell you about him sometime soon! But for this weekend we are going to spend some good quality time together so I am going to forgo the computer this weekend. Ack! We're going to be content together :-).

Blog you Monday!

Our Foster Dogs

Along the years we have had a few fosters that did not stay with us. The dog in the front is Troy. He was our 2nd foster (after Emmi). The dog behind Troy is Marty and my neighbor adopted her through Ratbone Rescues as well.

>Then came Oreo. She's the pup standing on the chair. She was a fantastic dog with TONS of energy. She was adopted out to a woman in Baltimore that eventually moved to North Carolina. Oreo left us right before Bryce was born and she spent most of my bedrest on the bed with me. She was a cuddler.

Last but not least came Sharky. When we had Bryce we decided that it was too much for us to foster dogs but when they asked me to foster Sharky I couldn't resist and David let me get him. He was an American Hairless Terrier and I WANT one! I know I'll never have one because David doesn't really like them so I wanted to foster one so that I could experience one! He was really cool. He got along with Bryce just fine and after a few months he joined a family in Jacksonville, Fl. I had to put him on a place and that was one of the hardest things I had to do because not only did he have to wait a few hours in the crate at the airport he was also going to have a layover and I felt so bad for him! But he made it down there just fine and I heard he was doing just fine with his brother dog down there. Here's a pic that his new family down in Florida sent me. He's here with his brother. I can hardly tell the difference between the 2! Sharky is the one sitting. Well, those are all of the dogs Dave and I have had in the past 8 years. Right now we're just fine with the 2 - I wish I could foster again but it's just so much work and with the amount of kids that go through the house I just can't chance getting a dog that might have a problem with them. I definitely have to say that I am totally content with my dogs - through thick and thin - they bring great satisfaction to my life. I've always been a dog person (since really young) and I think I will always be a dog person. They just love you unconditionally and that's so amazing!