Tag: Pets

Thanksgiving and preparations for Christmas

Be prepared for a long post since it has been so long since my last post. I just don’t seem to get around to putting a post together when we are at the “sticks and bricks.” When I last posted, we weren’t quite at Thanksgiving. We had dinner on Wednesday because my daughter worked on Thursday. I used the Alton Brown brining recipe, and it was phenomenal! Absolutely the best turkey I have ever made. Even the white meat was good, and that is from a dedicated dark meat person. I made too many pies, but I have finally mastered a good pie crust made in the food processor. I splurged last summer on a Breville food processor, and it is phenomenal. Mashed sweet potatoes with butter and just a touch of brown sugar, mashed white potatoes, and braised green beans in the Instant Pot finished up dinner for seven adults and four children. The baby wasn’t interested 😁.

It tasted better than it looks.

I have also been sewing a little. I made some stuff toys for the almost 3 year old grandson, but I forgot to take pictures. I tried making the baby granddaughter a pair of knit harem pants off a free pattern. The baby is very long though, so they needed to be longer. I will adapt the pattern before I make it again. They were just a trial run made with scraps I had around.

I guess these are the latest style

I have also been doing some vinyl work. I made a onesie to go with the pants that said “The Snuggle is Real” (forgot a picture), and a tshirt for almost 3 year old with reindeer names on them, both with heat transfer vinyl. I also did some Christmas ornaments with Oracal 651, a regular adhesive vinyl.

Cute, isn’t it?

I have an assortment of them with different designs, and I have more I am going to do.

Kevin was busy outside. Looks pretty good! He has also ordered a lighted nativity scene that will sit on the porch. Kevin likes his lights.

Lights on the house and tree plus some deer and trees

We have also had some challenges. Our cat, Lily, had her teeth cleaned and a growth removed from her leg. She had a basal skin cancer removed a year and a half ago, so I am worried. It will be a few more days before we get the pathology report. The other really challenging news is my son’s dog, Lexi, who used to belong to us, is in final renal failure. She will cross the bridge on Saturday. She had a good life at 15 years, and she only had serious health problems in the last year. My son is devastated. He has had Lexi as his best bud for a number of years beginning when he moved to Montana for grad school 8-9 years ago.

Enough of bad news. My kitchen is also preparing for Christmas. I also made about 120-150 rolled sugar cookies. My oldest grandchildren will be here Saturday to decorate them. I might have gotten carried away though! I made some wonderful sugared pecans and the chocolate truffles will be finished tomorrow. They are a multi day process. I haven’t decided if I will make pressed cookies too, but I am thinking about it. I have an interesting ginger recipe that I would like to try. The Christmas music is also going full bore. I have been to a number of rehearsals for our church Christmas concert on Sunday afternoon. It is a variation of the traditional Lessons and Carols service.

Kevin and I were lucky enough to go to a production of Cabaret by the local university. It was a very moving show, and the ending was shocking and disquieting. As we left in silence we walked by a container of shoes, a nod to the Holocaust that many of the characters experienced. I did not expect such a professional show by a mid-level college; my error!

I will try to be more regular in my posts going forward.

In Iowa

We made it into Iowa. We are spending the night at a city park in Casey, IA, about 50 miles west of Des Moines and only a couple of miles off I-80. It is a classic small town city park with playgrounds and a covered pavilion. It also has a few electric RV sites in a grassy loop, most with lovely old shade trees. The sites are very unlevel, but the price is definitely right at only $10! We stayed here before, but I can’t remember when. Looking it up in my old paper trip journal is too painful, one of the reasons I prefer the current electronic version.

The animals have been interesting on this trip. Minou, our older black cat, is calm and collected. Nothing much bothers her. We put her in the truck, she comes for some petting, and then she goes to sleep in one of the cat towers in the back seat. Lily, the calico cat is definitely an Anxious Annie. She gets all wound up and starts crying when anything changes. Slow down? Rough road? Lots of curves? Out she comes screaming! She also wanders all over the truck. Eventually she will go to sleep under the passenger seat or I  one of the cat towers (but not the one Minou is in). Lexi, the dog, is very mellow. She is older too (12) and she just goes with the flow. She mostly just sleeps on the back seat, but occasionally something will be interesting enough to make her sit up.

Inside the trailer we have an adjustable pet gate with a tiny door for the cats to move through. It lets the cats have their food available without Lexi getting into it. We take it down when we travel.

Other than the hassle with the pet gate, traveling with Lexi added to the menagerie isn’t too bad. She sure does leave a lot of hair clumps though. When we get to our campsite in Marion we are going to have to sweep and vacuum, something I normally don’t get too worried about. The trailer is really a mess though with clumps of black dog hair all over the small amount of carpeting we have. The rest of the dog hair is in the corners of the vinyl flooring!

We have also been listening  to audiobooks on this trip. So far we have done two by Faye Kellermann. This last one had a back story about diamond merchants so I think I will pull out my Dick Francis audiobook that is also about gem sellers for our next book.