Thanksgiving prep

The first week of October was almost completely wiped out by a virulent cold that came on after I had an upper respiratory reaction to having the house sprayed for carpenter ants on October 1. All attempts other than pest control failed to get rid of them and they eat your house so we had to do something. At 9:00 a.m. we drove down to our old home town to see some dear friends. Twelve hours later, three times the necessary absence, we arrived home and by midnight my head was stuffed and my throat scratchy. Nonetheless, we went down to NOTL on Sunday to meet niece, grand nephews, and great grand nephew and niece for a tasting at Hillebrand and lunch at Corks. It was cold and rainy. I tried not to breathe on anyone. Otherwise a grand time was had by all. Monday was a complete write-off...down for the count.

On Tuesday night I took the postponed trial tango class at Blueheel dance studio. My teacher, CIro, was very good. I don't think he gets that I want to study tango not to be able to dance at parties, but to get moving and to study the form. Anyway, I signed up for four more private lessons and two practice sessions over the next two months. I hope he didn't get the cold.

For the rest of the week, I was too fuzzy-brained to do anything. I could not go near Mom, of course, and my granddaughter was sick too. No dance class for her on Thursday. I tried to shop late on Friday afternoon. However, I just spent hours in grid-locked traffic in this little burg. What the heck was going on? Holiday weekend traffic, I guess. That made it imperative for me to do a major shopping on Saturday. Well, this is how that day of Thanksgiving prep unfolded:

Started laundry
Showered and dressed.
Harvested the garden for butternut squash, tomatoes, sweet & hot peppers.
Drove to the market - argh! No cash. Off to the bank - Back to the market for tomatoes, Bosc & Bartlett pears, northern spies & gala apples.
Next stop, Bulk Barn for salted & plain roasted almonds, walnut pieces, a few licorice cigars & candy pumpkins, dried apricots & rolled oats.
Canadian Tire for sealer jar lids & cleaning products.
On to ECS Coffee for a variety of Tassimo cups & Koo loose teas.
QEW to Costco for the great deals on old cheddar, goat cheese & Brie plus a few other necessaries.
Last stop Longo's to pick up the turkey. Ordered 18-20 lbs but it came in at 23.5 lbs. Filled the cart with fruit and veg, crackers, ice cream, whipping cream, coffee cream and various other items indulged in only for holidays.
Came home to finish landry, put the groceries away, and had a cup of tea, feet up.
Took a break for an hour at Carrigan Arms, to say Happy Thanksgiving to buddies there (" No hugs! I may be contagious").
What did we have for dinner? Hmmmm. A freezer pizza and a bit of leftover chicken, I think.
Saturday night, I had a little burst of energy and actually cooked something - a pie baked in a loaf pan, filled with a mix of finely chopped onion, mushrooms, chestnuts, sage & cranberries. It turned out beautifully. I set it to cool in the sunporch and went to bed.

More to come...

No Back to School for Me

Yesterday everyone went back to school. I did not. In fact, I slept in until 10:20 and after groggily making a cup of coffee, I sat and watched the last half hour of the Marilyn Denis Show. Then I watched Murdoch Mysteries and played solitaire until noon. I managed to get showered and dressed and was finally beginning to consider my To Do list by mid-afternoon. First: call the Canadian Children's Dance Theatre to find out how I can enrol my granddaughter for a class. Second: visit a neighbour to pick out a few films for our first day at TIFF next Monday. Hmmm. Dinner time. Cooked so much for the neighbourhood contra-ribfest that I really didn't feel like preparing food. At all. I put some potatoes on to boil and raced up to Longos for a BBQ chicken. We had it with the new potatoes, leftover green and yellow beans from the garden, leftover marinated salad and the last of the pies I had baked for the fest. The leftover pulled pork will do for tonight. Later, having tea in front of the TV, I got out my iPad and logged onto TIFF. I found out that, although I can buy up to 4 tickets per film on-line, most of those we chose are Off Sale. But if we get tickets for one of the evening performances, we can work backward from there and will probably end up at the box office taking our chances that morning. Checking my gmail, I was sad to learn that the Edible Arrangement I had sent to CALC for the Ed-Vance staff meeting had not arrived on time. It was waiting for the principal afterwards. That shop will hear about this from me. I did want to send a tasty little greeting to the staff to wish them a good year. Just so happy that I did not have to be there and could simply laze the day away.