Thanksgiving Rewind

Holy Ice Skates Batman!  It's already December!  Well dear readers I'll have to give you the short version to catch up.  ;o)  Let's take it back a week or so to Thanksgiving and go from there.....

I took a couple days off work to go home for the weekend and Wednesday dawned grey and rainy as I trundled my way into work for a 1/2 day.  I could hardly sit & work - I was so excited to start the holiday.  I planned to drive my way through Illinois to M&D's and brought along an assortment of road tripping essentials: iPod, books on CD, GPS, water, chocolate & snacks.  It took about 7 hours and passed through a whole lot of fields, sky and fuzzy radio stations in the heart of IL.  The rain stuck around for part of the drive but cleared up as it got dark which I found to be a nice trade.  I ended up listening to the book "Dear John" on CD most of the way up & back and enjoyed it for the most part.  I tried to make fudge to bring with me, but it didn't cook long enough so it didn't set.  Bummer. At least I can use it to swirl in ice cream or with fruit for dessert.  Mmm.

Once home it was nice to relax and be with family again.  It's been a couple years since we'd had a family Thanksgiving so this was super nice.  We watched parts of the parade & football, cooked & ate lots of yummy food and had a grand time.  J & I even went running with dad in the cold as a pre-dinner workout to help make room for the pie.  We went to see HP7 again (sooo good) and helped dad bottle his Amarone wine too.  Mom & I went out to dress shop for a bridesmaid dress and I think I tried on all but a couple they had to offer!  A wonderful weekend home and a break from work and family and good fun and good times.

holiday quilt tree @ work

Then it was back home and back to work again, with December creeping up on me.  Wednesday the Yo-Yos brought in lunch and treats for the staff and it was delicious.  Baked ham &cheese sandwiches, veggies &dip, cookies, pumpkin cake, meringue bites, divinity candy, and more.  Such yummy food - I didn't have to eat dinner I was so full.  Then we had our volunteer meeting/luncheon and my department helped donate supplies for our decorations.  See if you can spot what we used: scissors, spool of thread, pin cushion, tape measure and more.  I'm also getting lots of mail at work as the entries for the School Block Challenge come in.  The blocks are creative and well done so I'm excited to see the rest that are submitted.

We're getting new carpet in at the apartment too so that's fun.  It's a darker pattern which I think looks much better in the hallway and won't show the dirt stains of people moving in & out as easily.  Our 2nd Saturday is coming up again and this month is Edible Quilts - we have sugar cookies for people to come decorate with quilt designs in icing and candy embellishments!  It means a lot of baking ahead of time but yum!

Phew, I think that's as caught up as I can be for now - stay tuned for more holiday fun!