let the preparations begin

I cleaned on Sunday. Instead of puttering with it for days and having the end result not look all that different from the original state of things, I set the timer for two hours and went at it full force. I took a break in the middle then started the timer again. I'd say it worked pretty well.

As for my time-saving idea of chopping all the week's vegetables on Sunday, I'd say that didn't work so well. Most things had to be used by Wednesday or they got mushy and odiferous. I had to dispose of the remains and put a dish of baking soda in to quash the fumes.

I committed a major social faux pas last night. I walked into Patrick's, saw an old friend of mine (who I don't see very often), and a major white space appeared in the spot of my brain where her name usually resides. A buzzing white space. No name, the whole time I stood there. More buzzing. Arrrghghgghg. It was awful. I woke several times in the night and got that sick feeling from it and those goblins were circling the bed chanting about my feeble mindedness. Damn. I don't think I have mad cow disease because I recognized her as a person and knew the origins of our friendship. Just could not come up with a name.

I didn't take my Ambien last night. I thought I was so tired that I would surely sleep all night. Well, that worked until about 1:00 when I woke with the goblin attack. I didn't go back to sleep until about 5. You'd think I would learn. While I was trying to go back to sleep, I wrote the best blog posts in my head and decided that extreme fatigue must be like emotional anguish...it does produce some funny results. The problem is that I couldn't remember most of it by the time I woke up.

I did some cooking tonight. I love the smells of Thanksgiving. I made cranberry sauce with allspice, cinnamon, and brown sugar and butternut squash with maple syrup. Delicious. I started a loaf of Italian bread in my giant bread bowl. It takes two days to make but really isn't work...it just takes time.

My favorite part of the holiday is choosing dishes for things. I have all my serving dishes on the table so they can get matched to the right food. I bought a couple of these Bobby Flay serving dishes at Kohl's the other day. I love them. Cranberries in the small round one and squash in the big one.