...11.30...Thanksgiving Update...

...we got up at 5 AM for the drive up to the mountains...

...as it got daylight about 7-ish...it was still raining...

...but the rain stopped about the time the mountains came into view...

...the first thing we saw when we got to Mom's was this small herd of deer in the bottoms...

...I went out onto the porch to take my usual photo...but the mountain across the river was under a cloud...

...so I went back in to try and unmold the mousse that I'd made Tuesday with Julia...

...I dipped it into a bowl of hot water and it unmolded beautifully...

...and I put it on Mom's pretty table with all of the November Birthday pressies and cards that I'd brought...

...we got to cooking...this is Bryanna's Breast of Tofu...I kept taking it out and spooning the marinade over the top...

...at some point in the morning the clouds had lifted a bit and we could see across the river...

...we made some vegan gravy with Washington's broth...

...and the breast of tofu was done...

...and the vegan dressing as well...

...so then I assembled the vegan Ambrosia salad just before everyone started to arrive for lunch...

...it turned out pretty perfectly...

...a photo of the ladies...

...and my overstuffed (as usual) vegan plate of Thanksgiving goodness...

~Have a lovely weekend!

...11.28...Delicious Vegan Food we ate...

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

...I thought I'd do a quick post before we head out the door to drive up to the mountains for our family Thanksgiving gathering...we're just waiting on the coffee to finish anyway...but the Man said "you're insane"...haha...

...remember all those little green tomatoes that I picked over the weekend...

...I dredged them with some cornmeal and put them on the Griddler...

...just like I do with my sort of scrambled up squash...

...and of course they were deliicous...such a treat to have fried green tomatoes in November...

~Have a lovely day!

...11.27...W.I.P. Wednesday...

...the body of Little Sissie's Aurora Borealis is done...and I'll have a bit of passenger knitting time over the next few days...hopefully I'll get at least one sleeve done on the Thanksgiving trip...

...what's in your workbasket this week...

~Have a lovely day!

...11.26...Tuesdays with Julia...

...we made the Vegan Mousseline de Volaille...to take as a vegan appetizer up to Mom's for Thanksgiving...

...I've tried a bit here and thought it was pretty good...and we'll have it with the copycat wheat thins...I'll let you know Thursday how it turned out...

...and all of the particulars are over at The Vegan Version...

~Have a lovely day!

...11.25...Over the Weekend...

...before the weekly shopping I wanted to get the floors done...so we did that first thing...

...and then went out the door and left them to dry...

...and then we did the weekly shop...

...I got a bag of green lentils to try another paté for the Thanksgiving gathering at Mom's...and also the vegan whipped cream, mandarin oranges and coconut for a vegan ambrosia salad...

...and then we headed outside to do a little yardwork...it's not too cool right now...but we're expecting our first frost of the year...so I got the tomatoes off of the back porch...

...and harvested the last handful of ripe ones...

...and also the last handful of green ones...

...and then I dumped out the pots...and saved the dirt...

...and I weeded the lillies along the sidewalk and we put out three more bags of mulch...

...back inside I scraped all of the leaves off of the oregano...

...and put that into a jar...and the whole house smelled like oregano...which is not really a bad thing...

...and then our pineapple that was sitting on the counter was ripe...and I wanted to try the viral opening of a pineapple...so we whacked it on the concrete a couple of times and then rolled it around a couple of times...

...and just exactly like in the video...you can pull the little segments off of the pineapple...

...one after the other...it was so neat...

...so I put it into a bowl on the counter so that we could just nibble on it throughout the day...

...and then it was time to do a little bit of prep work for the Thanksgiving trip...so I made some Copycat Wheat Thins...

...and cut them into little squares...

...and then (over-) baked them a little bit...

...and I also prepped some collards...

...and popped those into the Instant Pot...

...and finally in anticipation of frost...we covered up our baby sedum...it is cold hardy...but it's still pretty little...

...and we covered up the baby blueberries as well...but the winter garden will have to fend for itself...haha...

~Wishing you a lovely start to your week!

...11.23...Dinner and a Movie...

...starting with some Blogger comments...

...to my sweet sissie Karen who blogs from her boat at McCraw Sails...Hey K...that turkey photo reminds me of that print you bid on I think from PBS all of those years ago...looking forward to seeing you next week! Love, T...

...to karen from Pumpkin Sunrise...Hi Karen...after months of not sketching I also did some drawing recently...and I realized that I need to make more time for that as I enjoyed it so much...your hat looks awesome...and so does your stripe-y Habitation throw...

...to Éphée from L'éphémère quotidienneté des repas et autres trucs de magie...Hi Éphée...your trip to London sounds awesome...and your egg-topped pizza looks interesting...I've never had that before...

...to Penny from Snap That Penny...Hi Penny...isn't the weather just amazing...I was just imagining your thunder-sleet storm...and I loved all of your rainy/sleety photos...

...to Beth from BLD IN MT : LIVING A SIMPLE LIFE IN THIS INTERCONNECTED WORLD...Hi Beth...I love thankfulness posts...and your tribute to your hubbie is so sweet..

...still reading Maupassant when I have a few minutes...

A Meeting
The Blind Man - this one was pretty sad...
Indiscretion...and this one was slightly funny...it had a cute twist at the end...
A Family Affair, Part 1
A Family Affair, Part 2

...it's turned off quite chilly here...I should say finally as November is almost over and we were still wearing shorts last weekend...so I made a pan of cornbread in my biscuit pan...more crust that way...HA!

...and the Man made us a delicious potato soup...this is the meal that we always have when it snows...but as snow if pretty unlikely here...just a chilly night will do for this comforting supper...

...and the movie was a few more episodes of Trollied...it's a pretty funny show...but their accents...oh my...it is English...but we sometimes have to rewind and listen to phrases more than once before we know what they've said...

...what have you been watching lately?...

~Have a lovely day!

...11.22...Friday Update...

...the new sofa has arrived...

...I absolutely love it...

...and oddly the room looks bigger with the larger sofa in it...and we also did a little bit of shuffling around of lamps...these pole lamps were in the big room...but we thought they'd look better in here...

...so we moved these old lamps out of our bedroom (they were always a bit too large for a bedside table anyway)...but I never wanted to give them away because these were the lamps that I grew up with...

...they were in our living room throughout the 70s and I've always loved them...Mom gave them to us when we got married...I have photos of them in the living room of our first apartment in Raleigh...and they're WHITE...

...so then we needed new lamps for our bedroom...of course...

...also sort of white...but more antique-y...

...and they were so wrapped up in tightly bound plastic bags that I thought I'd show y'all a little trick...in case you didn't know...

...if you take one end of the plastic tab and start twisting it ...and keep twisting it until it becomes tight and hard...

...it will slip right out of the knot...I often find this handy with those plastic grocery bags and takeout Chinese bags are often tied up tightly as well...

...and I have to give proper credit to our North Dakota Scout Master as I did not figure this out on my own...one year when we were at Camp Wilderness...one of our scouts had his clothes tied up tightly in a plastic grocery bag...and he didn't want to tear the bag as he still needed it for his clothes...and the Scout Master said...'just twist one of the tabs until it's stiff and slide it through'...and I watched and was sort of amazed...(I've always been pretty easily amused...haha)

...back in the kitchen...I was so happy to put everything back in the cupboards...the Man still hasn't finished the doors...but it's nice not to have to sift through boxes on the floor to find things any more...

...and I still had to finish that weird little corner with the 22° angle...I ended up adding a small block of 2x4 behind it to nail it securely...and it still needs a couple of coats of White Snow...

...and then...I went ahead and took off all the doors and drawer fronts of the FINAL lower section...I'm going to try and paint these base cabinets without taking everything out...the shelves in these sit back away from the door opening so that's easier to do...and I managed it pretty well on the other side...I also did the same string trick for the drawer handles...

...and then I decided to clean the stove/oven really well before we pulled it out from the cabinets...

...I just used a sponge and dish soap...and elbow grease of course...I bet if I did this every week or so it would never really get dirty...

...the cord was actually long enough (surprisingly) to move it out far enough for me to get behind it to paint...so I think we're just going to leave it here in the middle of the room...plugged in...

...so I primed the inside of the cabinets behind the stove...

...and the wall too...although that will probably never be visible...

...and the Man pried the Corian backsplash off in preparation for tiling this side of the room...

~Have a lovely day!