Sunny Day

The view outside the window at LaRosa's today.  Kind of combination of summer and Christmas.  And pretty and sunny.  For those of you who aren't from this area, LaRosa's is a local Italian restaurant with LOTS of locations.  And canned sauce in the grocery stores.  My salad and calzone were so good.

I hadn't planned for it, but the day was so pretty that I did my last lawn mowing of the season.  (Surely, it will be the last.)  I could use a few more warm afternoons for general yard cleaning, but the mowing is the biggest thing.  The thought of a few months without mowing sounds so luxurious.

My husband used to delight in calling his Michigan relatives to tell them that he was mowing the grass for the last time while they were shoveling snow.

After some figuring it out, my outside lights are lit.  I used to just run an extension cord out of the garage, but I got a new garage door last winter and the seal is so nice that I didn't want to do that.  I got one of those hardware store gadgets that you can screw in place of a light bulb.  It has an outlet for plugging things in.  Not perfect, but it works and I am happy. 

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.  Wishing you blessings galore.

Pilgrim courtesy of my library.

Tree Lighting

Last night was the lighting of the Christmas tree at Newport on the Levee.  The grands always enjoy that huge tree with the lights and accompanying music.  And yesterday was the last day of school before Thanksgiving break.  Perfect.

We planned to go and have pizza at Dewey's, but were told that there was an hour wait for a table.  Not acceptable to hungry kids.  We went across the building to Bar Louis instead.

Lots of others did the same, I think, and the wait for food was long, but we had ordered some pretzel appetizers and there was basketball on tv.  The grands discussed that this was their first time in a bar, although in fact it is a restaurant/bar and there were lots of other kids there.

Then it was on to Barnes and Noble, where Nora loves to browse around and Aaron tries to be patient with all that browsing.  There was no line at Cold Stone Creamery, a rarity, and both kids had ice cream.

We hit the high points and had a fun evening.  Their mom got lots of Thanksgiving cooking done in their absence.  All good. 

Cranberries

Cranberries.  Yesterday afternoon I made a cranberry salad for the church Thanksgiving dinner today.  It has lovely things - cranberries, celery, oranges, pineapple, walnuts.  Plus, jello. 

And, it didn't set up, ending up with a delicious thick cranberry soup.  This seems vaguely familiar, like maybe I used the same internet recipe another year with the same results.  So, off to the store for another box of jello, which usually doesn't live at my house.  Just one cup of water with the big box of jello, then mixed with the cranberry soup.  Perfect this time.  I reread the recipe about five times to be sure I hadn't done the math wrong when doubling the recipe, but it was right.  Oh, well, there is now cranberry salad.

The final result reminds me of my grandmother's cranberry salad, made for holidays, except that hers probably didn't have nuts.  It was probably the only "fancy" dish that she made all year.  If there were leftovers, she would save some for me since I loved it so much.

I'm not sure whether my grandmother's very basic cooking was a result of economics, or of post-depression memories, or of a religious commitment to plain living.  Or, maybe, she just didn't put that much emphasis on food. 

After the Concert

Nora the trombone player and her friend the flute player after their seventh grade band concert last night.

It was an amazing thing, in their newly combined school, to see 125 students in the band.  In October, just two months after first getting together.  Twelve trombones.  And it was nice to see Nora so happy afterwards, when the nerves were quieted.

I was sad yesterday to see that Nancy Zieman had died.  I don't think I ever watched one or her shows, or ordered from her catalog, but I always admired her.  It would have been so easy for her to have said that she couldn't be on tv because the Bells Palsey caused her face to look uneven.  She  may have said that at one point but she had her own show anyway.  And helped many people develop their passion for sewing.

Cold, drizzly weather this week.  Yesterday the leaves came off the trees so fast that it reminded me of snow.  

Scrap Baby Quilt

Finally, a baby quilt.  Most of the scraps are leftover scraps of binding, those 2 1/4" strips.  Just pulled randomly from my scrap tub.  If you make this, I recommend using the walking foot for piecing these long pieces.  I like the look of piecing the ends together on the bias, but it wouldn't have to be that way.

Last week Joann had binding by the yard at 60% off, plus an extra 25% off coupon.  I wanted an entire roll, which they didn't have in the battings that I like.  So, I have a roll of a batting that I haven't used before, Toasty Cotton by Fairfield.  I'm hoping for the best.  There are a lot of quilts in that roll, starting with the pretty pink top that came in he mail from Joanne (not the store) this past week.

These past warm days have been glorious.  I've done quite a bit of yard work, front yard only though.  It had been looking pretty sad.  Halloween night was the cold and rainy night during the week.  Three Trick or Treater's came to my door.  Only three.

Last night the warm weather disappeared.  I woke briefly to hear the weather alert on my phone and saw lightning, but I'm a good sleeper and couldn't be bothered.  This morning my heavy wheeled trash cans were tipped over and the air is chilly.

I am drawn to putting up my big Christmas tree with lights only, so that's what I'll do.  I live by myself, so I can do what I want.  It seems part of an energy that I have been missing.  I welcome it back.