Thanksgiving plans are shaping up.
I sent out a tentative menu to my mom and sister, and they've offered to bring: sweet potato casserole & dessert (Ditter), stuffing, baked corn (also called corn pudding), olives, pickles, and rolls (Mom). This frees me up to do a little more here. Along with the turkey, I'm going to make Brussels sprouts with mustard butter (found the recipe here when I was looking for instructions on how to blanch them). And I'm going to do some sort of glazed carrots thing. And mashed turnips, which seems to be another family tradition. I've never seen them anywhere but my family's table. And someone at work gave me a recipe for stuffed acorn squash that I may or may not use.
My sister thinks the Lancaster contingent will only be here until Friday morning. I'm going to book a room at a hotel around the corner for her in-laws. Things are kind of tight here. I still have very little furniture, and Mrs. S. had trouble with stairs anyway -- the big bathroom is upstairs. The downstairs powder room is so small there isn't room to change your mind in it.
My parents are staying until Saturday, I think. I'm hoping Friday morning before 1/2 of my family heads off to Lancaster we can get together for breakfast at the restaurant attached to my sister's in-law's hotel.
I need to buy some folding chairs. And some sort of tie-on covers for the two chairs from the craft room so they look a little more festive. Or less shabby. Whichever.
I also want to buy some sort of armchair or recliner for the living room. I need more furniture than I have, but dang! Furniture's expensive. We have a couple second-hand shops around here, but most of them are actually antique shops masquerading as used furniture places. It's frustrating walking into a store and seeing a beat-up armchair for the cost of a new one. And not feeling able to afford either.
But hey! Back to holidays! Dinner for seven! Two dogs! Overnight guests! Three weeks (more or less) to prepare! Yeeeeee-haw!
I need to lie down now.
3 comments:
Ah, I'm glad you're going forward with Thanksgiving! It will all be worth it.
Do you have a friend with a truck? If so, take a good look at Craigslist for the furniture you seek. There are lots of good deals to be had, and if you don't like the look of the thing when you arrive, you're under no obligation to buy it.
Craft-room chairs: Do the seat cushions lift off like chairs from a dining set? If so, you should be able to wrap some new fabric around the cushion and tack it down on the underside.
If you're talking about covering the backs of the chairs, I know they sell Christmas-y covers that slide over a chair back much like a pillowcase. I don't know how much they cost, but if the two I have are any indication, I know The Oracle's boss didn't lay out a whole bunch of cash to buy them for his employees.
I have no helpful comments about the chairs - although we got some folding chairs from our local Freecycle group for exactly that purpose. Freecycle is wonderful.
I do like the idea of giving thanks (and having a party in November, when everything is dark and depressing) but that does sound like a bit of a logistical challenge! (Thanks for the Brussels sprout recipe, though. Sounds like my husband's cup of tea.)
I didn't invent the pattern for my amigurumi guinea pig, by the way - it's the Fuzzy Guinea Pig from Planet June. It was my first try at crochet and I got it a bit wrong by doing it in slipstitch, which is why it's so small (although everyone seems to agree it's even cuter that way, so it was a happy accident).
The craft room chairs are two old metal kitchen chairs, leftovers from the 50s, I think. The seat cushions need a major overhaul 'cause one of my cats (the one who's gone on to his reward now) used to like the feel of vinyl under his claws, bless 'im. I have new cushions, new batting, new vinyl, and an electric staple gun. Just need to find time to do it before the end of this month rolls around.
I was thinking we didn't have a Freecycle group around here, but I just found one. I'll have to take a look.
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