Today ends the four day Thanksgiving weekend bonanza. The house is a little worse for wear but my spirits are soaring higher than they have in quite a while.
My brother drove up from Virginia on Wednesday and spent two days with us. We weren't very productive except for making Thanksgiving dinner on Friday but it was a nice relaxing two days just getting to talk and hang out. It's been a long time since we got to spend quality time together. I couldn't be more proud of how far he's gone and how successful he is. He's done so well in the Navy.
Thursday we did dinner at the in-laws. Quick and dirty and no screaming matches. Hopefully Christmas will go as smoothly. Then on Friday my in-laws and Tom and Beth came to our house and my Mom came down with my grandmother and aunt and uncle from NY and we had Thanksgiving 2.0. For my second big-ish dinner ever it went shockingly well. I brined my turkey again (which is my secret to a slamming juicy turkey) but didn't do enough research on using a brined turkey to make gravy. It was quite salty because I used the drippings but I thought it was still tasty. Next time I'll roast up some wings and make a separate dripping pan for gravy.
Jim and I slept in Saturday and then he let me have a fun girly shopping day. We hit up Goodwill, Savers, Michael's and then I stopped in at the mall and got a few pretty things at Lane Bryant and Torrid. We thought about seeing Breaking Dawn but the mall was a zoo and I was anxious to get home and let the dog out so maybe next week.
I was super excited to find a small console table at Goodwill for 24 bucks. Someone painted it black and eventually I'd love to sand it down and repaint it but for now it fits and is replacing our wobbly wicker end table. It gives us more room to put stuff on top plus it has storage!! Yay!
Eventually I'll clean up the house and drag the rest of the holiday decorations out and I'll take some pictures but until then I hope everyone else had a great holiday!
