Thanksgiving 2008

I am thankful for flexible friends. :)

Earlier in the Thanksgiving week, it turned out that Daniel's schedule changed, again, so he would have to work over Thanksgiving (and not even a normal shift; he'd have overnight duty. Egh, the poor guy takes it really well, I am fairly certain it sucks).

So, I was still planning on having Kris and Randy, and maybe Joanna, over for Thanksgiving. Monday, I went and bought all the food I was going to need to cook - a large turkey breast, sausage, ham steak, prosciutto, sage, etcetera.

Tuesday, I received an email and call from Kris, that they were inviting me to come with them to her mom's boyfriend, Larry's, house in Auburn (south of Seattle). Since I was going to Daniel's Wednesday after working out, I hightailed it back to the grocery store, and was able to return everything I bought on Monday, except for the prosciutto, which I had ordered specially cut from the deli section. (This is what I call "customer service", by the way, although I had invented a great story that Boeing was sending me to England for testing on Thanksgiving morning, since the Brits didn't celebrate Thanksgiving...)

I ended up making flourless chocolate / ancho chile cupcakes. The only recipe modifications I made were to use curry powder in lieu of the ancho chile. Here is a shot of them, resting at Larry's pre-dinner. (I used plain whipped cream, to great success.) Note: the marbled cupcakes were just not thoroughly mixed with the melted chocolate that gets folded in. Beautiful, though!

I should mention that Larry is very into motorcycles, Harleys specifically. He currently owns five bikes. Here's a shot of the ones in the garage:

And here is a shot of the still-steaming turkey, fresh from the oven:

A delightful dinner was had, and we attempted to watch "Wall-E", since Larry and Ginger (Kris' mom) had just bought it, but his TV's sound was on the fritz. I think Kris and Randy got me home by 7 PM. A relatively restful, stress-free Thanksgiving! :)

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Daniel came over on Friday morning, after he got off work, and we had a lovely time of it. Basically, we sat around, read a lot, watched some TV (disc 1 of "Tripping the Rift", a quasi-naughty CGI cartoon that was on the Sci-Fi channel late at night a few years ago), and I knit while he surfed the Interwebs or had a nap. :) Sometimes, that is the most fun of all - being lazy! (Especially since we don't indulge in it that often).

By Saturday evening, I was able to start the yoke of my Wisteria sweater. You can kind of see the bell shape the knitting is starting to take on in the following shot:

He did make me put it down while we watched "Iron Man" last night, though. :) (Although he was nice and let me finish the few stitches on the round I was working on before he turned the lights off).

I had a nice time knitting a few rounds on the ferry this morning (at 0620...since, yes, Daniel had duty again today). I love the early morning ferries on the weekend, only because they are so empty and quiet, other than the obligatory safety announcements. I can knit and I don't have to put on my iPod to drown out other passengers.

After I got home, I had pilates, then I came back (eventually) and got to work on making some pumpkin curry cupcakes for a second Thanksgiving dinner that started earlier tonight, and is hosted by my friends Chris & Melinda. I was only around for an hour, but they were gracious and let me take a "to-go" plate of food, so I could get home in time to wind down and wake up on time tomorrow. (The turkey is very good, by the way!)

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I also decided to show progress on my cashmere sock. You can see I'm well up the leg, after having to rip it out to where the heel gusset ended. I would like to finish these before I go home for Christmas. :)

That's what I've got, for now! I hope everyone had an equally restful, or entertaining, weekend!