The Raft

I once had a friend call me an M&M. "You have a hard shell but you are soft & sweet on the inside."
Cute, huh? She and I went through a lot together right off the bat. We met, fell in love, dealt with a crazy friend, stuck together through it and came out the other side in an actual friendship. And I do truly enjoy her and love her to death.

You should join Freecycle. I unloaded gobs of crap from my basement storage room this week. Good crap. But crap we didn't want and wouldn't throw away. Love Freecycle. And love having space for more crap. New crap that I will love as much as I loved the old crap at first.

Today I was eating marinated mushrooms, roasted garlic and mozzarella balls. Leftovers from the party. Then, I went into the living room to talk to Abby. She walked right up to my face, took a deep breath and said "Whattayoo stink like? I want some."
How freakin' cute is she? My girl loves good food. No chicken nuggets in this house. Unless I hand bread and fry them, that is.
And she ate the mozz... not a fan of mushrooms ("they slimy, mama") and I didn't offer her whole garlic. But she loved the mozz.
One night, I was in a rush and made a frozen pizza. That kid looked at me and said "I do not like Pizza. I want steak, mom." I said "Abs, most kids love pizza. Could eat pizza every day. Mommy doesn't have any steak to cook nor do we have time to cook it." She thought about this and responded with "There's steak at the store, mommy. I'll go with you."
Nice, huh? She was willing to keep my company while I went out to buy her a steak.
She did eat the pizza that night. She is pretty easy as far as understanding reason and doing as she's told (most of the time). And we did go to the store the next day and I probably did make her steak. Why not? I don't want a chicken nugget/buttery pasta eater. I like that she likes good food. So do we.

For Thanksgiving I am making "Sweet Potato Mallow", Brocolli, Pumpkin Pie, Apple Pie and Cheesecake. I wanted to dress up the Pumpkin Pie a little but my mom is a crazy old woman who doesn't like her menu F'd with.

Each year both sides of our families try to think of a way to "gift" each other without spending a lot of money and capturing the Christmas Spirit.
We have done the Picture Swap (wrap a framed picture of yourself, swap it and walk away with framed pic of a loved one); Handmade Gifts (most of us hated this one); Chinese Grab Bag (we all wound up with wine - go figure) and last year we did this REALLY GREAT thing where we drew names and had to present that person with a little "ode" to them, why we love them etc... and include something for them to walk away with. I got my father-in-law and talked about what an excellent role model he was for my husband and a loving Papa to my kids etc etc and framed a small collage of pics with my little speech. I loved that. And I loved the one my husband's aunt did for me. She wrote me a poem and framed it with little scrap-booky charms and glitter and stuff. Very cute.
Don't ask why we're not doing that again, I really want to! But everyone else wants to think of something new. What's wrong with doing stuff we like, why are we always trying to TOP everything else?!
Anyway - I am on the hunt for something that my husband's side will be satisfied with and that my side will actually do... (that won't happen, I'll just buy gifts.)

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!
xoxoxo