Stuffed

I meant to write the obligatory Thanksgiving post before travelling down to my parents' place on Thanksgiving, but time got away from me. And then I was going to post from my parents' house, but once again, time got away from me. Oh well...

All of my family was together at Thanksgiving (with the exception of a a step- niece and nephew), making 19 at dinner. Long gone are the days when Mom did all the cooking. Now everyone brings a couple of dishes and the hosting family provides the turkey. I brought macaroni and cheese. It's not exactly a traditional Thanksgiving dish, but everyone loves it. Mom's oyster dressing was excellent. We also had green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, corn pudding, and mashed potatoes. Laurie made an excellent pumpkin pie and Cindy's chocolate pie was delicious. And Barbara's apple tart? There wasn't enough of it. I overate, as usual, because everything tasted so good.I admit it, I'm a taste junkie.

Everyone had a great time. It was nice to see my brothers again. They've grown to be outstanding fathers and wonderful men. Who would know that these are the same brothers who destroyed dissected performed "dental work" on one of my dolls just to see what made it cry? They are truly awesome.

Tom and I spent Friday helping Mom and Dad around the house. Tom chopped kindling wood and sawed up some downed trees and I helped straighten up the house. Carl and Laurie brought over a big pot of shrimp creole for dinner, along with the leftover pie from Thanksgiving. Their three kids kept everyone amused with their antics.

And of course, there was knitting. I worked on the Counterpoised shawl and managed to complete two repeats of chart 2. If you count the number of times I had to tink and reknit, I could probably have the shawl done by now. Row 7, for some reason, is my nemesis row.



See that stitch marker a couple of rows down? It marks a dropped stitch. I'm not sure that I can successfully work the stitch back in, so there's more tinking in my future.

I wasn't the only one knitting.



Mom is knitting, too! Despite having not picked up the needles for a good many years, she's doing a great job. Her tension is even and she remembers the knitting lingo. Way to go, Mom!

We drove back yesterday, stopped by the house long enough to feed the cat, then headed up to Rockville for a second Thanksgiving at my mother-in-law's house. My MIL doesn't like to cook, but despite that, she made the best sweet potato casserole. The sweet potatoes were whipped and flavored with orange. The turkey was good, too, and she did something that even we don't do. She butterflied it! It was perfect. Once again, Larry outdid himself and made a stellar pecan pie. True to form, I ate too much. Oh well...we'll be back to our normal eating this week.

Happy knitting!