Breaking Tradition

When the family is big and the fridge is small, the days leading up to Thanksgiving dinner are lean.

It happens every year. I spend days, nights even, prepping for the feast. The fridge, stove, and oven are so taken up with holiday food, that there's nothing to eat the entire week prior to the holiday.

Lefty stomps around growling, "We ain't had nothing but maggoty bread for three stinking days," and Pixie's like, "Yeah. Why can't we have some meat?" And then I chase them all with a wooden spoon because they're never too old to spank, am I right?

But this year I'm changing things up. Don't tell anybody because then they'll expect it all the time, but I actually planned ahead. I wrote out a menu plan for, would you believe it, the whole week. We're going to have actual breakfasts, lunches and suppers every single day of the week, not just one big meal on Turkey Day. Now before you go being overly impressed, I'll admit it's mostly freezer to crockpot, and there will be mac and cheese involved. But still. This family's going to eat like Jeremy Renner, there won't be a famine before the feast this year.

Do you have bad traditions too? Break them. Be bold.

All the Holidays

What with the next eight weeks encompassing Veterans Day, Globally Organized Hug A Runner Day (aka G.O.H.A.R.D.), Thanksgiving, Cider Monday, Day of Lard, Winter Solstice, Christmas, a bunch more apocalypses, Whiners Day, Bacon Day, New Years, some famines, two college graduations, multiple family birthdays, and most importantly Bestie's anniversary, I already know there's no way I'll be able to keep up.

I'm just going to leave out the jack-o'-lanterns but with some tinsel garland and paper snowflakes tossed around them, and top them with angels, stars, graduation caps, and party hats.  I'll put bowties on Hunneypunkin and my life-size Jeremy Renner cardboard cutout.  We'll throw some turkey, stuffing, gravy, cranberries, and chestnuts in the blender for a holiday smoothie and I'll whip up one big apple pecan banana cream pumpkin chocolate mousse pie for dessert.

The soundtrack for the remainder of the year will be my YouTube playlist of holiday songs that Angel Doll, ever the unsuspected prankster, hacked and infiltrated with songs like Cotton Eyed Joe

All gifts will be pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters because I have a lot of spare change but all coins are rare now so they're special, like the driveway gravel Pixie brought in the house when she was little(r) and collected unique rocks.

Bestie and I will sit by the roaring fireplace with champagne glasses of eggnog to reminisce about precedented times, and all will continue to be well.

Full Mooniacal Halloweekend

One ought to expect the unexpected on a full moon Halloween Daylight Savings weekend, and this one did not disappoint.

There was a pack of dogs shattering dishes in a failed attempt to hijack the homemade chicken soup. We saw pretend zombies, with and without masks. We saw real zombies, with and without masks. There were late night angry drunk texts from my good friend (or whatever) Dromiquine, multiple light bulbs burning out all at once, and a howling cat strolling through the hallway at two in the morning.

There were also some successful firsts in baking, including a pumpkin cake roll and an eggless pumpkin pie, a fat batch of from-scratch chili, and lots of Darigold eggnog. We made a delicious punch with dry ice, carved pumpkins, stayed up late watching movies, and turned back most of the clocks but not all so that no one's ever sure what time it is exactly but nobody really cares because my life size Jeremy Renner cardboard cutout is hanging out with the jack-o'-lanterns and the hot cider is spiced and everything is happily ever after.

If You Fence Your Garden

With a fence around your garden, your dogs can't dig it up.  Your cats can hide there from the puppers.  Your pole beans, tomatoes, and cucumbers have something on which to climb.  The garden tools are less likely to walk away.

With a fence around your garden, it feels like a private getaway.  You can stow yourself in there and cultivate to your heart's content while the butterflies and hummingbirds flit around.

With a fence around your garden, there's some shelter from the wind.  Your life-size Jeremy Renner cardboard cutout can stand in the corner to keep you company with less chance of blowing over.  Your chard leaves might not get whipped to death.

Best of all, with a fence around your garden, you don't have to clean it out in the fall.  You turn a few chickens and goats in there and they do the work for you.  They'll even fertilize it for free.

Hunneypunkin Code

Because Hunneypunkin leaves for work at an unheavenly hour, he often leaves special requests in unspoken messages.

Occasionally I find a stick of his deodorant sitting on the kitchen counter. This is his way of asking me to add that to my shopping list.

If his flannel shirt is laid across my laptop, he's hoping to have a button sewn back on. His cellphone left on top of my phone indicates he'd like to have his plugged in once mine has finished charging.

Once in a while someone suggests that this practice is somehow a signal that he takes me for granted. I don't think so. Because I park the car in front of the shop door to inform him that this vehicle needs some attention. Hey, it works for us.

Last week he put a 'rona mask on my life-size Jeremy Renner cardboard cutout. I still don't know what that means.

Losing Interest in Everything Uninteresting

I'm so bored of apocalypses.

You?

Heard Jeremy Renner is putting out some new music, might check that out.

Weighing In on Ornamental Grasses

Let's set aside all the current world drama and talk about a subject that actually needs to be discussed: ornamental grasses.

What are the rules for ornamental grasses?

• house-height to grass-height ratio
• pairing with evergreens
• minimum/maximum circumference of a single stand of grass
  

Who decides whether a grass is ornamental or...whatever is the alternative to ornamental?

If I find a particular grass unattractive, does that make it non-ornamental?

Are ornamental grasses as low-maintenance as they are touted to be?

Have we collected statistics on how many people understand that low-maintenance doesn't mean no-maintenance?

Do folks who fail to low-maintain their low-maintenance ornamental grasses recognize that said failure results in their ornamental grasses becoming non-ornamental?

If an ornamental grass is planted near an unornamental home, does this upgrade the house or downgrade the grass?

How many ornamental grasses are too many ornamental grasses?

Allow these questions lead you into a deeper examination of the world of ornamental grasses, and next time we'll address other topics of importance such as mandolins, Jeremy Renner, and southern accents.