Happy Thankgiving!

Today has been very relaxing - it's just me and the Boy for dinner. L is with her family, my parents opted out - I'll go see them when my dad is feeling more up to par, but we all felt dinner would be more than he needed to deal with. Girlchild opted to stay up in Tally, since the drive up and down I-75 on this weekend can take 5 hours and drive anyone to road rage, and scares the crap out of her mother - I know she's an excellent driver, but she's not the one I'm worried about.

She and her friends are cooking turkey and the fixin's - I've taken to answering the phone with "Butterball Hotline." They have already learned the most important part of holiday entertaining - when the food is iffy, pour the wine liberally. She'll be home in a few weeks, I am not at all sorry that she opted out of the drive from hell, it's not worth it.

Meanwhile, I demonstrated that I am not fit to dispense holiday cooking advice to anyone. I baked a pie - a Mrs. Smith's, I don't do pie from scratch for two people, I'm not a masochist - and it took longer than the box said, at 65 minutes it was still a beverage. So that delayed starting the small turkey breast, which of course would delay dinner (the sides are done and just need to be warmed). So I'm looking at the clock and calculating that we'll be eating at 7, when I noticed the "Speed Cook" button on my stove. Uh, Catherine, you bought a convection oven, remember? Just shows you how often I bake anything - I do cook, but it's either on the stovetop or broiled or, most often, outside on the grill (I am Queen of the Grill). I had totally forgotten that this oven can speed cook. So the turkey breast is now traveling at Mach 1, and we are back on schedule to eat at 6:30.

Today was a lovely, relaxing day, and I have a lot to be thankful for this year. Happy decisions were made last night, I'll reveal the details in a few weeks, and I feel like life is finally really going to reach a new "normal" for all of us. May it be so.

I need to kick up the pace on my yarn stash reduction program, which means that this weekend will be spent, in part, in deep soul-searching and "Why the hell did I buy this?" analysis. In the interest of revisiting long-abandoned projects and getting them moving again, I picked up a sock I'd started, oh, 2 years ago? Plymouth Sockotta, photos to follow tomorrow, it's getting too dark already. I have moved right along on it, turning the heel while watching "ET" on USA and baking oyster dressing.

I haven't knitted a sock in two years. I was a sock nut for a while there, I worked on them steadily during my husband's cancer treatments - they were small and portable and, using a basic sock recipe, mindless. After he died I lost the urge to knit socks. Socks felt like bad karma. I just didn't want to make a sock. I guess enough time has passed because the urge came back, I remember why I loved them, it's instant gratification, it's useful in this climate, and they're just too cute. The Sockotta isn't self-patterning, it's just varigated, but I like the way the colors pool, they form a swirl that runs down the ankle and around the foot. I will wear them with my funky Kenneth Cole flats, and I'd wear them to the office. I will wear them with my jeans, I will wear them when I feel mean.... sorry, I felt Green Eggs and Ham there for a moment. Anyway, socks are fun, and I will be making many more of them now that the bad sock associations have faded. I'm so thankful.

I have a lot of sock yarn, but that's not the stash anguish, because of course sock yarn takes up little space. I could stuff all my sock yarn in a dresser drawer - and I have a TON of sock yarn (ebay, self medication, yadda yadda). It's the random yarn that I need to review and reconsider. I may start a Bossy Dog Garage Sale page, move my stash to your house, make me an offer, that sort of thing - though that would require more HTML time than I am usually willing to invest. I'll have to think about that after I review the inventory.

Tomorrow I am going to get totally crazy and go Christmas shopping. I know, it's sick, but the energy generated on the day after Thanksgiving puts me in a holiday mood. I've taken care of the most challenging giftees already - my Angel gifts and my parents - and from now on it's fun shopping. I am not knitting for anyone this year - or more correctly, I am knitting but it ain't for under the tree on Dec. 25th, it's for whenever it's done. Random gifts are the most fun, that's what I say.

So I'm feeling positive, happy and thankful this year. I hope you all are too.