Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!
(I really need to find a store that stocks these, posthaste)

I am about to start making my contributions for the feast. I am making a caramel party mix, which is loosely based on this recipe from allrecipe.com.  By loosely, I mean I follow the recipe for the caramel part and just shove a whole bunch of snack/ cereal bits into the largest mixing bowl I have. No measuring necessary. Today's version has Crispix cereal along with a generic brand of corn chex cereal, bugles, small pretzels (Tom Sturgis's Little Ones), and some mixed nuts. I am also going to try making honey cornbread muffins, which will be made from this recipe found on the Food Network's page, unless I find another recipe that looks better (you would think I had this worked out by now, wouldn't you?). Before you think our contributions to the feast are looking a little meager, I would point out that we are also bring two bottles of Riesling to the buffet table. Always a family favorite.

Let me just tell you, I had to fight for those two bottles too! There was a family blocking the aisle to the Moscato (my fall back choice in case the Riesling was all gone) and just as I was working my way past them to the Riesling, the mother told her youngest to go grab two bottles of Riesling she saw in the other aisle. Good thing her child was directionally challenged because there were only three bottles left on the shelf of my preferred brand. There is not much in this life as gratifying as beating a ten year old to the good stuff around the holidays, let me tell you.

Anyhow, I want to end this holiday post by telling you all that I am grateful for this year (you know, other than directionally challenge ten year olds). I am of course thankful for The Man. He is my rock, my comfort food, and my laughter and joy all rolled up into one bearded bundle of man. I am thankful that despite our living in sin (he's Catholic) these past ten years (we started dating ten years ago on Thanksgiving), his family thinks of me as family. I am thankful for our loving pibble, Seamus. He is an eighty pound plateful of pure love (with a side dish of ornery). And I am grateful for all my friends and family, both of the flesh and of the heart who have influenced my life these past forty-two years twenty-seven years (well, okay, I am not thankful for some of my flesh and blood family but you can't pick those, you just have to hope you don't carry the same DNA mutations that created them and smile and wave at family funerals when you see them).

I hope all who celebrate the holiday have much to be thankful for and those who must travel on the most traveled day of the year do so safely and with a modicum of road rage.

P.S. Check out this humorous blog about 5 ways you can ruin Thanksgiving