Prepared In Every Way

We’re only ten days from Thanksgiving. My sister and her husband are coming to visit for the long weekend and I’ve already started doing some sprucing up around the house. Having company is always a good time to reassess the damage at home. Working from home, it seems that I put blinders on to what’s going on around me. My sister could care less what my house looks like when she gets here, so she gets invited more often than others!

On Friday I got into organizational mode and cleared out the spare room so she wouldn’t get hurt on any extra kid-friendly stuff that might be lying around. Yesterday, I pulled a can of paint out from under the sink so I could touch things up in the kitchen. We installed a new dishwasher about a year ago and I hadn’t noticed until I did my survey that this dishwasher doesn’t stick out as far as the old one did. That means there’s a patch of white paint glaring at me every time I open the dishwasher door. I noticed that I have a large picture leaning up against the wall from two years ago when we painted. That makes me think of my friend, Laurie, who removed the backs of her chairs to fix them. A couple of years went by without replacing the backs, and by then it was just a matter of principle. People would come to her home, notice the backless chairs, and ask when she was going to finish them. Once it got to be such a conversation starter, I think she made the conscious decision to never replace them. Doing so would have meant caving in to what the conventional person would do. Laurie passed away a few years ago, and I’ll bet anything, those chairs are just the way she left them.

On second thought, maybe we should go visit my sister instead! If not, maybe I should stop looking for things to fix before she gets here. I don’t want to do a complete renovation and wear myself out so that I don’t enjoy the visit!

With all of the house-fixing aside, I have actually started working on my Thanksgiving menu.

I’ve already bought the turkey. Found one for 26 cents a pound at Kroger, so a 22 pound bird only cost me about $6.00. Now I just need to schedule a reminder so that I remember to put it in the refrigerator on Sunday so it’ll be thawed out and ready to cook next Thursday.

I brought a box of apples home from the orchard last week and decided today that I’m going to peel and core them to make apple pies for Thanksgiving. No Thanksgiving meal is complete without pumpkin pie, but since I need to find something to do with these apples, pie sounds like a good idea to me. I wonder who I can recruit to help me peel them all.

With turkey and dessert, what else do you need? At our house, I’m the only one who likes fresh cranberries, and I’ll prepare them just for myself. My daughter thinks you always have to have stuffing – Stove Top – not homemade – so we’ll have stuffing. My son always brings green bean casserole. It’s his specialty. My sister likes sweet potatoes, or yams, with all the marshmallow goo melted on the top. Maybe, since she’s making the effort to fly here to be with me, I’ll attempt to make that for her. I think everyone agrees that mashed potatoes with homemade turkey gravy is the best. At least we have one thing we can all agree on.

Whatever you’re doing for Thanksgiving, it’s a big enough day that it requires some planning. If you’re sharing a meal with others – whether you’re having them over to your place, or going to theirs – you might want to sit down and do some thinking about it. If you prepare ahead of time, you’re more likely to avoid last-minute disasters and short tempers. Prepare for the day now so you can relax and enjoy the time with those you care about.

This year, in memory of Laurie, I might just let that picture stay right where it is.

Now where can I put that note to remind me to thaw out the bird?

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