Thanksgiving Weekend

What a full 4 days and I still feel like I could use 2 more days to get a few more things in order. Wednesday I worked 'till 5:00 and did last minute shopping in White Center for the Thanksgiving feast. I was looking for mint. I went to the 'Dollar Bag Market', or 'Triangle Market'; those are my names for this Korean run grocery that I like but I don't know the real name of the store. Anyway, I did not find mint but I found a beautiful 16 ounce bag of fresh basil grown in Hawaii for $1.99. I had already bought Duvall, Washington grown basil for $3.99 at Safeway but I could not pass up a good deal so I bought the $1.99 basil too and ended up making pesto in addition to all the other food prep I did for Thanksgiving. So where did I find mint? Well, I went on to the Heng Heng Market - no mint, and then on to the New Angkor Watt Market and there I found mint in a narrow aisle where I got help from a man who laboriously picked dead and wilted looking leaves from the many boxes of herbs on the floor. Now do I really want to know how I can be charged 49 cents for mint that would cost me 3 times as much at Safeway? I got the mashed potatoes cooked and into a casserole, the salad greens washed, two desserts baked and the turkey washed and patted dry the night before. In the morning I rubbed the turkey with fresh rosemary from a friend's yard and sage that I picked in my own garden, added a little salt, pepper, onion and celery and presto! Ready for roasting. The Kornowskes came at 1:00 bearing more to add to the feast, Valerie's delicious crab dip, chipotle cranberry sauce, and a pie made with a pumpkin from their garden. It was all delicious and was all the sweeter 'cause Chris washed the dishes! Then we ate dessert and played dominoes till 10:30. I stayed up till 2:00 in the morning adding photos to my Flickr account and reading blogs.
Friday morning I slept later than I intended but still managed to hit a few 'Door Buster' sales at Southcenter Mall. I also went to Fry Electronics and got a card reader to use at school and then I went to Wal-Mart to get some school photos printed; not my favorite e place to patronize but the cheapest for digital photo printing. The traffic was horrendous and a slight drizzly rain did not make it any easier. I know it is hard for many of you to imagine me going mall shopping on the Friday after Thanksgiving; I am NOT a big shopper. You know those bumper stickers that say 'Born to Shop'.....I can NOT relate to that. But I do like ticking things off a list, and I certainly did that on Friday. On Saturday I raked the lower backyard, had a great workout in the weightroom of the Y, talked all together too briefly with my mom and dad, met with my teaching partner at Starbucks in Gatewood and we wrote up our PGG (Professional Growth Goals; a necessary piece of drudgery),
went shopping for MORE gifts in Olde Burien, rented a dolly at Tool Center and coaxed Chris into helping me move the TV to the downstairs (Do YOU know how long I have wanted to do that??), fixed and delivered dinner for the homeless women at Hospitality House, went out for a drink with Chris at a new establishment in Burien called The Tin Room and then fell into bed by 10:30, exhausted.
This morning I went to church, then back at home I vacuumed and washed floors and walls in the living room before moving furniture to accommodate the new spacious look; now that the enormous TV is downstairs. Then I trimmed the lavender, and moved deck plant to the garden shed (it is supposed to get down to 30 tonight), and moved the urn in the shade garden up to the deck. Big surprise; the two goldfish I had put in the water below the sedges and rushes I had in the urn (theory being that they eat mosquito larvae), are STILL alive. I now have them in a vase of water in the downstairs window. It was such a lovely day today, warm enough for even bees to be buzzing around the few hanging geraniums on the garden shed and competing with the hummingbirds (2 females and a male winter here) for sugar water.
Of course, calling Anna Rae is always our BIG Sunday event. She sang with her choir group at a recital this weekend. I was a little disappointed in that she did not save the program and the only 2 songs she told me that they sang were the gospel songs Amen and Go Tell It on The Mountain. I think she got to sing a bit of a solo part but I am not sure just what. Last year at this time she was starting rehearsals for Burien Live Theatre's Christmas production. I am glad we bought the CD of her performance as I won't be hearing her 'live' this season; that is something I am sure to miss. She is looking forward to having Andy, a Vashon student who is also on exchange in Italy, visit her next weekend. For a while there we thought it might not happen because there was miscommunication and her host parents thought Andy was a girl which he is NOT. Anyway we had to write an email to ok the visit, as I suppose so did Andy's parents and Rotary Club. Meanwhile, I am eager to hear her reaction to a very special box I packed and sent off to her about a week ago. Do I say it enough; WE MISS HER SO MUCH!