Hump Day! Hooray!

Halfway through the week, and I've not succumbed yet - I am still afloat, still paddling around, and still swimming bravely through the pond to the other side.

I took off work on Monday, too sick with this wretched sinus cold to even contemplate another sales contract. This particular virus comes with a wicked headache, kind of like suffering from a cheap champagne hangover for days on end. My headache was so bad on Saturday morning that I was throwing up....not fun. I've still got a bit of a lingering headache, but nothing I can't live with.

We're starting to contemplate Thanksgiving at our house, and I'm making grocery lists and cleaning schedules. It's my firm opinion that everyone should host dinner parties at their houses periodically, if for no other reason that it forces them to clean house thoroughly once in a while! This will seriously be the first time I've deep-cleaned since the graduation party....not a nice thing to contemplate! It'll be a traditional dinner for the most part: turkey, stuffing, potatoes, sweet potatoes and cranberry relish. We'll skip the nasty green bean casserole with fried onions, opting instead for fresh green beans with almonds. I'm going to try a swanky hors d'oeuvre for the shrimp crowd: lemon wasabi shrimp in toasted wonton cups. Found the recipe on the Byerly's web site and thought I'd give it a whirl. Something besides plain shrimp plonked on a platter with a bowl of cocktail sauce! Still trying to think of something hot for Lydia and I, the non-shrimp eaters of the crowd. Dessert will also be untraditional: lemon meringue pie, chocolate cheesecake and mince meat tarts. No pumpkin pie unless George and Joyce bring one, none of us really like it. The mince tarts are for me, I have always missed them.

I'm just squeezing in this posting between my bath and dinner time. We're having a chicken noodle casserole for dinner. Since you've been gone, I've bought a miniature square casserole pan at IKEA, just big enough for four rational servings, rather than making a casserole in the huge 13x9 pan which was always too big for four. We ended up with huge amounts of leftovers that we just threw away. Now I make two casseroles at a time, freeze one and bake the other. Almost no leftovers, much more frugal.

Hope your treasure box arrives tomorrow, I'm dying to hear your reaction!!! Good luck getting through the last two days of work before you take off for Connecticut,

Love,
Mom