12 Things - Thanksgiving Edition

It's Thanksgiving -- the time of year when, traditionally, people will go about saying what they're thankful for. I kind of hate that part of the holiday, but only because we should tell those that we're grateful for that we're grateful for them all the time, rather than just a specific time of year.

...Let me step off my soap box now.


This is my 12 Things About My Thanksgiving -- sort of like a list of things I love about this time of year. Autumn is, hands down, my favorite time of year -- especially in New England. The weather is cool and crisp and you know it's time to reap your harvest and batten down the hatches. It's when family bonding happens with a vengeance.


1) My dad's side of the family has a tradition of anonymously writing down what they're thankful for and putting it in a basket. The basket gets passed around the table and each person takes a turn reading someone else's thankful list. It's pretty darn awesome.

2) Cheese rolls. My nana started this one -- cheesy delicious wrapped in a crescent roll. But not just any crescent roll -- potato dough goodness.

3) I have never been able to make cheese rolls because I have absolutely no skill when it comes to baking bread. Yeast and I have agreed to see other people.

4) I am hosting my first Thanksgiving dinner this year. With The Boyfriend™. It makes me insanely happy.

5) I miss my family the most during this time of year -- which is just action packed full of getting together and enjoying the hell out of each other.

6) My Aunt Lis's house -- where we traditionally go for Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve -- always smells like fabric softener (though I don't think she uses the same brand all the time) and something else I can't quite put my finger on. The smell of her house is one I associate with love.

7) The smell of my gram's house is the one I most associate with "home." Her house smells like Palmolive dish soap, the basement (but the good basement smell) and her perfume -- which she almost never wears. Actually, I don't think my gram wears perfume -- she just smells that good all the time.

8) My gram can fart. Loudly. She giggles when she does it.

9) We know when it's time to leave when Gram starts getting to go bags ready. She does this even when we're not at her house.

10) I have never left my gram's house without a to go bag. Even if it's just a sandwich bag full of lollipops. The woman is a food pusher.

11) I love the eating holidays. The food pushing gene runs strong in me.

12) I can't eat most traditional Thanksgiving food because I'm allergic to it. That has not hindered my love for it though.

So, tell me. What are your 12 Things for this time of year?

Laundry and other lists (subtitle: don't bother reading this. It makes no sense)

Laundry piles up quickly in my house - even with one troll who insists wearing the same pair of white socks until they're a decided shade of dark brown. Load after load of laundry makes it's way to the garage (where the washer and drier live), very often finding its way back out, though sometimes not.

I'm not good about putting laundry away.

I might've mentioned once that I have a lot of weird food allergies (all poultry, eggs, bananas, avocados, cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower). Occasionally, I will convince myself that an allergy is all in my head and attempt to eat something on my allergy list.

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to give bananas another whirl, since that particular allergy showed up after my pregnancy with The Monkey, along with a temporary allergy to strawberries. I was amazed that I was able to enjoy a banana with no pain, and so tried it again the next day and the next day. It was a miracle! I was cured.... For about a week. Weekend before last, I ate a banana with my morning breakfast. About 20 minutes later my belly was decidedly NOT happy and five more minutes after that I threw up.

Side note: throwing up when you have gallbladder issues is NOT fun. Hurts like a sonofabitch.

I didn't know if it was the vitamins that I added to my regimen or the banana made me toss up the contents of my digestive tract, so I decided to give a banana another whirl today. Five minutes after I finished my last bite, my tongue started itching. Five minutes after that, my throat got scratchy and ten minutes later, I found myself upchucking in the bathroom at work.

This was weird, because my allergies usually just caused gastrointestinal issues (severe pain), not the itchy, hive response.

So, note to self...

It just occurred to me how absolutely insane it is that I'm blogging about vomiting. Really, does anyone care? Screw it... It's my blog. If you don't want to read about vomit and, potentially, pterodactyls (which I mention only because I can spell that word without the need of spell check), then you should probably mosey on over to another, different blog.

Anyway...

So, this latest incident has underscored the point that, despite the annoyance factor of having to ask, "does this have.... In it? I'm allergic to... " or my friends having to find creative ways to cook for me, I really need to honor the restrictions in my body.

Not for nothing, but weird food allergies are not fun, though they are interesting. Who'd have thought avocado is in every damn thing?

So moving on...

This blog is starting to resemble a Chuck Pahalunik novel(in that I'm just stringing together a bunch of random thoughts completely unrelated to each other. Not I. The way that I think I'm a literary genius better than everyone else, when I'm actually not).

The Boyfriend™ is going to be home soon and while I'm legitimately home sick, I kind of want him to come home to at least partially cleaned house, but I'm feeling lazy...and nostalgic for my home town. I wish upon wish that I was able to be even a fraction of the woman my aunt Deb is, or www.SouleMama.com is. I really want to live those lives. Dammit...I will!

And this blog is a complete waste, but I'm gonna post it anyway.