Eat a Cranberry Day, Thanksgiving Day, November 23rd

Eat a Cranberry Day
Just one. Don't eat any more, or you might ruin the day.

On a personal note, checkout the pecan pies of there. The are both the same recipe but baked using different techniques.

1 1/2 cup toasted & chopped pecans (Must be toasted about 10 min @ 300 degrees)
4 Tablespoons Melted Butter
1/cup-3/4 cup brown sugar (accordong to taste)
1 cup Pure Maple Syrup
1 Tablespoon (that's right 1 (one) Tablespoon) of Pure Vanilla Extract
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
Cream butter with sugar at high speed to get all the sugar lumps out, add vanilla and salt. Mix until very well mixed. Add eggs one by one each whipping one into the sugar misture. Brown your crust at of set at 275 for 10 minutes. Place nuts in bottom of pie pan, pour sugar mixture over the top of pie. Now, you can bake at 300 for one hour, and have the lighter pie effect, or at 400 for 30-45 minutes for the darker effect.

It will be very interesting (for me at least) to see how they taste since turned out so differently in appearance. I guess I will have to wait until tomorrow.

Happy Thanksgiving to all and to all a good night!

Should I Stay or Should I Go...

-Round trip cost to drive to Portland, OR from Pleasant Grove, UT ......$140
or
-Round trip cost to fly to Portland, OR, from Salt Lake City, UT .....$292
& seven days airport parking ......$45
-Four used vacation days that I can save up for the forever-planned-but-never-taken trip to NYC.
+++++I will see my niece. (And my brothers and parents and aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents.)
+++I will go to the beach.
+I can shop at Lush.

Or,

+++No driving through snowy mountain passes.
+++No crowded airports.
++I get to make yummy pies.
+I won't miss extra work because I am exhausted from driving, or from airport delays, or from missing my flight. (I am a bad line-time-estimator.)
--I will miss the best sales b/c I will feel obligated to work the day after Thanksgiving, b/c right now there are only 3 people staffing the office.
+I might be able to juggle two or more Thanksgiving dinners, b/c I have been invited to several.
+ I get to spend a day with the people I love in Utah.

November is...

I like November. Mostly, because I like Thanksgiving. But, I just remembered that I forgot to blog about November... oh my! Talk about Absent-minded!

The name November comes from the Latin "novem" which is the Latin for the nine. The moons for November are the "Snow Moon," the "Moon of the Falling Leaves." In Finnish, November is called marraskuu, meaning "month of the dead."

During the month of November we are able to experience the Leonids meteor shower. This year there will not be a moon to interfere with viewing, if the weather is mild, it might be a good opportunity to enjoy November.

The weatherlore for November states "if the geese on St. Martin's Day (November 11) stand on ice, they will walk in mud at Christmas;" and "if the first snow sticks to the trees, it foretells a bountiful harvest;" "if sheep feed facing downhill, watch for a snowstorm;" "thunder in November indicates a fertile year to come;" "if there be ice in November that will bear a duck, there will be nothing thereafter but sleet and muck." So, be very wary of the geese, sheep, and ducks this month.

November is...National Adoption Awareness Month, AIDS Awareness Month, Alzheimer's Disease Month, Aviation History Month, National Beard Month, Celebrate Empty Nester Month, Child Safety Protection Month, COPD Awareness Month, Diabetes Awareness Month, Diabetic Eye Disease Month, Epilepsy Awareness Month, Family Stories Month, Family Caregivers Month, Good Nutrition Month, Home Care & Hospice Month, Hunger Awareness Month, I Am So Thankful Month, Impotency Month, Inspirational Role Models Month, International Micro-finance Month, International Drum Month, Latin American Month, Learn Chinese Month, Life Writing Month, Lung Cancer Awareness Month, Marrow Awareness Month, Military Family Appreciation Month, Model Railroad Month, National Novel Writing Month aka NaNoWriMo (write a 500,000 word novel during the month of November), Peanut Butter Lovers Month, Pet Cancer Awareness Month, Pomegranate Month, Prematurity Awareness Month, Real Jewelry Month, Red Ribbon Month, Roasting Month, Scholarship Month, Slaughter Month, Sleep Comfort Month, Stamp Collecting Month, Vegan Month

November's flower is the chrysanthemum and November's birthstone is the citrine or yellow topaz.

Thankful Leaves

Back when I was a silly college-freshman, I started this thing during the month of November and every person that came and visited my apartment had to write what they were thankful for on a construction paper leaf. Initially, the intention with these leaves was to rebel against the white-painted cinder-block walls of the dormitory, but soon my roommates and I discovered that we just liked sitting down and thinking about what we were thankful for. It quickly became fun to tease all the boys who came to our apartment into sharing what they were thankful for as well, and they liked doing it too.

By Thanksgiving time, all of our kitchen walls and ceiling were covered, and we even had some leaves trailing down our hallway. My roommates and I had cut out over 1000 leaves, and we had spent hours just sitting in our kitchen reading them out loud to each other and talking about them.

As Novembers have come and gone, I have gotten out of the habit of doing "Thankful Leaves" and I miss them. I know one of my former roommates has adapted the idea and makes a thankful tree, where her kids tie what they are most thankful for onto a tree that sits at the dinner table during the month of November. It's a very cute tree, and more house-friendly than the "Thankful Leaves." But, I have found that if I don't think about what I am thankful for every day, then I am not ready for Thanksgiving. And Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays.

But anyway, just wanted to give a little bit of an explanation why I am going to be blogging a bit every day for the next few weeks about what I am thankful for.