It has been a crazy week to say the least. I feel this time of the year I am stretched very thin. Since buying our home in 2012 we have hosted Thanksgiving. The first year I did everything myself for 20 family members. It turned out great, but I was prepping for over a week. Last year, I had everyone make and bring something to help with the stress. Coming from a large family, each one likes to comment to me “don’t let her make that nasty ….”, but they like to make it so I have a hard time saying no. We had way too many left overs, and the raccoons ate great for a few nights. This year, I was hoping to tailor what my family would bring. It started with my crazy Aunt who raised me. “What would you like to bring to my house for Thanksgiving this year?” Her response was classic. “I cannot make anything hot because I like to make my own Turkey and my oven will be occupied. I can make coleslaw.” Ok so now we are going to have a Fourth of July covered dish. Great! “Can you make biscuits?” She replies “I can buy a pack of Hawaiian rolls.” No problem I thought, my grandmother will make something good. My grandmother has had a bad cut on her ankle for months, and due to her arthritic medications it will not heal. So she decided to stop 3 years of progress on the arthritis medications to help the wound heal. Needless to say she has been in the hospital 3 times this week between her unsealing wound, and pain I cannot begin to imagine. I will not ask her to make anything. This is also the first year my in-laws will join us. My mother in-law was always running the cash office for Kohl’s and had to be in Black Friday at 2am. She would go to sleep by 4pm on Thanksgiving night. I cannot ask her to make or bring anything. My mother currently lives with me so she will be already assisting me in the prep. With no one willing to offer, and me not wanting to ask for assistance, I have decided to do it all by myself.
The Menu:
Turkey with stuffing-Turkey will be brined in citric fruits, salt and water 4 days in the fridge while it thaws. Stuffing will be homemade with cranberries.
Ham-will be marinated in brown sugar, honey, maple syrup and water for 3 days while it thaws in the fridge.
Sweet Potatoes-Baked with brown sugar, maple syrup, nutmeg, cinnamon and topped with marshmallows. A diabetic’s guilty pleasure!
Mashed potatoes-Just plain with butter, milk, and chives
Mac and cheese-Baked with Cheddar and Munster cheeses, topped with bread crumbs for crispiness.
Desserts-All Homemade
Pumpkin Pie
Sweet Potato Pie
Carrot Cake-It’s two of my uncles birthdays and my daughter’s a few days later. As we have decided to play hooky for my daughter’s birthday to visit the aquarium, we will not be doing a big party. So we will celebrate all 3 on Thanksgiving.
Oh and coleslaw and Hawaiian rolls. This is my stressor over the next 2 weeks and will continue until I have cleaned the kitchen Thanksgiving night. I will keep everyone posted on how it goes.
Class:
Professor M. started our class off in a great way. He shared his daughter’s birth story. I love birth stories, babies and well most kids in general. He knew with us missing class last week we were behind, and I could sense his hesitancy in assigning the amount of work he did. We needed to get it done so we do not fall far behind. We spoke about topic sentences, needing a main idea, making a claim, and providing support. This is how each section should be laid out in our Room For Debate paper. We spoke about our sources and creditability. Some people may believe everything on the internet, especially Facebook, is true. Well unfortunately, it is not and we need to use reliable, creditable sources or it makes our papers as respectable as if there were no sources backing our topic. We touched on fallacies and making overall statements. Mr. M spoke about weasel words to use like seems, plausible..ect. Our sections were explained in a sandwich metaphor. The top of the bun was to consist of a signal phrase, the meat of the sandwich was to give source material, and the bottom bun is to respond to oppositions of the idea. There were parts that we touched on about citing appropriately so we are not plagiarizing. I still do not know how to cite or create a bibliography. I have been working on educating myself in the different formats, as I have never used them before, and I am still lost. This is defiantly something I need to strengthen as myself and co-authors move towards our second draft. I am lucky enough to be with two classmates to share our ideas in co-authoring a paper with. As I said in my home life I am already stretched thin with time, and this week I spent a lot of time working with Art and Kylie on our collaboration. Kylie created a google doc and it saved us all a commute time of being able to work and interact in real time. Thanks Girly!!! We have argued topics, agreed, then completely disagreed with our own previous statement. I feel like the work we put in on this paper could actually become a solution starting point on gun control, and begin moving more towards the middle as a whole country. Not "I am Republican so leave my guns alone" or, "I am Democratic guns are destroying our children", but a common middle ground on background checks and mental health evaluations that could and should be put into legislation. As we did not have class last week the three of us agreed to write the paper by ourselves and meet to fit them into each other and create a collaborated paper. Once we read each other’s papers we knew we were stuck. Each paper was taken from a different perspective and backed by different sources. At that point we needed to pretty much tear up our papers and get the gun control topic sized down. The topic in itself is so controversial and has so many avenues. As Professor M heard us discussing, had to remind the three of us we are not writing a book. It was duly noted, and we chose to narrow our sights on background checks and mental health screens. If you have a moment read the paper it is compelling.
Until next time folks!!!!