A 2020 Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was a bit weird this year, but a few things happened that were interesting. The night before as I was baking pie and prepping for everything else I also finished a book I've been reading since the pandemic began:

Very well-written and information dense, sometimes a tad bit stodgy, and constantly surprising. Because the author is very smart and not especially interested in catering to the reader, probably not for anyone but an unwavering history buff like me. It's a bit like auditing a college class on Scottish influence on the rest of the world, particularly America. And speaking of pie:

Behold the sugar pumpkin we had to go to six different markets before we could find it. Everyone at the first five markets looked at me as if I were crazy when I asked for one. One young clerk didn't know you could use an actual pumpkin to make fresh pumpkin pie. Ah, youth. You're going to starve when my generation dies.

While I was cooking Edward called me out onto the porch to see what Nature had put up for us as Thanksgiving decoration overnight.

It really was pretty. The nicest webs are spun by these little tiny crab spiders no bigger than your pinkie fingernail.

We invited Katherine's boyfriend to join us for dinner, but otherwise asked everyone else to skip us this year as Covid is raging here and Edward is still recovering a bit from his bout with the flu. Boyfriend ended up cancelling on us, so it was just dinner for three. Nice, simple and quiet.

Well, except that one moment. Ha.

Comments

Maria Zannini said…

Why do I get the feeling Edward is a real character? :D

I found the seed for Sugar Pumpkins and will definitely try them next year. I had planned on growing pumpkins anyway for the animals, but now I'll keep a few back for pies as well.

Thanks!

Glad to hear you had such a nice Thanksgiving.

November 28, 2020 at 9:19 AM

Downsizing

This was my fabric stash once I sorted everything -- 22 full bins. I spent a day taking out and boxing up what I could part with, with the goal of trying to reduce it by half, so I'd have 11 bins. I was very strict with myself, and removed everything that for one reason or another I was sure I wouldn't be able to use. This is what I ended up with -- 12 bins of fabric that I'm keeping. It's not quite half, but close enough. Half of what I took out went to a local quilter friend, a school and Goodwill. These four tightly-packed bins will be going to the local quilting guild once I make arrangements with them for a drop-off place. I am relieved and a little sad and now determined to control my impulses to thrift more fabric. I don't want to do this again, so until I use up six bins, I can't for any reason bring any new fabric into the house.

In Progress

I promised myself I would show you the good, bad and ugly of my cleaning this year. This is what it looks like when you dump thirty years' worth of stashed fabric on the floor -- and oy, what a pain in the butt to pick up again! This is what it looks like after it's been sorted, folded and placed in containers, which took me about a week. Now the hard part is to downsize my stash by at least half, I think (that's my goal, anyway.) I've already e-mailed the president of the local quilting guild, a local friend who is a quilter, and a public school art teacher I know to see if I can donate some of the excess to them. The rest will go to Goodwill. Already I've reduced my vintage textiles from two bins to one, and my scraps from three bins to one. It's probably the hardest clean-out I've done, which is why I saved it until last. I know I have too much fabric, more than I can use in my lifetime -- but at the same time, I love it. So I have to

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.

Valerean

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