A few highlights from the weekend!

Tuesday

I took Tuesday and Wednesday off from work for a memorial for a friend’s dad (who was our marriage officiant) in Kansas City. We got in late Monday night, had breakfast with Steven’s dad and brother Tuesday morning, went to the memorial and reception after, saw Steven’s dad for a bit Tuesday night, and left early Wednesday morning (5:50 am flight). Steven is so busy at work this time of year we weren’t initially sure we’d be able to go, but we’re both so glad we could.

The memorial was lovely. He accomplished so much and touched many people in his life. I felt sad, but very inspired, and so grateful we could see everyone in person.

Wednesday

When we got home Wednesday Steven went straight to work. I took a nap (it was sooooo good) then did some resining, made a fail pumpkin pie (more on that), and we ate dinner and watched While You Were Sleeping. The Popcast had recently done a deep dive on the movie and it made me want to watch it! And that kind of kicked off our Christmas movie kick for the weekend.

Thursday 

We had a chill morning (more resin, cinnamon rolls for breakfast) before heading to our friend’s house for Thanksgiving. But our friend (who was also at the memorial in Kansas City) didn’t feel well, so we stayed home and decided to make a Thanksgiving meal for dinner. Then Steven didn’t feel too well either, so he slept most of the afternoon and I only made the rolls that we had set out to rise for dinner. I spent a lot of the afternoon reading, then finishing From Scratch and painting. I tried the pumpkin pie I had made the day before to take to our friend’s and it never set because we used coconut whipping cream instead of coconut cream. I would have been so embarrassed if I’d tried to share it with anyone! It was edible and tasted good, but was more like pudding.

We watched two bad (for different reason) Christmas movies that night – Christmas with You and Surviving Christmas. Steven called his dad to make sure he felt okay (he did) and heard from a few more friends who were at the memorial that they didn’t feel well either. They all symptoms similar to food poisoning or maybe some short flu? Who knows. I didn’t get it (which makes me wonder if it’s something they all ate that I didn’t eat since I am vegan).

Alright, back to the regular format!

Friday

• The sun being out! Good for resin, and good for my soul.
• Our neighbor dropping off some books and chatting.
• A walk in the preserve.
• Getting a chai. Ugh, they didn’t have soy and I switched to almond and blah. Wah wah. I drove by the outlet mall on my way to Starbucks and it was INSANE. Cars parked everywhere, including places they should not be. Just seeing it gave me anxiety.
• A relaxing bath.
• Receiving a package from my friend Caitlin.
• Watching Love Actually and painting. We watched the deleted scenes for the first time ever and whoa… they are bad.
• Soup for dinner.
• Watching Elf and painting.

Saturday

• Breakfast sandwiches by Steven. He felt almost back to normal Saturday am.
• Getting our holiday decorations out. It’s a lot of work (we have 10 boxes and a bunch of other loose things) but it looks so nice to have the garland on the mailbox and stairs and all the other crap out. The cats go nuts for all the decorations. Starbuck in particular loves to chew on Judy (the garland on the stairs).
• Picking out our Christmas tree. We went with a Canaan fir this year. We usually get a Fraser fir but this Canaan spoke to us. Ha. We pulled up with out trailer and the people there joked around and asked how many trees were were planning on buying.

I’ll post another photo of it decorated later!

• Receiving a package from a friend in the UK. What a sweetie. She sent me a painting of our cats, and individually painted rocks of each of our cats. And a bunch of other fun goodies.
• Getting a bunch of yardwork done when the weather was decent. Steven has been working really hard on our yard this year (well, he does every year – but he’s been working really hard to have nice grass grow in) and had a few final steps to do before snow comes.
• Getting El Famous for dinner.
• Decorating the trees (we put out our little fake one too) while listening to White Christmas.
• Seeing Ned’s reaction to the tree. This is the first time he’s seen a Christmas Tree. He was scared at first then loved it. The cats were so excited about the decorations that they didn’t sleep in bed with us – they wanted to be by the tree.

Sunday

• Pairing a walk with errands. And another chai (with soy!) and bath.
• Finishing decorating the tree.
• Painting while watching How It Ends and A Castle for Christmas (so bad, do not watch).
• Finishing People We Meet on Vacation. I enjoyed it!

Lowlights

• Our attempt at a Thanksgiving meal on Sunday not turning out. The fake turkey would not cook and and we accidentally left the mashed potatoes on the burner while we gave the turkey more time and the potatoes burned and had to be thrown out. We need to try again another weekend.

Random

• We flew first class to Kansas City and back and it was really nice. It was our first time in first class. I messed up boarding on the first flight and we boarded in group 4 so that sucked, but other than that it was really nice!