Late season colors and cranberry sauce

Here's a view of a sudden burst of evening sunlight, giving several levels of color and light for a few minutes Friday.

The Japanese maple is still holding onto a few leaves, contrasting with the darker foliage on the butterfly bush and the pink light on the roof behind. 

And Friday's prep for Saturday's Thanksgiving is cranberry sauce, beautiful organic cranberries, pure cane sugar, dash of lemon juice. By tomorrow the flavors will be blended and ready to enjoy. 

Then I'll steam the sugar snap peas and corn, lay the red felt cloth over the puzzle, and set up plates and glasses and the cheese board with the special aged sharp cheddar I'm adding to Handsome Son's selection. 

Not much work, better distribution than in past years, and a whole lot more fun for me.

I'm looking forward to it. 

Happy day everyone. Enjoy your festive days whenever they happen.

New soup, jigsaw puzzle and online with friends

I made cannellini and chard soup. It's supposed to be kale, but I like chard. You can make it creamy by, once it's boiled, ladling out half, then using the stick blender to blend what's in the pan, then adding the unblended part back in. 

I also used up the last of the celery, waiting in the freezer for a destination.

Here's the blended and unblended

Chard or kale in last, just to go bright green and wilted.

Really good. Note to self: next time, chiffonade the chard, for easier eating. Long ribbons of chard are a bit unwieldy.

Jigsaw puzzle in progress 

Online with friends for Thanksgiving afternoon, the others following some football game or other, me chatting with others about nonfootball things!

Such as indigenous people and acknowledging them on Thanksgiving Day more than ever, because this history has been so wrongly taught in school.

I think I encouraged some visibility for the Yurok people, whose elders are usually food insecure, and whose kids the dolls are for.

Then a bit of supper, cheese roast potatoes, pre nuked spud, diced 

The dish needs to be glass, buttered, cover base with grated fresh Parmesan mixed with umami mix, press in potatoes, 400+ oven for about 30 mins, leave in dish 5 minutes to let the cheese crisp up, separate the potatoes, crunchy and lovely. I fry an egg to go with.

Happy day, everyone. Blogger is having issues;  published this post incomplete, instead of as scheduled for Friday, oh well. Sorry to the puzzled people who responded then probably wondered where the rest of it was.

Here's where we're supposed to end

 

Thanksgiving cactus checking in

The thanksgiving cactus is budding up nicely, just in time. 

And I'm up for a quiet day, cannellini and chard soup, roast cheesy potatoes, jigsaw puzzle, all planned.

And reading is appropriate for the day

I'm thankful I'm able to do what I do, and for the generous presence of all you blogistas! If it's just Thursday where you are, happy day anyway. Or if it's Friday, same, same.

Tuesday packed day

Tuesday was a day of getting stuff done. I finished the gang of dolls in the morning while listening to the Meidas Touch podcast 

And got them off in the mail, waiting at the PO along with half the town, who probably thought as I did, that there wouldn't be anyone at the Post office today.  

Then I got to the Tuesday Knitting Group library, and saw our display in action 

And on to the group, with a new member whose project was challenging 

While others of us went on with other works in progress 

Chat ranged over teaching Latin and voice, following jobs, moving, widowhood, cat names, furniture-eating dogs, Iron Man triathlons, aging parents, Thanksgiving, animal rescue, Dorset buttons and more.

Then home to an early Misfits delivery because of the holiday 

Beautiful rainbow chard, special cheese to add to the Thanksgiving cheese and crackers, white chocolate from Tony, because I love it, though it can't be chocolate, nevermind what it is.  Pumpkin which I never normally buy canned, but it was a freebie so fine. 

Then Textiles and Tea with an artist who founded the Chicago Weaving School and is also a freeform cloth artist. 

Seen here in the weaving classroom.

She's a very intuitive worker, who says if you know the answer already, there's no point in making the work. It's about discovery, not about confirmation. I totally subscribe to this vision, so I was glad to see her in the world of weaving, usually such a plan-and-execute world.

See some of her work here

Happy day everyone, full one for me, maybe Wednesday a little less so..

Last rose, berries and first dolls

Today, sunny and cool, I got a walk in, not very far, hip tiring quickly and I forgot to bring Carol Cane, but it was lovely anyway, interesting local sights. The colors are still beautiful, berries and some leaves still on the trees.

Then home to make a quick pasta with red sauce, dessert of chocolate cherries.

And a whole lot of work on the dolls. Here's where baffled people see how these dolls are constructed.

Stitch the body like a tube, seam at the back, stuff with batting, run a thread round the neck, draw up to form the head, do likewise to draw closed the feet.

Then stitch right through the body to form arms and legs -- I like how they seem to have their hands in their pockets.  It's a kind of simple soft sculpture. Then stitch facial features,  simpler the better. And suddenly -- people!

I have two more to go, then I'll send them off.

It's definitely calming to have this kind of work on hand, and to know it's going into good (little) hands. 

Happy day everyone, find whatever helps you get or stay calm and strong, might be any number of things. If you've found a good idea, would you share it here? Thank you.

The equality flag needs to be seen in here regularly now, in view of the new threats.