Weekly Update: 11-29-14 Thanksgiving

A whole year of watching Chopped has cumulated to this very moment: when I must take Thanksgiving leftovers and rearrange them into a delicious meal. Today I took the insides of a very dense coconut cream pie, added cranberry almond crunch cereal, cranberry sauce jello, and whipped cream and made a parfait. Not many points for creativity, but the flavor was good!

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Since my siblings migrated to Washington and Oklahoma, Thanksgiving was a small affair, with only my mom, dad, aunt, uncle, and me. Since I thought it ridiculous to make three or more pies for only five people, I eschewed the traditional pumpkin pie and made the pies we all agree on: custard and coconut. I also made a pumpkin cream cheese roll, so that pumpkin was represented somewhere.

After eating, we played an old school board game called Airport, which was sort of like Monopoly. The goal is to stick your airplanes on the most desired routes before they fill up and you get kicked out. My dad, the money master, hit a string of bad luck and could not hang onto his cash. I chose good routes and started winning, until an ill-timed maintance kicked me off three of my best routes. To add insult to injury, my mother and aunt teamed up to kick me off my routes. By the time we quit, I had twelve airplanes and no place to put them. And my aunt won instead of me. Grrr....

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November has been a production month. I produced 57,500 words of The Originals for NaNoWriMo, as well as editing/ formatting The Changelings, and making several Christmas cards. As I head into December, my focus will shift into organizing for the new year. Now I have to read all the stuff I created, do a self-critique, and figure out what I need to re-write and how. I also need to get my business stuff in order. And Christmas shopping, of course.