I'm Thankful, Sure

So... everyone have a good holiday?

Mine started off pretty well. I made sweet potato casserole and a pumpkin cake (recipe courtesy of the back of the pumpkin pans I bought from Williams-Sonoma) to take home. This was my first time making anything to bring home, and I was excited about it.

Because I had made this casserole once before for a Thanksgiving potluck and peeling the potatoes had totally exhausted me, I wanted to peel them a night early this time. This is also when I learned that when I made them for the potluck, I was using the peeler upside down and with a protective strip of plastic over the blades... tell me again I should go to culinary school!

So after that fine example of high intelligence, all I had to do was mash 'em, mix 'em with some tasty stuff like brown sugar and put the pecans on top. I think it turned out well (after all the shenanigans early on...).

The little pumpkin cakes turned out well also. I don't know if I'd ever made a cake completely from scratch, including the icing. It was a lot of fun and smelled great.

Of course, making the icing was a little scary... one whole package of cream cheese, one whole stick of butter...

I usually try not to invite heart attacks into my life...

In the Williams-Sonoma cake example pictures they have the icing drizzled over the cake. I don't know how they did it, because this icing wasn't exactly the drizzly kind.
All things considered, Thanksgiving day itself was good. All the food was great. Of course, it's a little disappointing not having a big family or lots of friends to share it with. Thanksgiving, at least to me, seems like it should involve more than just the immediate family. But what can you do when the rest of your family is pretty far away, your brother refuses to cross the Mason-Dixon line, and your friends have family to share it with who aren't quite as crazy. My dinner highlight was my dad thanking the pilgrims during grace...

After dinner at my house, boyfriend and I went to his grandmother's house for Dinner Part II. It's amazing how different our families are. One of his cousins kept showing me dirty jokes and pictures on his cell phone, that was... festive?

I also spent a lot of time at a friend's house. He recently built himself an amazing home theater system. He has a massive project which he hooks up to the tv, dvd player, xbox, and wii. He installed shakers in the couch that vibrate you when there's a lot of bass (watching a loud action movie or blowing up stuff on one of the gaming systems). When he decided he wanted more shake, he purchased another set of shakers; this is the kind used in rides at amusement parks. When it's on, the entire house is shaking and the lights flicker. Probably, his house will crack and implode, but it's probably one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. We endured a very rough Virginia vs. Virginia Tech game on it, then switched to xbox.

The subwoofers were knocking things off shelves. These pictures just don't do it justice.We left early on Sunday to beat the traffic. When we got home I completely vegged on the couch and finished the Angel series. The end left me feeling awful; one because it's somewhat of a cliffhanger, two because I always get that hollow feeling once I finish a series (book or tv). It's like losing a friend! Even when it pisses you off, you're still invested in the characters and the outcome. The end is always too soon, and there's no good way to wrap it all up. I surfed around looking for character or director interviews, trying to give me some finality, but I didn't find anything that satisfying.

It was also a little scary finishing because I'd been watching it for so long. It was my hobby, my thing to do when I wanted to relax. Now do I actually have to face the world? Make decisions? Do grown-up stuff? Take responsibility? I'll have to find something else to hide out with soon!