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Because Thanksgiving is two weeks out, as of tomorrow, and I need to feel like I’m organized in order to be excited and get stuff done.

I ordered a free range, organic, ethical turkey yesterday and am not sure how much it’ll end up costing, but won’t tell you anyway.  I have the menu planned out, and just made a preliminary grocery list.

Menu will include:

Cheese board, as mentioned earlier (cheeses, charcuteries, olives, nuts, apple butter, honey, grapes, etc)

Wine, apple cider

Pear-Thyme brined turkey, with pear-thyme gravy

Aunt Carol’s sweet potato casserole

Browned butter mashed potatoes

Green bean casserole with fried shallots

Cranberry sauce and cranberry salad a la Faith

Stuffing (I think Stephen made a cornbread stuffing last year but can’t remember for sure)

Also Faith said she can bring some bread or rolls.

Grandma’s magic chocolate pie, of course

And Faith also said she might bring a custard pie

So like I said, if anyone wants to come, there will be PLENTY of food.  The leftovers is like half of my motivation behind doing Thanksgiving at home.  Oh my gosh I can’t wait.  Last year I had a cold on Thanksgiving and it was really sad because I couldn’t really taste much.  But THIS year I am going to be healthy.  I can just tell.

Things to do before the week of the 26th, then, include

• Cleaning up the garage so I can easily get to the roasting turkey
• Bring roaster down from attic, clean it
• Wash all linens, iron, etc
• Figure out table decorations
• Deep clean entire house
• Make pie dough, freeze
• Clean out refrigerator (need to have enough room to brine the turkey)
• Grocery shopping probably the weekend of the 21st (if we don’t go camping that weekend)

It’s going to be hard to forgo Fallout for these tasks, but I’ll get it done.  Although I might play more Fallout tonight.  It’s basically the same as Skyrim, guys, except that the setting is completely different.  But otherwise!

Some things.

Firstly, Thanksgiving is fresh on my mind because Stephen told me yesterday that his mom can for sure come up for it, which means that I can start planning everything now!  It’s probably just going to be the three of us for dinner, plus Cathy during the afternoon (but she has family dinner) — unless anyone reading this wants to come too, in which case you are welcome!  There will be an awesome lot of food.  So far all I know is we’re doing a charcuterie and cheese platter again, and will have a crock pot of mulled wine and a crock pot of mulled cider.  And obviously there will be turkey, stuffing (which Stephen can make), Aunt Carol’s sweet potato casserole, yeast rolls, mashed potatoes of some sort, gravy, Grandma’s magic chocolate pie, and maybe some green beans or something.  That green bean casserole that Katie made last year was really good, come to think of it.  May do that.  Hm.

ANYWAY.  I should really NOT be thinking about all this right now because I have to wait until 1:30 to go to lunch (normal time is noon) and I am already SO hungry.  Made some cabbage soup last night – I think it’s the same soup that Mom and Dad made a few times when we were little.  It’s not terrible, but it’s certainly not loaded potato soup, or broccoli cheddar.  At ANY rate, thinking about Thanksgiving food is making my stomach very angry at me.

So tonight after work, I have to glaze those skull cakes.  The cakes themselves are lemon flavored, so I was thinking that I might do a lavender glaze.  Dammit, talking about food again.

I will probably put on a good horror movie tonight too.  Maybe…Rosemary’s Baby?  Or the Ring?  If I’m going to be glazing cakes, it needs to be one that i have seen before.  And I’m waiting to watch the Changeling with Stephen, who has finally agreed to watch it with me.  😀

Been doing a terrible job of making leather stuff lately, let me tell you.  But I have been baking cakes and reading more, which are both good and productive.  Bought Stacy Schiffs new book, The Witches: Salem 1692, which is about the Salem Witch Trials (duh).  I’m just a couple of chapters into it, but it’s really good so far.  We read an excerpt from it that was published a couple of months ago in the New Yorker, and have been waiting for the book to finally come out since then.

Anyway.  I feel more organized now.  Don’t forget to let me know if you want to come for Thanksgiving.

I am going to have a productive week.  I am not going to spend money on things that I cannot justify.  Instead, I am going to stay home and bake skull cakes for Halloween, and do my laundry, and clean my house.  I am going to buy candy for trick-or-treaters before it all sells out.  I am going to iron both of my cloaks.  I am going to act like an adult.

Furthermore, I am going to be productive until the end of the year.  I am down to two listings on Etsy, which is terrible – because it’s hard to sell things if you don’t have anything listed.  Therefore I am going to list a bunch of small wallets again, which i figure will take me maybe 1-2 days to pull together, so that at least the shop won’t be empty.  I have too many custom projects right now to be listing big items, but after Christmas I’ll start doing that again.

These things are utterly realistic and I can totally do them.

Since I have this entry started, I might as well mention what my Halloween costume is going to be.  I know, I don’t usually dress up, but THIS year.  So I made that green cloak for wearing to the ren fest earlier this year, right?  I wanted to think of some way to dress that up a little so it seemed more like a costume and less like an outdated piece of clothing.  So I decided to make something of a woodland crown with matching cuffs for my wrists, and I am going to be a dryad (a wood nymph!).  (I trust no one will notice that my crown doesn’t have any oak leaves or acorns on it….)  I also made a little crown that I’m hoping Stephen will wear at least long enough for me to take a picture.

Note: I am not wearing the wig for Halloween.  I ended up liking the way it all looks with my natural hair better than the blonde stuff.  So….

“Numinous,” Ursula said, breaking the silence eventually.  “There’s a spark of the divine in the world — not God, we’re done with God, but something.  Is it love?  Not silly romantic love, but something more profound…?”

“I think it’s perhaps something we don’t have a name for,” Teddy said.  “We want to name everything.  Perhaps that’s where we’ve gone wrong.”

“‘And whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.’  Having dominion over everything has been a terrible curse.”

Afterwards — because it turned out that there was to be an afterwards for Teddy — he resolved that he would try always to be kind.  It was the best he could do.  It was all that he could do.  And it might be love, after all.

(From A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson)

I had a mini break-down last night after trying on like every dress that I own and hating them all.  So TODAY, because I need more discipline in my not-at-work free time, I’m going to do the following.

• Clean the kitchen
• Go grocery shopping OR exercise (because I don’t realistically see both happening as long as I have other stuff to do, as well)
• Dust
• Wash my dirty laundry
• Actually hang up my dresses
• Iron clothes that I will like better if they are ironed
• Change my sheets if I’m feeling energetic, but this isn’t a priority as I just recently changed them

Not time for my big comforter yet right?  Hm, I might get it out anyway, since it’s been getting into the 50’s lately, and I do love it.  Stephen says it’s too heavy but, I mean, there are ways to work around that.  (Like keeping the floor clean so I don’t feel bad about kicking it off of the bed.)

And after I finish all this, I’ll probably read.  I finished the Elizabeth McCracken book last night (OMG SOOO GOOD) and the reason I was despairing yesterday of wearing clothes again was because we went to see Jonathan Franzen speak at Vanderbilt, so I have his new book to read now.  Or, hell, I might reward my good behavior with some Skyrim.  We’ll see.

Anyway.  Starting my day off with lists at least puts me into the right mindset.  Now I just need for it to last until 5:00pm.

I’m reading two right now, and have a growing back-log to hurry up and get to, as well.  THIS ONE, though.  This was a random find at McKay’s the other week – hardcover, brand new, autographed.  I did a quick search, standing in the fiction aisle, to make sure the book wasn’t going to be a dud, and when I saw this review on Amazon — “If you’re looking for happy, pleasant tales then do not read this book. At the same time if you want a maudlin tearjerker, you should go buy a Nicholas Sparks book instead. If, however, you want a grown-up book about real humans facing the seedier side of life then this is your book” — the decision became a no-brainer.

And I’m a little over half-way through these short stories now, so I can’t exactly claim that the whole book is brilliant, but so far I have absolutely loved each story.  I don’t make any claims to be a book critic, but I will claim to have good taste in literature, which makes me feel like I should say a little more about the book.  The stories – so far – are about broken people, and broken families.  Broken relationships.  Trying to navigate these broken relationships, and finding good ways to do that but also finding what seem like dead ends, and having to start over.  The stories are written with compassion and warmth, which make the brokenness seem beautiful and heart-wrenching (which, I mean, brokenness has a tendency to bear these traits anyway, doesn’t it?).

Do read the book, if you get the chance, and want a “grown-up book about real humans.”

Furthermore, I’m still trying to get through the first book in the Foundation Trilogy.  I’m making good progress too — got a lot of reading in the other night while trying (vainly) to download the new iOS software for my phone.  I’m understanding more and more why people say this series is one of the best ever written (a statement many would take issue with) — or at least why it’s one of the best in science fiction (a statement that only a fool would take issue with).  So, that’s coming along.

I also found a novel by A.M Homes at McKay’s – same day I found the McCracken book, and the Homes book is also autographed!  (It was a good McKay’s day – got the newest Mary Oliver poetry book then as well, though sadly that one was not signed.)  So this is on my list to read.  Also, we went to a reading last Sunday at Parnassus by Mary Norris who has been on the New Yorker staff for like 30 or 40 years, and has just written a new book that seems to be partly memoir, partly punctuation guide.  (This one not merely autographed, but personally signed “to Erin, a fellow stickler.”)

And tonight we’re going to see Jonathan Franzen read from his newest novel, Purity (the purchase of which was admission to the reading).  I haven’t actually read any Franzen, but Stephen has read (listened to) two novels over the last couple of months and hearing them described has made me want to read Purity.

All this book excitement is a very good thing, because I am currently broke as a …um, is there a simile for “broke as”?  “Broke as an English major.”  “Broke as a squirrel on the plains” (no nuts, but I assume they eat other things too?).  “Broke as a 500-lb crack whore.”  Anyway, you get the idea.  I’ve been daydreaming a lot lately about camping and reading.  Or even just going to Percy Warner and reading.  Ahh.

Yesterday, I walked past the place where I dropped Matt of at work the day he killed himself.  It’s a spot you wouldn’t even notice unless you had cause.  I walked past, then stopped to look back and play the scene through in my head again.  He wouldn’t look me in the eye that morning.  What would I have done if I had noticed the gun in his bag?

I read something recently about how laughter is as natural a reaction to death as tears are, because death is so utterly absurd.  That a person can be there one minute, and be gone for good the next minute is laughably hard to wrap your head around.  Like, how is that even possible.  And yet, how is it so hard for us to embrace death when we are literally surrounded by smaller deaths and lives every day of ever week?  The leaves are drying up and falling outside right now, and there will never be a set of leaves exactly like these are again.  Is it silly to compare people to leaves?

Hm.

Anyway.

Just this —— Stephen fixed my laptop, and I successfully installed Oblivion, along with dlcs. 😀

Well, it’s finally Friday.  Also, it’s finally after noon.  I can now say that I’m counting down the hours until the weekend…just over 3.5 to go.

I have not been as productive with leather as I wanted to be this week; I am close to being finished with the custom request i have from like a month ago, but still need to stop at Michael’s for some things this weekend.  Provided that I don’t get too caught up doing other things this weekend, I need to finish the bag and then start trying to stock up my shop again.  I swear, every time I feel good about the amount of items I have listed, they sell and I’m left with like 3 or 4 again.  Guh.  I mean it’s not a bad problem, and I’m not exactly complaining.  Just saying.

So, there’s that.  Also the weather has been cooler this last week, and it’s reminding me that autumn is not a pipe dream but is in fact an eventuality, and soon the trees will be turning colors and the air will be crisp and sometimes nippy, and all will be good.  I do not want to squander a single autumn weekend inside.  We recently (as in last week) purchased a 2-person tent which cuts down on excuses for not taking weekend camping trips.  I’m envisioning lots and lots of camping this fall.  Oh I do SO love the fall, and being outside to enjoy it.  Mm.  I’m getting excited just typing all of this — and it’s still mid-August, my Least Favorite Month.

Speaking of it being mid-August, Matt’s birthday is tomorrow.  And he would be 31, which seems like so much older than he was when he died.  Today is two years and six months since he died, which…which I have thoughts about.  Three years ago would have been the last time we celebrated his birthday (me and him, I mean), and it was a very bittersweet celebration.  I was so afraid that whole year.  I felt like something terrible was always below the surface, and I strongly suspected that it would not lie low forever and that there would be nothing I could do about it when it did rise above the surface.  And I was right, of course.  As awful as that year was, there were so many bright spots.  It’s hard to wrap my head around.

Life, man.  What can you even say.  Nothing that hasn’t been said a million times and in a million different ways already.

It’s been a really good week on Etsy.  Obviously it was an inspired idea to make a bunch of business card holders/wallets, because I just sold the last envelope-type one that I made, and someone is waiting for me to make a few more of one of the other types so that he can buy a couple at once.  These are easy to make, too, and they turn out looking very nice.  I made one for myself to hold business cards and really like it.

The really exciting Etsy sell this week was this custom Skyrim mage’s bag and belt —-

I know, the one on the right isn’t a great picture, but it gives you a pretty good idea of how it turned out.  The guy who bought it said that he’s cosplaying as a Skyrim mage, so this was pretty much perfect for that.  I think the burned pattern is slightly off, but I just made it to match the actual apothecary satchel so whatever.

Anyway, I decided to use the money I made off of this to renew my subscription to the New Yorker.  Have been going without for, um, a really long time now.  I think it’s been less than a year, but I can’t remember for sure.  The subscription price used to be around $50 (which was still pretty high) but has gone up to more like $100 now — waaay out of my price range.  However, I will gladly trade some leather workings for a subscription, which is basically what this turned out to be.  😀  Very exciting.

So yeah.  There you have it.  I’m starting to wonder if I need a new workspace — like maybe I should re-do my library to make it a library/leatherings studio.  My living room is pretty much a constant mess and I’d like to be able to keep it orderly.  Makes me feel better to walk into a clean house – plus i need to use my library more.  Hmmmm.