Cheers

A Full Plate of Memories

Shelley

As I type to you this morning, I’m reminiscing at the whirlwind week I had and how it fills my heart with joy. Those moments brought back memories of the family gatherings over the years that remain vivid in my mind.

Thanksgiving week is a favorite time of mine. It kicks off the gathering season in November and ends with my birthday. 58 years in the books, I’ve got the drill mostly mastered. To think, I was only a sparkle in the eyes of my parent’s the year before when this event happened.

My fall decorations are simple and this bright turkey comes out for a brief appearance before I fold it up and put it away for another year. I watched some of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade while I prepared my contribution to the meal – Green Bean Casserole. No pictures taken, sorry.

We weren’t hosting the meal on Thanksgiving Day so we were able to take a walk before we made the beans and salad. Again, no picture, what the heck! LOL.

But, while the casserole baked, I did get some shots of the Red Headed Pileated Woodpecker enjoying his Thanksgiving meal. For a bird that’s too big to land on the feeders, he’s creatively resourceful.

While it was a busy day, it was relaxing too. The years that we hosted Thanksgiving were more stressful. But fun too.

Our lives so far have given us many blessings to count. We’ve also donned many different shoes, the sturdier they are the better. We keep on keeping on and walking when the weather is cold and snowy. We lucked out this week though, it was warmer and drier than expected.

The morning of Thanksgiving, my curls stood at attention in their own unique ways. One side of my head obeyed, and the other, well, it did its own thing.

Thanksgiving Day kicked off a let’s just roll with whatever the schedule permits us to do and have fun and eat foods we enjoy!

Our to-do list changed multiple times based on the visitors we had coming and going.

Mr. made another cheesecake while our oldest daughter and I went shopping. We got a late start so all the early bird shoppers were gone and moved on.

This time the cheesecake was perfection in a spring form pan. Spraying the pan sides makes a difference! I think we’ll wait until spring before we’re hungry for it again.

We had plenty to eat on Thanksgiving Day, went Black Friday shopping on Friday, and then prepared for our next meal on Saturday, our oldest made pumpkin pie before we retired to bed. It was fun to see her baking in our kitchen again.

Both of our girls were here at the same time on Saturday. Along with my brother, nephew, in-laws, and us – we had a nice-sized party to gather around the kitchen island.

It’s kind of a blur to me now. Isn’t that how holidays go though? One minute the kids are little.

And the next they’re all grown up and on their own. Thank goodness they can contribute to the meal preparation.

I don’t think we can recreate the past, the imperfections of trying to do so remind me that life keeps on going and family ties provide the strength to carry on and accept the present. And the future.

Our hearts were full and so were our plates and tummies. It was a GOOOOOOD time! Food and wine were had!

As the holiday week comes to an end, I’m thankfully blessed and stuffed, not only with delicious food but with memories. I shall hold the memories near and dear. Until we’re together again.

I was so busy eating and enjoying the sounds of having a full house, I didn’t get a family photo taken. Oops.

But I did get a couple of shots of my plate of treats. Before they were all gone!

Post Inspiration – Linda G. Hill’s Stream of Conscious Saturday – Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “on your/my plate.” Use it any way you’d like. Have fun! And Terri Webster Schrandt’s Sunday Stills – Vivid.

PS – What is your favorite Thanksgiving dish? Are you a green bean casserole fan? Pumpkin or Pecan pie? Or both? Did you watch the parade?

Published by Shelley

Letting my quirk out one post at a time.

56 thoughts on “A Full Plate of Memories”

  1. I also had a whirlwind week with lots of memories. Always takes a little longer to regroup from those weeks though also … take care 🙂

    1. Aw, that’s wonderful news. You’re right, it does take some time to regroup. Thank you, you take care too, thanks for sharing your thoughts. 😊

  2. Appears you had a bountiful holiday feast … and plenty of wine, too! Cheesecake looks delish! I didn’t watch the parade because we were on the road all morning as we traveled cross-state, Favorite part of the meal? Hmmmm … that’s a tough one. Maybe the cranberries because they bring a different flavor and texture to the meal. Oh …. Happy Birthday!

    1. Hi Frank, yes, we had a bountiful feast, complimented well with a variety of wines to sample. The cheesecake was a hit again!
      We forgot the cranberries, they are always a favorite here too!
      Thank you for sharing your thoughts and for the birthday wishes!

  3. I’m glad that your holiday was so wonderful, guys! Lovely family photos, and baby Copper was in one photo. My family is so scattered these days, only my dad, son and my sister had a meal together! I’ll be in Michigan in a few days for our Christmas. I love those big teays of meats and cheeses, always so delicious! Have a great week, guys. 😎

    1. Hi John, thank you, we’re happy the holiday was so wonderful too!
      Aw, yes, that’s baby Copper. He loved being in the center of attention.
      It is hard when the family members are scattered in different places. That’s nice your son, dad, and sister were able to be together. Even better that you’ll be there to see them in person soon!! Safe travels and I hope you get to share a meat and cheese tray with them too!
      Same to you, John! 😎😁😊

      1. It is tough at times. We usually have the food catered so I really don’t know what it will be, weird hun? 😋😋

  4. How nice to have your family gather to make memories.

    Although I miss having a turkey carcass from which to make soup, I’m happy enough not to host Thanksgiving. Much better to contribute a yummy side and not have to deep clean the house 🙂

    Happy birthday (not sure what date is, but I hope it was/will be great)!

    1. Hi Janis – thank you, we so enjoyed our time together and it won’t be long before they’ll be back for Christmas.
      Yes, the carcass is a perk – yummy soup isn’t in our menu plan this year either. But…our house still needs the deep cleaning, I’ll save that for next year! 😉
      Thank you for the birthday wishes, it’s Tuesday and I’m excited to see a dear friend for breakfast and then the snow storm will arrive and I’ll be happy to return home!

  5. The cheesecake looks delicious! And we have those crazy woodpeckers here too, they love our hummingbird feeder! They make me laugh! We also had a fab day. We ordered food from Sprouts, but I still had to warm them up. Easy, but goodness, we still created a pile of dishes! Oh well, good memories! 😄

    1. Hi Lisa, the cheesecake was delicious (we still have a few slices to eat for dessert this week).
      Wow – I bet that is funny watching those woodpeckers try to eat off of a hummingbird feeder!
      Your meal sounds delicious too. We don’t have a Sprouts store here, but I’ve visited one before, YUMMMM!!!
      LOL – yep, dishes happen. It’s kind of fun to clean up after a holiday, though, happy memories relived! Enjoy the rest of your holiday season.

  6. We didn’t host Thanksgiving but of course we had my stepdaughter and her hubby here most of the week for the first time since we moved here. Too much snow prevented us from some hikes but we managed to walk around our neighborhood. Your family gathering looks like so much fun–we went to two different homes Thursday, then Friday–lots of food and new memories to consider! Happy birthday, Shelley and I love desert!!

    1. Hi Terri – it sounds like you had a great time and even enjoyed the winter wonderland. Did your fall trees even get to fully shed their leaves before that snow arrived? Your vivid photos for the week are gorgeous.
      Thank you for the birthday wishes, I have a piece of the cheesecake I’m saving to enjoy on my birthday!! 😋

    2. PS – I tried to comment on your Monday photos and the internet is not letting me…yet, I’ll try again when Cyber Monday is over!

  8. It looks like you had a wonderful time. We did, too. I like green beans any way they can be made, including green bean casserole, and almost any kind of pie. We actually had a banana cream pie.

    1. Thanks, Dan, yes we did. It looks like you enjoyed some wonderful meals too. I hope you had plenty of green beans too.
      Ooo…we haven’t had banana cream pie in decades. My grandmother loved making that pie!
      I hope you have a great week and are able to get the rest of your fall projects done and burn off calories at the same time 😉

  9. I got invited to 2 different Thanksgiving di news, and at neither did I eat pie. But I did have a fabulous cranberry cake at the second one.

  10. Pumpkin pie, hands down. I made a couple of pumpkin pies over the months of September and October, so got my fill then. If you read my post from today, I had a quiet Thanksgiving with cookie baking, a tenderloin steak and visit from a close friend. It was a good four days, Shelley, and I’m glad you were able to spend it with family, food, and special memories.

    1. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Mary! Pumpkin pie is delicious. With whipped cream, right?
      Yes, your post is great! I’m glad you had a nice long weekend and enjoyed family, food, and special memories. The ginger cookies look like they turned out well too – yum!!

  11. Of the ones Mary made this Thanksgiving, I would say my favorite was the sweet potato casserole. We had turkey, sweet potato casserole, hash brown casserole (like they serve at Cracker Barrel, a chain of mostly-southern country-style restaurants), and homemade cranberry sauce and apple sauce. Dessert was banana cream pie for me, razzle-dazzle pie (a Marie Callendar specialty) for Mary.

    Green bean casserole… enh… I can take it or leave it (and usually do).

    I choose pecan pie over pumpkin, but really prefer banana cream. But I never say no to pie, unless it’s rhubarb, andf even then…

    We didn’t watch the parade. Haven’t watched it in a few years….

    Glad you had a great Thanksgiving!

    1. Hi John, thank you for sharing your Thanksgiving menu favorites. It sounds like you and Mary had a favorite filled yummy in the tummy kind of Thanksgiving.
      PS – I hope your package arrives!!

  12. Pumpkin for sure! I just finished it for today’s breakfast. It’s a veggie, don’tcha know. LOL. Your food looks yummy…I love cheesecake. Now it’s back on the wagon for a few weeks. 😊

    1. Hi Laurel, it’s great to hear from you. I hope all is well and that you have plans to see the family.
      We did have a sliver of pumpkin pie too! It was the most delicious veggie served 😉 We finished off the cheesecake last night for my birthday celebration. It was yummy. I’ll miss it until the next time Mr. makes it again. You’re right, it’s time to behave until the next round of feasting occurs!! LOL

  13. Aw! What a wonderful Thanksgiving for you! It reminded me of Thanksgivings when my mom was alive, which made me smile. Our holidays are sadly almost non-existent now. My birthday fell on Thanksgiving this year so it was a two-for-one. Your food looks scrumptious!

    1. Thank you, it was wonderful. It’s interesting you say that about Thanksgivings with your mom. I thought of my mom too that day.
      Sorry your holidays are non-existent. Happy Belated Birthday to you. I had that happen once that I remember in my lifetime. It was kind of a bummer especially since it was pie instead of cake for me. 😉
      The food was and still is delicious. We made a lot so we’ve had keto friendly leftovers all week!

  14. I see treats, treats and more treats – in fact you could hardly see the counter in one photo. It sounds like it was a wonderful whirlwind for you Shelley, between the visits, the holiday and the birthday celebration. How nice to see your family together again, just like yesteryear. I love the photo of the very young Copper. What a sweetie … I miss seeing him in your posts. Hope your birthday was as special as you are Shelley!

    1. Thank you, Linda. Yes, the food was plentiful and we’re still eating leftovers. It was SOOOOO great to have the girls home and my nephew too.
      Yes, I’m with you on missing Copper. I think everyone missed him this year.
      My birthday was so special – caught up with a friend I hadn’t seen since 2009. It was so fun. Then it snowed and snowed and iced up. And now it’s cold. Dang old winter!
      PS – I loved your photos in your recent posts. Nice job being in the right place at the right time to catch those shots!

      1. I hope the weather isn’t bad and maybe another get together can happen at Christmas as well. Copper looked so tiny. 🙂

        Glad you got together with your friend to make your birthday even more special. Ugh to the snow. We have just had high winds and will have them Saturday, but on this day in 1974, we got 18 inches of snow. Sounds like a Wisconsin kinda day.

        1. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that we’ll be together again at Christmas.
          Yes, it was such a treat to catch up with my friend.
          The snow has mostly stayed, it turned mighty cold for a day, warmer today so hopefully, our walk will take place.
          Yikes…I remember snows like that when I was 10, it was FUN as a kid, but my parents didn’t look as thrilled.

          1. That will be a treat – I hope it works out for you Shelley. We’re getting high winds overnight and through tomorrow at 1:00 p.m. It will be 45-50 mph winds … I don’t have any Christmas decorations up outside, but I’d think people are worried if they can’t secure them to anything. My neighbor had some cute Easter decorations … a huge plastic chocolate rabbit and it was next to a Easter basket with oversized eggs. We had a bad windstorm and everything blew away.

            Yes, snow was fun when you didn’t deal with it at all, just made snow forts and went ice skating or tobogganing. Adults and snow, not so fun.

          2. That wind……OMG, Linda, it was so long and loud, it kept us up during the night. Thankfully, no wind damage. It was cold though. I don’t blame you for not wanting to put decorations up outside.
            I agree…snow play was much easier as a kid.

          3. Well I had an issue with wind damage. Wind tore down a tree branch behind me and it took down two electrical wires, one which landed on the chain-link fence between my neighbor house and mine and another wire landed on his garage roof and caught fire – bigtime. The garage was in flames to the house rooftop. This was at 11:30 p.m. and neighbors on either side of me were outside until 2:00 a.m. – my house was cordoned off with caution tape. Sigh. House smells terribly of smoke, had a power outage 13-14 hours and lost refrigerated food, but no damage to the house. I drove past the front of it today – the damage was amazing, a total loss and I am grateful nothing here as it was precariously close.

          4. OMG, Linda – that’s so scary. I’m glad you’re okay, despite the loss of food and the smoke smell.
            That’s such a sad loss to have happen at any time, especially in the cold of winter.
            Again, I’m thankful to hear you’re okay and unharmed!

          5. Thank you Shelley. I am grateful that I am okay and after I took a really good look at the yard today while out with generator tech. I have to put it into perspective when I saw the damage – lost bushes, hacked-up tree, blackened mulch, but no damage to the house. It was too close for comfort and if I did not tell you that I got an instant-on generator this year, I did this Summer and it’s been problematic since Day 1. It shut down as it overheated, not due to the fire, but generator failure. So I was angry about that, especially as we soon enter into the season that I bought this equipment for. It’s off now, awaiting the third new part. The homeowner at the end of the block had a transformer blow and cause the circuit breaker box to explode. The fire blew all her windows out – they are boarded up and until they fix the electrical problem, she cannot live there. So, I should be of a mindset that things could have been worse, and get past my anger about the equipment. The noises from the wire arcing on the metal fence were what I thought was the generator malfunctioning. It shut itself off about 20 minutes after the power outage. It’s been a frustrating year to be sure, but I know it could be worse. I ordered some spray and gels (Smells-Be-Gone) from Amazon … it got here a day early … I didn’t pick my regular Prime Delivery Day … they must have thought my smell issue was definitely a problem! Thank you again for your words Shelley.

          6. Oh, man, Linda, so many frustrations in one year. I’m glad you shared about the generator. I was telling Mr. about the fire and power outages and even said, “I wonder what happened to her generator, she lost power and food in the fridge.” Things definitely could’ve been worse, but I do hope you get that generator part fixed and that the smoke smell goes away quickly with the Smells-Be-Gone. I’ve never heard of that. We’ve used an ozone machine (I think that’s what it is called) in our apartments that smelled like cigarette smoke. It works like a charm, but you do have to be away from the house while it is on.
            Take care, you are in my thoughts as you recover from this challenging situation/year!!

          7. I feel fortunate in that if it was Polar-Vortex-like temps and I lost power, I would be upset … this was bad enough, but I feel this is unacceptable and the third part better be the charm. I look at the damage to my property and shudder when I think that if the winds had initially been as high as they got during the course of the next 12 hours and while we were still out there, what could have happened? That thought of “what could be” helps to temper my anger about this generator issue and the smell. Amazon delivered it one day early so I used it this morning before I went on my walk – it is better, but some clothing/coats/drapes and rugs, still will need a little help. This has been a bad year and I sure hope 2023 is better Shelley!

          8. I’m glad you’ve worked through your thoughts and have found some peace with the situation. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that the 3rd part is the charm.
            I hope the scents work too. It is hard to get smells out of things, that’s for sure.
            I hope 2023 is better too!

          9. I sent my handyman some photos from the Facebook City/Neighborhood site. He told me to check the roof from the street to see if any embers might have gone up there and damaged any shingles. I just had the roof inspected and gutters done on Thanksgiving Day. I can’t see anything thankfully. I was going to take a photo this morning but it was foggy and damp and didn’t want to take the camera out. So I heard a noise this afternoon – heard a crash, so no doubt at that time a bulldozer knocked that garage down to rubble. I thought I’d run out for a pic of that and just then my boss called … talked, talked for a half-hour while he was driving home. Hung up and went outside and most of the rubble was gone. Still took a photo, not as much impact as before though. I’ve been dwelling on the smell and the generator (mostly the generator) and should have gone out earlier. I hope the third part is the charm … I am frustrated by this and feel I’m getting the runaround, but according to the tech on Monday, this is usual practice … next is “escalation phase” where they bring in Generac rep to discuss the problem. Sigh.

          10. Oh, man, Robb has impeccable timing, eh? I’m sure that you’ll be able to tell a story with the photos you were able to get.
            Hopefully, any residual smell from the removed garage will dissipate and help some too.
            Does your warranty have a lemon clause in it? It sure sounds fishy to me that they can’t get it fixed yet. Grr. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for you!

          11. I have to look at my bill of sale and see if it does have a lemon clause in it – thank you for the tip. We have to now go to the new part, then call in the Generac guy (escalation phase) … which is Winter by then. Yes, bad timing by Robb – they knocked that garage down in no time. I was surprised it didn’t collapse already.

  15. Your Thanksgiving festivities looked so joyous, Shelley–food and family filled. What could be better? Now I’m scrambling to try and get Xmas cards done, then Xmas cookies baked. But first, tomorrow my sister arrives for her annual visit, and I couldn’t be more excited to ring in the most joyous time of the year with her here!

    1. Hi Rebecca – yes, it was indeed joyous!
      I’m doing the scrambling too. Decorating today then I’ll relax and wait for the next arrival on Christmas weekend. I gave away all my baking supplies to the girls, they’ve created a sisters’ bonding weekend to bake cookies until they drop. I’m sure there is plenty of laughter too. I hope you and your sister enjoy your time special together!!
      If you and I don’t cross our blogging paths again during the holidays, I wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas 🥰😍😊

  16. I’m late to stopping by to say Happy Thanksgiving but it looks like you had a delicious one. I like the photos of the kids, then and now. Plus all that wine? I like how you celebrate!

    1. Hi Ally, you’re always welcome here! Yes, everything was delicious and the leftovers made for a week of reminders of how good it all was.
      My nephew is a wine/beverage buyer for a large steak house company in Florida. He’s an expert on what wines go with what and he came through for us in delightful tasting of wines to compliment everything we had served. 😋😊

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