More Dusting of the Blog; Thanksgiving

 As my few readers know, I took a very long hiatus from blogging, from January until October of this year. The catalyst was a broken laptop, but I also got distracted and worked on things I haven't usually blogged about in the past. So we are catching up, but today will be more traditional, post-Thanksgiving. I know how to blog about all the homemaking business of Thanksgiving. The pies are always made the day before. I made the ones on the top: Chocolate Bourbon Pecan pie (plus some extra filling), two Apple-Pear-Cranberry, and the Birthday Blueberry on bottom left (Steve's birthday is the same as Thanksgiving this year; he was born on a memorable day for those above a certain age.) Quarta made the Pumpkin Pie (extra filling in the tin) from a Binging with Babish video. The butter crust was particularly tricky. Mine were just made with Crisco. I don't even really measure anymore.

 After pie-baking most of the afternoon, Steve took me out for Chinese. These adorable cuties were parked next to us. Quarta is fond of using words like "doggos" and "puppers" and I have to say, they made me want to use them too.

 I love the fact that I have a well-stocked herb garden that can be harvested even in the late months of the year. Actually, the parsley is growing as a weed and I need to plant some in my herb garden. But our gardening philosophy is to encourage weeds that we like. I have no process photos of the bird, or, sadly the group of us at dinner: it was only 5 of us at home, plus Steve's mom. Daniel is in Scotland visiting my sister and eating haggis instead of turkey.

After dinner Quarta went to visit her friend whose family was having a feast at their church for all comers; then when she was dropped off in the evening, my friend, her friend's mom, left us two slices of Pie-Caken, which is a thing she has learned to make. I will stick to basic pies, but I did have a third of a slice (pecan) for breakfast this morning.

And now, one of the main reasons I needed to dust off my blog. This is my most recent photo of last year's Bonnie K. Hunter mystery quilt, On Ringo Lake. It is not much farther along than this. I have made all the necessary blocks, but I have not connected them into a quilt top yet. One of the reasons I need to keep posting on my blog is to keep myself accountable with various quilting and knitting projects. When I am not blogging, I may not be quilting at all, and I may only be knitting in small increments. And even worse, I am certainly not keeping my sewing room neat and tidy. But, Bonnie has just issued the first clue of this year's mystery quilt, Good Fortune. Once again I am feeling the siren call of starting another scrappy quilt project. Some people shop on the day after Thanksgiving. I prefer to eat dessert for breakfast and start a mystery quilt that I have no guarantee I will finish. The obstacles are great this year:

1. I must clean my sewing room first, at least enough to be able to use the cutting table, ironing board, and sewing surface.
2. I must also make adequate progress on finishing On Ringo Lake, ideally within the first few weeks.
3. I know I want to change the color scheme, but I'm not sure yet how. I am leaning to changing Green, Blue, Red, and Orange to a more country/vintage palette of Yellow, Green, Red, and Blue. I don't really want to work with orange this year since I used a fair amount last year. But I am still dithering about the changes I'll want to make. Fortunately, dithering about the colors is something I can do quite easily while blogging!
4. The odds are very high that I will get distracted again and stop blogging, and therefore, stop sewing. Christmas is coming. Daniel is posting pictures of the Highlands. I might decide to start another language. 

You will notice that I did NOT list "I don't have enough fabric" as an obstacle. I have enough fabric to make about ten years of mystery quilts, only I might have to change the colors on them. Well, here goes, signing off and maybe I'll start in on some light cleaning now.