Once again, I am awarding superlatives for the week.
Biggest Success: My husband and I designed and ordered our holiday cards!!!! Holiday cards are my favorite thing about December, but I am rarely thinking too much about them this early. This year, cards feel extra urgent because we just moved. And I have not had it together enough to send out change-of-address cards, so the plan is to send out holiday greetings that also alert people to our new address. We did not take any new photos. My husband took complete ownership of this year’s card, and found photos and card options for us to choose from, put the card to together, found a coupon code, wrote the copy on the back, and placed the order. I had some input, but it was really his thing from start to finish. Is it exactly what I would have made? No. But it’s good enough and it was extremely pleasant to have him take over a task that is usually my purview, and which I usually have to beg and wheedle and prod him to focus on. We (he) ordered our cards Sunday and they arrived Thursday! Some very well-organized people on my recipient list send out their cards immediately after Thanksgiving, so we have to get these babies in the mail! My plan is to get them out the week of Thanksgiving. I already mailed two, including one to the person whose card arrives earliest every year.
Most Delicious Thing I Made: My parents came over for dinner one night, so I experimented on them. I made cider braised pot roast with crispy sage butter potatoes and, of course, my favorite fall salad. First of all, this meal is SUPER EASY and yet it tastes like it took hours to prepare. I mean, it does take hours, but the oven is doing the work, not you. I was a little worried that it would be too sweet, but it wasn’t, it was meaty and perfect. The onions turn into jam and the potatoes – while I could have crisped them up a bit more – were delicious. I don’t even LIKE sage, and I loved the potatoes. I highly recommend this as a tasty, super easy, prep-in-advance dinner to prepare for company. Also, my husband RAVED about it. He is always very nice about the food I make, but I can’t remember him being so enthusiastic as he was about this dish.
Most Panic-Inducing Realization: At some point this week I realized that Thanksgiving is TWO WEEKS AWAY. Family will be arriving at my house in eleven days. This is… too soon. We still have boxes EVERYWHERE. There is no lightbulb in the guest room lamp. I have not yet located the guest towels. My daughter’s bathroom (which she will be sharing with my niece and sister-in-law) has no towel rack. We have A TON OF WORK to do in the next eleven days, and that doesn’t even include all the normal Thanksgiving prep! At least Past Me had the foresight to order a turkey. Whole Foods offered a pre-brined version this year, which removes an onerous step from my prep list.
Best and Most Comforting Decision: I made another batch of pumpkin bread. I was a little worried that the first batch was good through the magic of Beginner’s Luck, but no. It is just delicious, delicious bread.
Longest-Time-Coming Completion of a Task: I would have counted this as my biggest accomplishment of the week, but I’m not because the whole thing is so dumb. I have been trying to end my relationship with a financial institution for TWO YEARS, and, in fact, thought that I had finally done so last winter. So imagine my surprise when I got a statement recently that listed assets the financial institution supposedly was still managing (no) and charged us a $30 maintenance fee (ARGH). But! I think we have finally finally cut ties with this institution. Unfortunately we are not getting our maintenance fee back, but it is money well spent if I never have to talk to the plan administrator (who never administrated ANYTHING) ever again.
Current Most Perplexing Home Maintenance Issue: While the new house is flush with perplexing things (why does the laundry room smoke alarm, which is wired into the house’s electrical system, chirp constantly and why is there no way to turn it off?), my husband and I have encountered a new one this week. We are trying to hang things like artwork and the aforementioned towel bar, but twice now our efforts have been thwarted. My husband will begin to drill into a wall, and will hit something. He thinks it is somehow our ductwork, because it sounds and feels like flexible metal. HOW did the previous owners hang things? There was a towel bar in my daughter’s bathroom, for instance; the painters removed it to paint, and then when they reinstalled it, found that the screws were stripped. So we asked them to simply remove it, patch the wall, and then we would install a new towel bar. (To make this boring story even more boring and also longer, the existing towel bar was very small, and there is no linen closet near my daughter’s room, so we wanted a double towel bar on which to hang multiple towels.) So there WAS a towel bar there, and my husband is trying to install the new towel bar in virtually the same place… how did they make it work?! So weird.
Any superlatives you need to award this week?
I am kinda sorta attempting to complete NaBloPoMo, with the full expectation that life will make it impossible any day now. If you want to follow along, or join the fun, check out San’s blog here.
I cannot imagine hosting a big Thanksgiving in a house I just moved into it! In fact, we typically host a rather small Thanksgiving- just us, my parents, my husband’s sister and family, and maybe 1-2 others- and it still turns into a large undertaking it seems. This year, my dad (he and I usually do most of the prep together) has been knee deep gutting and remodeling our bathroom. My life has been nuts and we just got a puppy. So we were talking last night and decided- you know what? Let’s not do it the normal way this year. We are going to order a “Thanksgiving Feast” from a grocery store complete with all the fixings and then I’ll just quick make a couple of our easier favorite side dishes. There. Done. One year of a phoned in Thanksgiving won’t kill us. 😉
I reallllllly like this idea. So smart. Our Thanksgiving isn’t exactly big — it’s just four extra people. I am mostly stressing about having extra people in my space for X days than anything else, because I get super burned out by constant human interaction LOL.
I am feeling this! My brother is coming, and I do like spending time with him–just not allll the time. He is smart and funny and so, so chatty. He and Mom get going and I’m backing slowly away, needing quiet…
Yes, that does sound very stressful- having extra people in your space is hard enough, but even worse when you feel like the house isn’t ready for it. If you can, just let go of the idea that everything will be perfect by Thanksgiving. Everyone knows you just moved, and it takes a long time to get settled in. I know this is easier said than done- when I’m having people over, if I don’t have the house the way I want it then it distracts me- I keep noticing the big pile of clutter in the corner or whatever- and I don’t enjoy myself as much as I could. I’m going to give you a wuote from the book I’m reading now, How to Keep House While Drowning – “Good enough is perfect.”
OH WOW. THAT IS VERY SOON. I am also hosting, and haven’t really let myself think about it yet..
Oh wow– that is very soon. We are also hosting, and I haven’t even let myself think about it yet.
WHY DID I LEAVE 2 SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT COMMENTS?? The thing told me there was an error with my first one, so I re-thought my punctuation and pronoun choices, and then it showed up. **shrug**
Hosting is so…stressful.
Gah. Home ownership is just full of perplexing issues.
A supernova of gold stars for getting your cards done; even better if someone else did most of the leg work. I can’t wait to put mine in the mail for you.
That banking situation. Really. It’s outrageous. But I agree worth the $30. Aren’t you the one who also had that bank with the ridiculous signs and obscure waiting situation a while back? And I think there are two different banks represented in these stories? Yeesh. I really hope you are DONE WITH THIS ISSUE FOREVER.
I’m giving your husband the Best Bloggo Hubby Award for taking care of the holiday cards. That’s amazing. He gets to keep the award until another Bloggo Hubby tops his accomplishment.
I’m also taking note of the cider braised pot roast – that sounds like something that 4 out of the 4 people in my house would love to eat.
Um if you say that Thanksgiving is in 2 weeks then I guess it is but it sure doesn’t feel like it yet. When your guests look back on the holiday, all they will remember is the time with family and the food. No one is going to say “ugh I went to Aunt Suzanne’s house and there was no towel rack.” Sheesh, a good number of the airbnb’s that I’ve stayed at have no towel racks. I guess the “huh there seems to be ductwork behind every logical place to hang a towel rack” issue is more common than we thought.
We moved into our house in 2019 the Friday before thanksgiving and then the following Friday we had my whole family over for a post-thanksgiving soup dinner. It was kind of nuts but it did force us to unpack quickly. We had rented ‘green’ boxes for the move and they were picked up the monday after our move. We had gradually moved things over ahead of the move too. But I am a power unpacker. I absolutely loathe having boxes around so this was all manageable. But we did not have art work hung or overnight guests. And when you have recently moved in, people should majorly cut you some slack! If they don’t, they are terrible IMO! So try not to put pressure on yourself to have the house presentable. Think about what you would expect if you were staying with a couple that had just moved into a new home.
I am so impressed your husband did your holiday card! If I didn’t do it, we wouldn’t send one out. Phil thinks they are a huge waste of money and would love it if I took a year off. But that is not happening ever!!
I made your fall salad and it was absolutely delicious!!! So, thank you. I am super impressed your husband made your card. I was complaining that I need to get our gd photo calendars created for the grandparents, and my husband said “it can’t be that hard, I’ll do it” to which I immediately said “okay!” and he backed out. HE BACKED OUT, SUZANNE. He did not think I would call his bluff and here we are, me doing these gd photo calendars. Grumble.
I refuse to stress for the holidays!!! All comparasitis be damned! We are doing our usual Thanksgiving dinner- us and the kids plus my one friend whose family will be away. That’s IT. I think you just inspired a holiday rant post for tomorrow LOL I need to let it out.
I have that pumpkin bread recipe open in a tab to try it soon! I am thinking I will make it right before the kids come home for Thanksgiving.
I too am working on our cards early this year, and it feels very pleasant. There are tasks I sort of forget about (like, I write “Thistle family [year]” on the back of each photo, with all our names, and the ages of the kids), which aren’t NECESSARY-necessary but which I WANT to do and which take a surprising amount of time. It is pleasant to be working on it and know I won’t be pantingly working on it LATER when I have so much else to do. Also, it is pleasant to have the photos arrive so quickly, as opposed to how long they take when I procrastinate and the photo place is overwhelmed with other orders.
I will say that if I visited someone who had recently moved, I would ASSUME there would be boxes everywhere, Things Not Done, art not up, etc. Think how fun it will be the NEXT time they visit, when they can see all the progress.
I wish we had family close by I could invite for Thanksgiving. But with everyone living in Germany, that is not an option, sigh. Instead, we always visit our best friends who moved to Vegas a couple of years ago.
I also just ordered our holiday cards. I skipped getting any input from my husband this year and really hope he likes them…
Why does it feel like EVERYTHING is sneaking up on me/us this year? I am not ready for Thanksgiving. Luckily, we’re traveling to see my MIL next weekend, so we’ll celebrate there (even though I am probably going to do the cooking, as my MIL is undergoing cancer treatment and I am trying to take over chores as much as possible when I am there), but that also means our Thanksgiving at home will be very low key.
Kudos to your husband that he took over the holiday card duty this year. This is huge! I am just excited when I can get my husband to even entertain the thought of taking (or finding) a photo for the annual card, or help me pick from a few designs that I of course have preselected. Sigh.
I am glad you cut ties with that banking institution. Wow, why is it so hard sometimes to actually close accounts?
I always say I think your Thanksgiving is placed for peak stressfulness – in November, the bleakest of months, and not EARLY in November so it would maybe brighten up the month, but LATE in November so you just get through Thanksgiving and have to charge into Christmas prep. Sorry, I’m not helping. YAY for getting the card done and YAY for your husband doing it. I am marinating the Korean pork chops from one of your previous posts RIGHT NOW.
You’re right. I am moving to Canada RIGHT NOW.
First, your sister in law and niece know you just moved. I think they will understand, so just take that unwarranted pressure of things “not being done” off your shoulders now.
Huge kudos to your husband for doing the cards! My entire family seems to conspire against me every year regarding cards. This year, I give up and will just send generic cards with loving thoughts and call it a day.
I am not a “pumpkin” person, but I might have to take a shot at that bread…
Regarding your smoke alarm. How old is the house/alarm? We recently had one that would NOT stop chirping despite new batteries. Finally, The Husband did the math and realized that ours was over 20 years old and that the entire smoke detector needed to be replaced; and replaced every one in the house. The chirping stopped.
I was going to say the same thing about the smoke detectors! Our house is only 12 years old, but all of the original ones chirp even after the battery is replaced. We bought them in bulk from Home Depot, and change them as they die.
Smoke detectors do expire due to tired out wiring; mine did so I (actually the boyfriend) replaced them all with the 10-year kind that don’t require the battery changing. I hate chirping! Holiday cards already–I’m impressed. I do New Year cards so I still have a while!
You are hosting Thanksgiving?! Egads! That is SO soon. Just throw all the boxes into a spare room and pretend they don’t exist until after Thanksgiving.
I also feel a bit of knot in my stomach knowing you and Elisabeth have your holiday cards DONE and I haven’t even THOUGHT about them. Ugh. How am I so far behind and it’s not even mid-November yet?!
Hooray for your husband handling the holiday card. I have to get started on mine. I do a whole poem thing with photos in the margins, and I have no idea when I’m going to do that this year. I think I need to start soon.
Bummer about the struggle to hang things up. That’s annoying.
I’ve copied the link to that recipe, because I often think I’ll come back and find a recipe that you post. I’m inspired by Ali making one today. I’m gonna try that one.
I’m a little stressed about Thanksgiving myself. And I’m not hosting. I need to start doing things, clearly. Thankfully our family divides up the food, so no one person has to do everything. It’s going to be at my husband’s parents’ house this year (as it usually is) and my MIL is 86, so she will NOT be cooking. It’s enough for her to get her house ready. We have things mostly figured out, but I’m not clear as to whether I need to buy a turkey or not. I think I should figure that out soon, right?
This made me laugh and I hope I remember it so I can crib it at some point on my own blog, “To make this boring story even more boring and also longer” HA! You’re wonderful.
I love that your husband took over cards! It’s so nice to have someone take a task off your list.
And I really really hope you are done with that financial institution now. Fingers crossed!
I feel like this week calls for pumpkin bread.
I am leaving my bank this week, too. Raising my bread in your direction. 😘
I just… wait. You’re not getting the fee back? that is not right. Not right at all.
Also, is your thermostat in a weird place? That could explain the furnace turning on blast at odd times.
I vote you outsource every possible bit of Thanksgiving you can. Seriously.
And… do you have a stud detector? That might help determine if you have metal – it would let you know – or if there’s something else back there. (I’m kind of thinking a literal hole in the wall would help here, but.. no).
Woohoo to getting your holiday cards DONE and that it wasn’t a task you had to devote time/energy/attention to. Go, husband!
Hosting Thanksgiving is such a big undertaking AND you’ll have family staying with you? GODSPEED, my friend.
Oh my gosh. It’s is weeks later and I just realized I have not thought about christmas cards this year. I really need to get going. I probably should stop reading blog posts and get thinking.