One year, I can't tell you which one, I was pretty smart and organized. Since I feel like I'm regularly losing brain cells, it must have been quite a while ago. Anyway, I typed in our Thanksgiving menu into the computer. I also added the recipes, and on the second page I added the shopping list. For the last few years I simply hit print and my menu comes out, along with the shopping list.
~The Stout's Thanksgiving Menu~
Appetizer platter: stuffed celery (cream cheese or peanut butter), carrots, pickles, nuts, Aunt Christina's eggs
Roast Turkey
Stuffing with onions, olives and celery (Nana Hill's recipe)
Plain Stuffing (for the picky)
Cranberry jelly (out of the can, for Don's comfort)
Cranberry Jell-o Salad (Nana Hill's recipe)
Green salad with raspberry dressing, dried cranberries and pralines
Spinach and Artichoke casserole (from the year the Crouch's didn't have a kitchen and this was their favorite and we didn't want them to miss out, but we thought we should adopt it as a regular)
Carrot/Cheese casserole (Nana Hill's recipe)
Macaroni and Cheese casserole (Nana Hill's recipe)
Green bean Casserole (Mom Stout's recipe)
Sweet Potato Souffle (Grandma Hattenfield's recipe)
Pumpkin soup (My own recipe!)
Garlic mashed potatoes (for my niece, Christen's delight)
Turkey gravy
Cranberry juice with 7up (Nana Stout's mixture)
Egg nog (A recipe I adopted while in college from my Campus Crusade for Christ staff member)
Fresh baked bread
Pumpkin Pie
Apple Pie (I prefer Dutch Apple or French Apple, so I make one of those, and then a traditional for everyone else!)
Each year, we host a different crew. And I see, as the years go on, that it will continue to be different people for the rest of my life. Tomorrow we are hosting 21. But every year is different. I input all of the casserole recipes into a calorie counter a few years ago, and figured I ate 3100 calories in one meal! On Monday of this week, I boiled and peeled everything. Yesterday I mashed everything. Today, with the help of Priscilla, Philip and Andrew, we mixed everything. Tomorrow we will put on the toppings and bake everything, after the turkey is done, resting and waiting to be carved. I love to have a clean kitchen when I serve dinner. I like the dishwashers to be empty and ready to be loaded with the dinner dishes before we eat dessert. That's why I trash my kitchen the day before! Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Our Own Little Corner of the World
Life has been a whirl the last two weeks. We watched a national election. We watched the responses of people who didn't like what happened on that November 4th. Some people gracefully took the results of the evening with sighs of resignation, while others stormed the streets, stomping like outraged toddlers, who didn't get what they wanted. It makes one wonder about parenting techniques all over again. If the toddlers throw big enough tantrums will they eventually get what they want? And then the compliant child never really gets what he wants because he was obedient to the authorities around him. I know which one I'd rather go to a restaurant with!
Along with my Political Science degree, I was majoring in Psychology. Did anyone really know that? Or did they care? And actually, my senior year, I was so fed up with what was being taught, I couldn't agree with my professor any more. People really have spiritual problems, more than psychological problems, and too many times they are allowed to make excuses. Don't get me wrong. I believe that there are hormonal imbalances, and other causes for apparent psychological issues, but I always believed many people used the psychobabble as an excuse for their spiritual shortcomings. Needless to say, I got a D in one certain professor's class, and I lost my major, so it was considered a Psychology minor. So, I have a Psychology minor. But I digress.
In one of the many classes I took, I remember them talking about men and midlife crises. The need to go get the sports car. The need to trade in the old, faithful wife for one half her age. When talking about the reasons for this "midlife crisis", one reason cited was that when a President gets elected younger than you are, you take stock of your life and realize that you may or may not be where you want to be in your life. And chances are, you will probably never be President. Younger men had "midlife crises" when John F. Kennedy was President, than when Ronald Reagan was President. But isn't that a funny thing to consider?
Well, look at Barrack Obama. He is younger than my husband is. Pretty much proof that my husband will never be President of the United States. Glad that question is settled! Okay, should I expect that my husband will have a midlife crisis? Well, I lean back to my original gut feeling, that it really is a spiritual issue.
But, what about our own little corner of the world? Have we been faithful in the small things that have come our way? I pray so. We have our own places of influence. Our children, our church, our homeschool group, our neighbors.
Just this week, we got to minister to our son and his friends whose college has been affected by the fires. We get to pray on a daily basis for all of our children. We get to discipline them and disciple them. We also get to minister to other children on a daily basis. Spanish, Science, American Government, Speech, Debate and service to others. There is no shortage of outlets to affect our own little corner of the world. My husband is allowed to minister to a wider range of people, whether or not they know they are being ministered to, he is serving them with the gifts given to him by his Creator.
And although the last two weeks have been a whirlwind, and we are only now getting to the crazy holiday time, I pray that we are faithful to our own little corner of the world. And when confronted with issues we don't like, we teach our children to sigh and behave with grace.
Along with my Political Science degree, I was majoring in Psychology. Did anyone really know that? Or did they care? And actually, my senior year, I was so fed up with what was being taught, I couldn't agree with my professor any more. People really have spiritual problems, more than psychological problems, and too many times they are allowed to make excuses. Don't get me wrong. I believe that there are hormonal imbalances, and other causes for apparent psychological issues, but I always believed many people used the psychobabble as an excuse for their spiritual shortcomings. Needless to say, I got a D in one certain professor's class, and I lost my major, so it was considered a Psychology minor. So, I have a Psychology minor. But I digress.
In one of the many classes I took, I remember them talking about men and midlife crises. The need to go get the sports car. The need to trade in the old, faithful wife for one half her age. When talking about the reasons for this "midlife crisis", one reason cited was that when a President gets elected younger than you are, you take stock of your life and realize that you may or may not be where you want to be in your life. And chances are, you will probably never be President. Younger men had "midlife crises" when John F. Kennedy was President, than when Ronald Reagan was President. But isn't that a funny thing to consider?
Well, look at Barrack Obama. He is younger than my husband is. Pretty much proof that my husband will never be President of the United States. Glad that question is settled! Okay, should I expect that my husband will have a midlife crisis? Well, I lean back to my original gut feeling, that it really is a spiritual issue.
But, what about our own little corner of the world? Have we been faithful in the small things that have come our way? I pray so. We have our own places of influence. Our children, our church, our homeschool group, our neighbors.
Just this week, we got to minister to our son and his friends whose college has been affected by the fires. We get to pray on a daily basis for all of our children. We get to discipline them and disciple them. We also get to minister to other children on a daily basis. Spanish, Science, American Government, Speech, Debate and service to others. There is no shortage of outlets to affect our own little corner of the world. My husband is allowed to minister to a wider range of people, whether or not they know they are being ministered to, he is serving them with the gifts given to him by his Creator.
And although the last two weeks have been a whirlwind, and we are only now getting to the crazy holiday time, I pray that we are faithful to our own little corner of the world. And when confronted with issues we don't like, we teach our children to sigh and behave with grace.
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