Many things to be thankful for. Good Friends, family, wonderful daughters, decent health, and a decent steady job. The job of course means food on the table ect.

But there are times I don’t feel like giving thanks. I just want to hide out for a few months until this winter holiday season is over. Feeling kind of like Scrooge and “People that go about with Merry Christmas on their lips should be boiled in their Christmas pudding and buried with stake of holly through their hearts.” I’m not sure if that is an exact quote from the book, but it was very close to what I heard in at least one movie.

“A Christmas Carol” is not about the day of Thanksgiving, but it takes place on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing day (set in London, so they have that). There are a few holiday shows that deal with Thanksgiving. There is a Peanuts (Charlie Brown/Snoopy) Thanksgiving show, of course. I think they covered every major holiday.

But the one I am thinking of, most people would agree that it is a Christmas Story, but it starts on Thanksgiving day. That favorite holiday classic “Miracle on 34th Street”. I’m partial to the 1947 version, but the 1994 version isn’t too bad. There were a few made for TV versions that were not quite up to either theater version. Drunk Santa on Parade float replaced by the real article for the annual Thanksgiving parade. The start of the Christmas Shopping season.

Hmm, now I know with both the Christmas Carol and Miracle on 34th street, the commercialization of Christmas has been going on a long time. Scrooge complained about people spending more than they could afford just to make merry on one day. Of course the whole Santa being against the commercialization in 34th street was again showing it for what it was.

This Friday is known as Black Friday. A day when retail stores finally see a profit (I’m skeptical on that, but I just spend the money).

Well for me, I don’t do that much. A few nice gifts and that’s about it. I try not to break the bank (do that too much during the rest of the year).

So I guess for me and from me, I wish you the best this Holiday season. From Thanksgiving day to New Years Day, there are Holidays a plenty for those of all faiths, or no faiths. The very best to you and yours. To those reading this blog who have lost a special someone, may you find some peace and hope amid the additional stress this season puts on you.

On the cover of our extremely late newspaper this evening (inserts for Black Friday sales, but really the store did not get their supply until after 6.30) there was an article detailing various peoples mishaps in the kitchen.  Invariably, this causes my mind to wander to two incidents that I have heard tell about time and again.  They both involve the culinary artistry of my father (who is back to his old self again and we can all be thankful for that).  Apparently, long ago either when I was a wee lad or not even born, he ATTEMPTED to cook goulash.  I say attempted because he began by putting the uncooked macaroni along with the meat and other ingredients into a pot of not boiling water.  I guess he was going for the goulash soup.

On another occasion while serving as Assistant Scoutmaster of my brother’s Boy Scout troop, he attempted to cook spaghetti on a camping excursion.  What the boys eventually were about to consume was a pasty substance that only the Scoutmaster himself would sample.

I think from then on, my mother was the gourmet and dad was left to the everyday hamburger, grilled cheese and the like.

So from all of us to all of you, may you have a blessed Thanksgiving filled with family, friends, blessings, and a day void of cooking disasters.  BTW, taylhis, what time did your paper arrive at your doorstep?

Well, it looks like I was somehow able to get a day of work in this week.  Apparently the teacher was gone yesterday too, and they didn’t use the same sub which left the door open for yours truly.  I am writing this post with a headache, so don’t be too surprised if it turns out shorter than normal.

I was able to pick up this day early yesterday afternoon meaning that had I worked yesterday I may not have secured a job for today.  Who knows?  Only one opening slipped past my radar for yesterday (locked when I tried to select it) so I imagine today would have been no better with the selection still being only one district.  The job?  Mentally impaired kids at the school furthest from me at about 13 miles.  I hoped to run into one of my church students here who graced my cabin at summer camp a year ago, and even found myself in the classroom across the hall from his, but as it turned out our paths never crossed.

So what is this sort of classroom like?  Think kids who can barely talk even though some are ten or eleven years old, two of which are wheelchair bound and can’t even feed themselves.  There were seven kids, three aides, and one teacher.  Yes, a ratio of less than two students per teacher; it takes that much energy to work with these kids.  Now these kids were very low-functioning, but that doesn’t mean non-functioning, so there is room for teaching them.  Mostly this is very basic math and simple writing (not all can write though), and a lot of coloring, cutting, and pasting.  Naturally the theme for the reading and writing lesson was- drum roll please- Thanksgiving.  I read them a book parodying The Night Before Christmas, replacing Christmas with Thanksgiving.  Then the kids did a sequencing activity on the book.  The ones who were able to write not only sequenced things from the book, they also had to write about it, a challenge for me to get them to do this.

Mostly the aides ran the class.  This was pretty much my only lesson.  I acted as an aide myself for much of the day which is standard practice as the aides know the routine and what to expect out of their students.  In the afternoon the day ended with an actual Thanksgiving feast.  There was corn, mashed potatoes, stuffing, pumpkin pie, and turkey- erm, cookies.  No actual turkey- several kids don’t eat meat anyway- but cookies decorated to look like turkeys.  I actually didn’t eat much of anything, and since this was less than two hours after lunch not much was given to the kids, but for them it was supposed to be a learning experience.  A lot of what these kids do is life skills, including cooking.  Last year I subbed in a class like this where the kids folded laundry (gym loaner uniforms).  I did force myself to eat a small slice of pumpkin pie.  There was only once slice left and I didn’t want to start any arguments 😉 .    I also took a cookie home since they were homemade and I didn’t want to offend.  You got me, I have a sweet tooth anyway so I didn’t mind.  One thing that the meal was missing was the thanksgiving part.  I didn’t expect prayer, this being the 21st century in a public school, but the aides didn’t ask what the kids were thankful for.  Maybe that’s too high a level for them, I don’t know.

Well, it looks like my post isn’t short after all, though I do still haved my headache even after taking an allergy pill and a 600mg Tylenol.  Come to think of it, I seem to remember that you don’t take Tylenol for headaches.  Waste of a pill- now where’s my Aleve?

What does a sub when it’s Thanksgiving week and three of four districts he’s signed up in is off all week? Catch up on TV of course 🙂 . For the fourth district it is near impossible to get a job off the web when few show up (teachers must have been told to not take this week off if possible) and it’s the time of day when the system calls subs as well as shows the jobs on the web. When trying to select such a job it is locked 95% of the time because the system is offering it to someone over the phone at the same time. So, as I tried this morning I finished yesterday’s paper (I’ll go out sometime later today to retrieve today’s paper currently laying at the end of the driveway), viewed a few more themes for this blog, and ate some breakfast. I think I like the theme I am now using, so barring any annoying bugs this should be the one. It has a static width optimized for 1024×768 it looks like, meaning there should be no gap issue with my readers- why did only one mention it by the way? Surely others encountered it unless only the one uses Internet Explorer- regardless of the window size and there is now only one sidebar making more room for pictures. Those with browser window sizes less than 1024 wide should see a scroll bar at the bottom since the theme width is locked, but the sidebar is on the right so that will be the first thing unseen. The window will have to be pretty narrow I think before you start having to scroll to read the actual posts. I really hope this is a good one because my options are quite limited. Three-column doesn’t work because I like to post images, a lot of the themes are static optimized for 800×600 so that would limit the image size again, and many just don’t appeal to me.

Back to subbing, I expected to have Wednesday through Friday off, but I was really hoping to work today and tomorrow at least.  There is still a slight chance for an afternoon job today, and a chance of course for tomorrow for the time being so I might yet make some money this week.  If I don’t though, there is a pile of recorded shows dating back to the beginning of the summer.  Why I didn’t watch the summer shows I don’t know, but they’re there along with several fall shows.  I would really like to replace all the VCRs in this house with DVD writers one of these days, but money is tight and the other member of this house is quite comfortable with video tapes and wouldn’t know what to do with recordable DVDs.  I set up my little DVD/media player for her to watch some shows I had downloaded, but for now she is skipping them and watching her own backlog of videotaped shows instead.

Speaking of a backlog on shows, I am down to reserve #12 of 32 on season four of The Office at my library, on three copies so I should hopefully have it by Christmas to watch.

remember your recipe for gravy.

Thanksgiving is just around the corner. Usually a time to spend eating too much and watching football. I’m kind of wondering about that this year. The two games played on Thanksgiving usually feature the Detroit Lions and the Dallas Cowboys. This year is no exception. I realize that nobody was saying the Lions would be 0 and 8, or that Dallas would be 5 and 4, but isn’t it time for the NFL to give these two prime football slots to different teams? What kind of deal did the Lions and Cowboys make? Kind of wondering is there a college game on? How about the NBA? NHL? I don’t think I’ll be watching the Lions. Maybe the Cowboys, we’ll see if they start playing football again when Romo gets back in. The Lions haven’t played much football this year, I don’t expect them to start any time soon.

Unless someone else does it first I’m going to try to find out about the NFL Lions Cowboys deal.

I sent some recipes to my sister and since I had to type them into the computer anyway, I will post them on my blog.  The first two are great for Thanksgiving, and the last one is a yummy version of lasagna that is great for moms to make because you can do the preparation while the kids are napping or eating lunch, and then it will cook all day in the crock pot.  Also, you make it with cottage cheese instead of ricotta cheese which can be expensive.  Enjoy!

Pearl Onions in Cream Sauce
1 – 10 oz pkg red or white pearl onions, peeled according to package directions
3 TBL butter or margerine
3 TBL flour
1 1/2 cups milk, heated almost to boiling point
2 TBL cream sherry (optional)
1 drop tabasco sauce
dash ground nutmeg
white pepper and salt to taste
chopped parsley for garnish
To cook pearl onions, drop peeled onions intoboiling water.  Cook for 10 mins. and drain.  To make cream sauce, melt butter or margerine over medium-high heat.  When melted, add flour, stirring constantly with wire wisk, until all butter is absorbed.  Turn heat to low and add milk slowly (make sure to continue stirring with the wire wisk).  Add sherry, tabasco sauce, nutmeg, pepper and salt.  Fold-in cooked onions and mix well.  Before serving, garnish with parsley.  Variations:  When folding cooked pearl onions into cream sauce, add 3/4 cup cooked green peas.  Makes 4-6 side dish servings.

Sweet Potatoes With Blue Cheese and Pecans
4 lbs sweet potatoes
3 TBL olive oil
6 sprigs thyme or 1/2 tsp dried
1 cup pecans
1 cup blue cheese

Combine sweet potatoes and oil in a roasting pan, sprinkle with thyme.  Roast for 30-45 min at 425 or until tender.  Transfer the sweet potatoes to a serving bowl.  Gently toss with pecans and cheese.  Salt and pepper to taste.  Garnish with remaining thyme.  Serves 6.

Crock Pot Lasagna
1 lb lean ground beef
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, smashed
1 – 28 oz can tomato sauce
1 – 6 oz can of tomato paste
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp salt (approx.)
12 oz uncooked lasagna noodles
12 oz cottage cheese
1 cup parmesan cheese (approx.)
16 oz shredded mozzarella cheese

In a skillet, cook ground beef, onion and garlic until beef is browned.  Add tomato sauce, tomato paste, oregano and salt.  When sauce is thoroughly warmed, spoon a layer of the meat sauce into the bottom of the crock pot.  Add a double layer of uncooked lasagna noodles, breaking to fit if necessary.  Top with a layer of each of the cheeses.  Repeat process until sauce, noodles, and cheeses are gone.  Cover and cook on low for 4-5 hrs.  NOTE:  My lasagna began to overcook a little before 4 hrs in the crock pot!