Ahhh! The coming down from the food coma from Thanksgiving! I held it here at home. My parents came up and it was just the six of us with mountains of food. Luckily nothing will go to waste. I’ve learned a lot of ways for turkey to be reused, lol.

Thanksgiving cooking and clean up were easy. I did everything but the turkey and desserts in the slow cooker. I had 5 of them lined up on the counter. I’d have used more but I lost the lid to one. Probably given a new home when my husband put the dishes away. It is a matter of finding it!

So, what do you normally have? My lineup star was the Turkey, followed by stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, cranberries and green bean casserole. For dessert we had pumpkin pie, apple pie, mint chocolate cheesecake and rocky road fudge.

We have leftovers of everything! I cooked enough for at least twelve when we only had six. So thanksgiving dinner will be what we have for the next few days, lol.

I made everything from scratch. Trial and error guided me. I will never attempt cranberries again! Store bought for me. I followed an online recipe and it was way too sour for me. I tried saving it, but that was a no go! They were the only leftovers I didn’t save. The carrots and sweet potatoes were candied. Brown sugar and butter were nummy! Since we are diabetic (hubby and I) I used the splenda brown suger. You couldn’t even tell.

The cheesecake (it is soooo good), came from a recipe book from the cheesecake contest that is held here yearly. We have a Kraft plant in town, so it is one of the highlights I look forward to. You can taste test all of the cheesecakes that day. Yummy, yummy! I only changed it up a little. I made the crust from oreo cookies. You can purchase the cook book of previous winners. Since I love cheesecake and I collect recipe books I couldn’t pass it up. It turned out delicious. Of course it WAS one of previous winners!

So on top of that, I’ve been sick all week. I’ve been crawling out of bed each day to work. Black Friday I took the day off of work to shop, but didn’t even head out until 900 am. My first stop was the mattress company here in town. They had mattresses on sale for $98 and I needed a bed. My son is coming home to visit and there is no bed for him since my daughter and granddaughter moved home in March. Then I bought a frame online for a platform bed with storage. Since we’re cleaning out the spare room to return it to the bedroom it originally was, storage is definitely needed.

Later, when I can breath and think, I’ll be going over my edits from Willow’s Cry. I’m only waiting on one beta reader to get back to me. I’ll fix the errors the others found before going over it again before official edits! Then the blurb and cover have to be completed. A never ending cycle. As slow as I’m going, and with Christmas ramping up (I work for the Post Office) I’m shooting for a January release date. That way I’m not frantic trying to get everything done at once.

So relax! Enjoy the holidays, and read up!