Weekly Round Up: Pictures or It Didn't Happen

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  This week we celebrated Thanksgiving with an epic family get together, but you'll have to take my word for it because we had so much fun that we took zero pictures.

Thanksgiving Recap

On Thanksgiving we had a gathering of 12 people and three dogs at our house.  The three dogs part is why there are no pictures, since we had to stay on our toes.  Great fun was had by all.

The menu was our usual divide and conquer: Hubs cooked the turkey, SIL #3 made mashed potatoes and stuffing, SIL #4 made green bean casserole, veggies, and brought rolls, and I made gravy and desserts.  I kept it simple and went with a chocolate chip cookie cake and apple pie.

Eats

It's fair to say that The Recipe Rebel is my current go to for eats.  Our latest family dinner hit from there is cheeseburger soup.  The first time that I made it, I decided to get all fancy and buy a block of cheese that I shredded, instead of buying shredded cheese.  In theory that's supposed to be the superior way of doing things since pre-shredded cheese is mixed with something to keep the strands from sticking together so it's not "pure" cheese.  In reality - if you gave me a bowl of soup made with not-pre-shredded cheese and a bowl made with pre-shredded cheese, would I be able to tell the difference?  I'm guessing not, but still sometimes I get snooty and take the fancy/harder route.

In this case, the fancy route led to having an extra cup of cheese and an extra half pound of beef, with I bundled up in the freezer for the next time that we made this soup.  As soon as we sat down to eat it, the family reached the mutual conclusion that "next time" would be the next night.  So a second batch came together in a snap.

Workouts

The usual plus getting out for a hike on the weekends when I can.  I got in a hike on Wednesday afternoon before Thanksgiving and had ambitions of more hikes over the holiday weekend, but the weather got brutally cold so I'll wait until it warms up again to go back out there.

Watching

Let me tell you that the weather has gotten chilly without telling you that the weather has gotten chilly - our TV watching has gone way up.

First up, a blast from the past.  Hubs and I like to rewatch Seinfeld from time to time.  Hubs is always the driver, and he'll pick some random show from, say, season 6, which we'll watch and then keep watching the next few episodes after that, and then we'll get distracted and it will be months/years before we'll get back to it and we pick up with another random episode in a different season.  Well, since I can't find a decent TV show to save my life, I decided to break the matrix and start from the beginning during my solo TV time at night.  I only made it into the second episode before my solo project became a couples project.  Season one was very short so we've already finished it.  If you're looking for trivia, Jerry had a different dad in season one and Elaine doesn't show up until episode two.

On the movie side of things, Unspooled did an episode on Office Space recently.  My memory was that I didn't like it when I saw it back in the day because even back then it was a little too much like watching my average work day.  However I was interested enough to give it another try after hearing the podcast, and I do appreciate a movie that's held up so well for 25 years(!) 

Next up was one of those movies that I've been hearing about and meant to get around to sometime, and that time was now.  Uncut Gems anyone?  I had a lot of trouble getting into it, and I think I would have bailed except that I was watching it with the Hubs, which somehow made me stick with it a little longer than I would have otherwise.  The story didn't do much for me, but I did enjoy/appreciate that Adam Sandler finally got a chance to act.

And finally...I bet you think I'm going to tell you that I watched some obscure movie from the 20s.  Not true!  I did see a movie from the 20's but it was the 2020's.  I talked my SILs and nieces into seeing Wicked.   My only beef is that the full title of the movie is Wicked: Part 1 and they really kept the part 1 thing under wraps.  But it was a fun, splashy, bright, (long) outing with the fam, and there will be a repeat when part 2 comes out.

Reading

I have three books to tell you about.

Thing 1: Now that I've finished the Linda Castillo Amish Murders, I went back to the Alphabet series.  I read F is for Fugitive.  Spoiler, I've got the G book checked out and waiting on my Kindle for after I finish my current book.

Thing 2: I hear about way more books that I want to read than I have time to read, so a lot of things fall through the cracks.  One of those books is The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters.  The only reason that it came to mind is because Julie wrote about it (thanks Julie!).  I knew that it had something to do with a missing child, and I won't say any more than that.  I will say how I felt - fully locked in and engaged from page one to the end.  This was a book that made me smile and made me cry, and I don't think that there is any better compliment to give a book.

Thing 3: My current read is Madwoman by Chelsea Bieker, which is the current It Book of the Sarah's Bookshelf podcast.  The author's "elevator pitch" for the book is:

"When my mom died, the coroner’s report said she died of “complications of alcoholism.” When I saw that, I remember something felt off to me, even though nearly her entire life was marked by addiction. I thought to myself, no, that could be truer: she died of complications of domestic violence" 

Yep, that's how you get a reader's attention.  I hesitated because my gut was telling me that she was absolutely going to nail the domestic violence thing.  Now look, it's a problem that we as a society don't talk about enough, so the more well written books about the subject the better, but also there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.  I just read A Well Trained Wife, and I felt that I might need more of a break between DV books.  But after I heard the author's Sarah's Bookshelves episode, I was all in and it only took a few weeks to come in on Libby.

My impression from 80% of the way in is that this is both an incredible book, and a funny one.  I don't want to give away the story, but in addition to the advertised DV the story deals with a non-DV marriage and motherhood, and there are very charming and hilarious tones.  The only gripe I have is that the further the story goes the "funny" part is getting a little too out there and I'm wondering what the ultimate message of the book is going to be.  But so far I can tell you that it's a book with an incredible start and middle, and I'll circle back and let you know what I thought of the ending when I get there.

And Finally...

Tis the season!  Hubs and I started the Advent Calendar again.  

 

See you next week!