What's for Thanksgiving Dinner This Year?

This year, Hubby told me that his brother and family are coming for a visit on Thanksgiving. Hooray! More people to cook for! I might have never mentioned it, but I love to cook. It's just the clean-up that I could do without. In spite of that, I've been much more adventurous in my selections lately, in part thanks to my sister, who gave me five Weight Watchers cookbooks when I last visited sunny Florida.

So, what's for dinner this year? Well, thanks to several low-fat cookbooks, I've got a fairly decent menu filled with mostly good dieters' food. No, I'm not really dieting (though I could stand to lose about eight pounds to get back to my goal weight from Weight Watchers), but I do want to maintain the figure I worked so hard to get back. So I use a lot of light cooking recipes.

This year, I'm making a turkey (19 1/2 pounds) with stuffing (in the bird - it hasn't killed me yet, you know). The stuffing is my father's recipe, or as close as we can get to it considering he never wrote it down. While boiling the onions, etc., I add the spices that he recalls putting in until it smells like his stuffing. Then I add that to the bread that I dice up on Wednesday night.

In addition to the turkey, I'm making mashed sweet potatoes (third year), garlic mashed potatoes (first time, Weight Watchers' recipe), green bean casserole (first time in years, trying another Weight Watchers' recipe), rolls (Pillsbury low-fat crescents), and some kind of apple-pie-like dessert. The dessert is either a straight-out apple pie recipe off the pie crust box or an apple crisp recipe that I made last year from my Fix It and Forget It Lightly cookbook (a crockpot recipe collection). I haven't decided, but I know I have enough of everything to make either.

For breakfast on Friday, I'm making an overnight egg bake from Weight Watchers. (I am still working on what penance I'll do instead of meatless Friday this week. I have a neat story about that, too, if I remember to write about it.)

For now, I'm off to the store to get a few things, but I might try to put some of the recipes up. In spite of what some people think, most of the low-fat recipes I've encountered have been delicious. In fact, if I don't tell anyone, they typically don't know. One thing is for sure: if it doesn't taste about the same as a regular, high-fat recipe, I won't make it a second time. My tendancy towards gluttony (oh, how I love food!) makes me pretty picky about how things taste. My general opinion is that if it doesn't have flavor enough, I don't want to put it in my mouth. God did give me tastebuds for a reason, you know!

Recipes and a timetable are forthcoming. (The timetable is mostly because I need it, but also because Hubby is currently battling some stomach virus that had him up all night, and Big Girl is feeling queasy today. I am PRAYING that I don't come down with it, especially on Thanksgiving, when I have a houseful of people and a ton of food to cook! Please pray for our family to be healthy in time for our visitors!)

Pre-Christ the King Carnival

Onionboy's got a terrific Carnival put together, and this week has a bonus section of strange submissions he received.

But it looks like it has a wealth of great posts. There are posts on Sir Elton "Religion is Evil" John, Jesus and the ten lepers, some Catholic perspective on The Purpose Driven Life (I'll be checking that out, for sure!), the purpose of the Vatican, and even a terrific post on the Mass that echoes much of how I feel about Mass in the vernacular. I even managed two posts this week.

All in all, a great Carnival (as usual).




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Question for the Smarty-Pants Types

Suppose you go to Mass, and you feel queasy. Later, after receiving Communion, you wind up getting sick.

What happens if you throw up before you have completely digested the Eucharist?

This isn't something I'd thought about before, but it has come up (if you'll pardon the expression) this evening.

Just curious...leave answers in the com boxes if you have them. Thanks in advance.

Amazing Video

The girls and I are going to actually pop a water balloon after seeing this. They think this is VERY cool.

Okay, so do I.

slow motion water bollon pop

Add to My Profile | More Videos

(Click here if that didn't work for you.)

Head over here to make one of your own.

Nutritional Information

Ironic Catholic (actually, the Spouse of Ironic Catholic - sic) has the new FDA-approved nutritional label for the Most Blessed Sacrament.

Very clever!

Scarlet and Gray Carnival

It's time once again! The penultimate Carnival for the Liturgical Year is up at Just Another Day of Catholic Pondering, so go check it out!

Here Comes the DVD

But Insight Scoop has a lot of information to help you set the record straight. Lots of people who have been waiting will be seeing The DaVinci Code soon. Head over here to get the goods on the Truth!

'Tis the Season...

...for griping about "holidays."

First off, I wasn't planning on discussing the holiday season until we were into Advent. I won't take a serious look at Christmas stuff until then. A big exception is the gigantic, gorgeous, wishing-I-had-$400-to-spend-on-nothing Creche scene that Sam's club is carrying this year. It's not light-up - it's resin - and it is absolutely one of the prettiest non-Fontanini Nativity sets I've seen. But, alas, I havne't got that kind of money to spend.

Oh, yeah, back on topic.

So, I wasn't thinking much about revisiting the big "Holdiay versus Christmas" war for a while, but the griping is already starting.

Some people are refusing to shop where the employees have been instructed not to say "Merry Christmas" to customers. For example, last year, lots of people boycotted Wal Mart because of it. I'll tell you this: I was wished Merry Christmas nearly every time I went to Wal Mart. Why? Because when I was given a "Happy Holidays" by the associate, I smiled warmly and with a cheery voice and love in my heart for her, I said, "Thank you. Merry Christmas." Almost every time (and this went for other stores, too), I was given the same wish back. Did I get my panties in a knot over it? Certainly not! What's the point? The employees of these stores have no control over it, and they are merely following orders not to say it first.

If you've never worked in retail, especially during the Christmas shopping season, you have no idea how really difficult it is. If you are a happy Christmas shopper (like me), you have no clue how truly nasty some people are while looking for gifts for their loved ones. Apparently, it's a chore for them! "I have to get X, Y, and Z for little Jimmy for Christmas because he asked for it all." Golly, just that attitude is a whole different post! (Check back for updates on it! LOL)

But when it comes to us Christians, out shopping for Christmas presents, why are we so concerned about whether or not someone wishes us Merry Christmas as opposed to Happy Holidays? After all, the word holiday comes from "holy day," and we all know which Holy Day of Obligation they are all alluding to, don't we?

On one hand, Christians are busy complaining about the commercialization of Christmas. "It's Jesus' birthday!" we cry. "And the stores are treating it like just another reason to have a sale. Plus, they put up Christmas trees in mid-October, for goodness' sake!"

But on the other hand, while we are out partaking of the absolutely killer sales, shopping to our hearts' content, snapping up gift after gift for our families and friends, we get annoyed that the sales are not labeled as directly related to Jesus' birthday.

Does that make sense?

Think, for a moment, about the Grinch That Stole Christmas. No, not the Jim Carrey, look-into-his-childhood-to-find-that-the-Whos-caused-his-grinchiness version. The original. The one that reminded us that it's not the presents that make Christmas. Do your kids honestly know that? Suppose there were no presents at all this year. Would Christmas be the same?

And, if not - even if it would be only a little different ... even if the kids would only briefly wonder what the deal is - why not? Could it be because the same Christians who complain about the commercialization of the birth of our Savior while also complaining that the birth of our Savior is not tied closely enough with the sale going on a Sears have also bought into the whole secular deal of Christmas?

And I'm not saying that I'm immune, people. Trust me, I make sure we all get presents for Christmas.

But what is our true focus as we approach Christmas? What is our focus as we enter into Advent? Do we use the season to repent and mend our lives, as we are admonished to do at Mass? Is Advent a mirror of Lent for us?

Or is it a month-long shopping spree where we all get together with our Christian friends and complain that Best Buy won't remind us of Jesus when we buy that plasma TV?

Computer Trouble

Our new desktop (well, new in February) would not power on yesterday. No fan, no beep, nothing. Just a blinking orange light on the power button.

So I spent more than two hours chatting on my laptop with Dell. (Which was strange, because my laptop is a Gateway!)

My power supply is kaput, and they will be coming here to fix it up for me ASAP. And, thank God, it's all covered under warranty.

So blogging will be VERY light until that happens. Which is a good thing, really. I need to do more around the house anyway.