Wrapping Up November

I decided to move this blog back to WordPress, after trying out Substack for a couple months. I just never could get the hang of Substack, and it didn’t seem to get me. My feed was full of religious posts, and when I tried to search for homesteading/gardening accounts, I could never find any, or any that were current. WordPress seems to be where the crunchy folks are. I also like the WordPress aesthetics better, and I can work on posts from my phone, which Substack doesn’t seem to offer. So look for me over here now. (If I can figure out how to easily post on both, I will.)

I will, however, keep the name change that I instituted when I started at Substack: Garden State of Mind.

So here we are, on the brink of the holidays. Christmas Eve is a month from today. Yesterday was the last farmers’ market. The weather has reverted to typical November: cold, some rain (thank God!). I hit the market early and got the last two bags of potato cheddar pierogi from Mom Mom’s Kitchen (of Northeast Phila.), and let me tell you, they were worth it. So good! (It was my first time eating them; we bought them two weeks ago and my daughter had been talking about them ever since). Also got tons of Golden Delicious apples (also dictated by Fiona), russet potatoes, garlic, and some stocking stuffers from local crafters/purveyors. I still have carrots and broccoli from last week’s market. The end of the market has truly become a marker of winter’s onset for me. I’ll miss it.

After the market, I met some friends for breakfast. Then it was home to start some aggressive cleaning and decluttering. I know, I’m always decluttering. But this was pre-holiday decluttering, which is not so much about rehoming items as it is taking everything extraneous and shoving it into the basement, my room, or various drawers, cabinets and closets, to make space for Christmas. Things that have sat there so long I wasn’t even seeing them anymore, like a big whiteboard my daughter discarded that’s been sitting at the top of the stairs for months. In the process I had some ideas for hanging old family photos on walls, so I measured and scoped everything out, bought Command strips, and voila…. Getting these pictures up accomplishes two goals: livening up a bare wall and regaining room where they had been standing up before. I might redo it to put them closer to each other but I like it for now. Or maybe I’ll be able to find some more to put up.

I put out a few Thanksgiving items. I have this fall tablecloth that is too long for my current table. So I slapped it on there, gathered up the long ends, and stapled them in a few places. Voila again: A usable tablecloth. Nobody is going to see it but us; we are going elsewhere for Thanksgiving. Come Friday though, we will be Christmas decorating. A friend mentioned at breakfast yesterday that Thanksgiving is late this year, and I hadn’t realized it til then. I’ve never been one to rush Christmas, but a month is not much time at all.

In between I took my son to get a haircut in town, and Fiona and I did a little window-shopping while he was there. At night, Tom and I watched the penultimate episode of Say Nothing, which is… intense.

I’m a little sad to not be cooking or baking anything for Thanksgiving this year, but maybe I will make something just for us over the long weekend, like I did last year, after having COVID on Thanksgiving itself. I have some interesting Japanese squash from the farmers’ market that I need to cook.

I did bake that chocolate self-saucing cake I mentioned in my last post, two Sundays ago. Highly recommend if you want a fast, easy hit of intense chocolate, and I definitely recommend pairing it with vanilla ice cream.

Last weekend was my oldest’s 18th birthday. I surprised him with filet mignon. The other surprise was that he had to cook it. He’s much better at it than me! I made a garlic mustard cream sauce to top it, plus mashed potatoes. Gnocchi for the non-meat-eaters. It was delicious. I can’t find the sauce recipe now, but maybe from Taste of Home?

The night before (Saturday), I made homemade Rice a Roni and roasted some carrots and broccoli (served with chicken nuggets). Earlier that day I put together a new batch of Italian seasoning with my dried, homegrown herbs. I’m now officially out of parsley and marjoram, and low on the rest — need to grow them next year for sure.

Before that on Saturday we took Rocco on a long hike at “the quarry.” This is about twenty minutes away; for both my boys it was one of their first points of exploration as a young teen. Meanwhile I’ve lived here forever and I had never heard of it til they went. It’s a great place for a hike; you can see Philadelphia from the highest point (Blueberry Hill). Rocco needs his exercise and so do we. Disclaimer: I don’t think you are supposed to go on the sand, but there were no signs, so…

Not sure if I mentioned this already, but our last water bill (Nov. 1) seemed to be extremely high, so we need to get to the root of that. In the meantime I am trying to be conscious of water usage. Otherwise, knock on wood, it’s been a while since we have had any kind of unexpected large expense. The van is making a funny noise again, though.

Over the years I have thought about getting a rain barrel, and this drought might inspire me to finally do it. It would have been good to have had stored rainwater for watering my plants this fall.

Last week we did pretty good with eating dinner at home, although I didn’t pack any lunches. This week is a short week and honestly I don’t care what we eat or what happens. Just get me to the long weekend!

Just a couple more pics of the dog because he has been super cute lately.