Measi's Musings

Posts Tagged ‘holidailies’

With the exception of family, all of my cards are done. I need one more book of stamps, and I’ll have the last batch out at lunchtime.

How is it that I always wait until the last minute to send these things? And why is it that I feel more inclined to send holiday greetings to complete strangers from my internet travels, rather than send them to my own family?

Is it because I see my family as stability- that they’ll always be there? Do I take them for granted? Or do I just find more satisfaction spreading cheer through cards to random people than I do for the people I know and love, who know that I love them.

There’s a weird disconnect here, and it’s annoying me today.

I have a couple meaty entries in progress… but have some work to get done. Hopefully I can actually get my thoughts to make sense later today.

I made this turkey for Thanksgiving for the past two years… and have had a lot of email & comment questions about it…

So, as a response to a Holidailies prompt, here’s the recipe for the turkey. This is based upon the recipe from Alton Brown’s Good Eats. I highly recommend it– you’ll get an exceptionally juicy turkey– even when it’s a few days old and has been in the fridge!

15-20 lbs turkey
1 gallon vegetable stock
1 gallon water
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup kosher salt
Peel of one navel orange.
1 tablespoon whole allspice
1 tablespoon whole black peppercorns
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon dried thyme
Canola oil
One can chicken broth (optional)
1 large red apple, quartered
2 medium white onions, quartered
2 cinnamon sticks
2 sprigs of rosemary
2 sprigs fresh thyme (optional)

In a large pot stir together the stock, water, brown sugar, salt, all spice, black pepper, cinnamon, orange peel, and thyme. Bring to a boil, turn to medium heat and let simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and cool completely. (this will take a while– give yourself at least 3 hours before the next step).

Place the turkey in a clean 5 gallon bucket and pour the brine over it. Cover and let sit over night. Flip the turkey in the morning, a few hours before cooking. Remove it from the brine, rinse it gently to remove any excess salt, pat dry and place it in its baking pan. Rub the entire bird liberally with canola oil.

In a small microwave-safe bowl, place the red, onions, cinnamon sticks, and rosemary (and/or fresh thyme). Sprinkle with about 1/4 cup water and microwave on high for 7 minutes.

Place the apple, onions, cinnamon sticks, and thyme or rosemary inside the turkey cavity. If desired. place a long stalk of rosemary resting along each leg for additional flavor.

Preheat oven to 500F. Roast the turkey for 30 minutes until it gets a golden brown color. Turn heat down to 350F. Tent a piece of tin foil over the breast of the turkey. Add can of chicken broth to the bottom of the roasting pan (for help making gravy from drippings). Bake for 2 1/2-3 hours more or until the turkey has reached an internal temperature of 161F.

Remove turkey form the oven and allow to sit for 20 minutes or so before carving.

Ah yes, I’m alive! I know I was silent for a few days… I’m sorry. Insomnia kicked my ass last Wednesday night, carried through Thursday night, and by Friday I had a massive fatigue headache. It was bad enough that we had to cancel going to a friend’s holiday party that night because I was just fighting to stay upright. Headache meds barely touched my pain… so it was a night to stay home. I was in bed (not exactly asleep… but pseudo-conscious) by ten.

Errands kicked off Saturday, in which we had a fabulous lunch of messy subs at Quiznos, followed by a trip to the liquor store that always has cops directing traffic. Seriously– what could be so fantastic about a liquor store? Well… this one had EVERYTHING and then some. We now understand. Fruity drinky things (Smirnoff Ice drinks), fixings for blueberry cobbler martinis (including graham cookie rimmer), and 3 bottles of mead later, we understand the attraction to this place. For the basics, we’ll hit the one close to home. But for those serious shopping trips, we know where to go.

The traffic getting there was hellish, due to the road layout. I think every single moderate-sized city has one of Those Roads. You know– the ones that have every. single. commercial. property. on them. Everything. Two lanes on each side with the left turn lane in the middle (often sans lights, which means you sit there forever). The traffic is crawling because everything’s so close together and everyone’s out shopping. I wouldn’t doubt that half of the population of Rhode Island was on Route 2 in Cranston/Warwick on Saturday. It’s not like anyone in the state lives all that far away from it. But we survived, got our booze, and headed home.

On Saturday night, we drove up to Brighton, Mass in the neighborhood I used to live in during my final years at BU. Michelle and Maria, two of my sorority sisters, threw a holiday party. It was a nice little intimate gathering with lots of food & drink. We had a great time. I want Michelle to come decorate my tree next year– or at least do my lights- because I clearly am not a master of tree lighting. I’m in envy. Anyway, in true collegiate fashion, the party went into the wee hours of the morning. Erich and I crawled into bed around 4:15 or so. We were not happy when Noby and Gus informed us just before 9 a.m. that we really needed to get out of bed because we were stealing their morning sunbeams.

Sunday was an amazingly warm day (as it has been recently) in the mid 50′s. We took advantage of the sunshine in the morning and put up our Christmas lights outside. We were late in buying them– so we’re one of Those Houses this year. The front steps look pretty- we wrapped the two front columns in some lovely sheer red ribbon so each pillar looks like a candy cane. But our lights on the bushes are a little scary. Eh… ’tis the season. We put up lights. We’re festive. Next year we’ll improve on them.

So as I got up this morning, I realized that maybe I should get some shopping done.. since Christmas is a week away. Eep. Guess I know what I’m doing in the evenings this week!

- Mel.

For the past couple years, I’ve involved myself in some seasonal card exchanges– it’s always nice to receive some friendly cheer in the mailbox among the bills.

This year, I’m writing out a bunch of cards– and I’ve come across some names of streets or towns that just strike me as interesting, unusual, cool– or strange… all in a good way. So I’m sharing a few of them (no person’s name attached) as this week’s Thursday Thirteen:

Thirteen Interesting Addresses 1. Olive Branch, Mississippi – The name of the town just makes me think of “Old South…” one of those quiet little towns with live oaks draped in Spanish Moss. I’m probably completely wrong about the image… but that’s what it makes me picture. 2. Cricklewood Drive – Is it a sound that the wood makes? Wood doesn’t crinkle… but I guess it must be close. 3. Dyngley Close – It just sounds amusing to me. Dyngley… Granted, I’m pronouncing it “Ding-ley.” Maybe it’s “Dighn-ley” and I’m just being a stupid Yank. 4. Little Deer Isle – I really want to know how it got that name. It’s in Maine. Which means there’s a story behind it– because everything has a story behind it in Mane. Next time I’m up there, I may just have to investigate. 5. Knotts Landing Drive – Wasn’t this a TV show? 6. King James Way – based on where this is located, I wonder if it’s in relation to anything to colonial Jamestown… 7. Fire Trail Road – again… is there history behind this? 8. Snoqualmie – I love funky town names. Native American influenced, I imagine? 9. Atascadero – One of the things that always amuses me about California is the Spanish (or Spanish sounding) town names. I honestly wonder how many are real, and how many are just sounds thrown to gether to sound Californian. 10. Pacific Avenue – located in a town that is over a thousand miles from the Pacific Ocean… 11. Manassas – Manassas, Virginia… I always envision molasses. 12. Lolita Street – The young girls on this street are probably kept on the straight and narrow by their parents, no? Still… I’d love to say I lived on Lolita Street… with a bat of the eyes, of course. 13. Babbling Creek Place – Is it accurately describing the road? Is it by a babbling creek? Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

So I figured… hey, I have some quiet time. Let me catch up on the couple of Stitching Blogger Questions I’ve missed… and eep! There are nine of them.

Where has this year gone?

In any case, here’s my catch-up!

9/28/06- When you find yourself making a lot of mistakes in various stitching projects do you find it better to muddle your way through or do you take a brief break from stitching? If you do take a break, how long do you take?

I usually muddle through, but I will take a break from the project with which I seem to be having difficulty. If it’s just a row or two of miscounts, I’ll just pick them out and redo. If it’s something god-awful, then I do a ceremonious hoop toss across the room (no… really), unhoop the project, and move onto the next in my rotation.

Granted– it all depends on my general life state, too. Lately, anything that stressed me out was just punted away for a while.

10/11/06- As we all know, stitching in the winter can really be rough on the hands. What do you do to treat your hands well in the cold winter months? Do you have any suggestions for creams or soaps? Or perhaps a special regimen that you would like to share?

I’ll confess- I have none. I’m horrendously rough on my hands, and generally hate the feeling of creams or lotions. I’ve had friends recommend ones that they claim are great, non-greasy, “soak right in,” etc… and I just hate them. The only lotion I generally use at all is the Aveeno oatmeal stuff that comes in a big tub– it works well on my skin when I’m sensing I’m close to a hives outbreak. Otherwise, I’d much rather deal with dry skin than lotion.

10/18/06- Which way do you stitch, i.e. do you stitch /// followed by \\\ on top, or the other way around \\\ followed by ///? Are you left- or right-handed and do you think that this affects the way that you stitch?

I’m right-handed, but I don’t think it affects the way I stitch. I’ve actually switched directions– as a child, I stitched every-which way (because I didn’t know better). As I started figuring out that they should all face one direction, I stitched \\\ then ///. When I picked it back up in college, somehow I switched to the other direction, /// followed by \\\. My guess is that I probably was thinking about what I was supposed to use, saw the diagram on a chart I was stitching from, and it said to stitch that direction. I stitch /// \\\ on all of my projects currently.

10/25/06 – If you were to come across a sampler chart that caught your eye and
appealed to you, would you or would you not stitch it if it had a
morbid or “creepy” saying on it? If not, why?

To be honest, I find almost all of the samplers that have sayings a bit creepy. Some are downright morbid. I guess it really depends on how weirded out I am. Some of the replica samplers from the 17th and 18th centuries can get VERY morbid. I still would love to try stitching them because of the historial aspect, though. So I guess my answer is yes, I’d still stitch it. Justifying the expense is another matter…

11/1/06 – How did you decide on the title of your stitching blog? Was it random,
or does it have a special meaning to you or about you?

It’s dull and boring, I admit. I’ve never really been… happy… with it. I just never put the energy into a better title. (should I open this up for a debate? Start the new year with a new title?)

11/8/06 – How many different brands of “complete” embroidery floss sets do you own? How do you keep track of it? (i.e., spread sheet program, index cards, palm pilot, etc.)

None. I have a pretty good collection of DMC standard thread, but it’s definitely not complete. I also have a decent collection of Dinky Dyes and Sampler overdyed threads, but not complete. I don’t have any method of tracking it– the different kinds are kept together, but that’s about it. When I have to gather threads for a new pattern, I go to the overflow box first, then purchase anything missing from the overflow. As I finish projects, I put the remainders back in the overflow (unless there’s really none to speak of).

11/16/06 – Do you stitch Christmas ornaments? If so, how many do you stitch each year and for whom? If not, why not?

I have not stitched any ornaments to date, but I do have some that I want to do. With the exception of perhaps my mom or Erich’s mom, I would only stitch them for our tree, so I can do them on my own time.

11/29/06 – How do you secure your thread when you begin a new one? Specifically,
do you or have you ever used a waste knot?

I don’t use waste knots– I was taught to never, ever knot the thread (and to this day, I feel guilty knotting my backstitching thread, but can’t figure out how else to secure it). If I’m stitching with a single color, I use one strand, fold it in half, and then loop through to start it. If I’m stitching with two colors at once, I just pull the thread through until I have about a five or six stitch-long tail, and stitch over the tail.

It’s December 7th, which this year marks the beginning of the Holidailies season. There might be some strange entry writing here, but I’ll be forcing myself to write every day… hopefully multiple times every day… for the next month.

Since it is the beginning of Holidailies, and I’ve also met several new people online in the past several months, I’ll start this year’s challenge by simply reintroducing myself. Whatever bio is linked to my journal probably hasn’t been updated for years at this point, and well… it’s been a life-changing year.

Those who know me, stop snorting due to obvious-ness of that statement.

Anyway… hi, how are ya? My name’s Melissa. I normally go by Mel, or by my childhood nickname-turned-online handle, Measi. I’m 30. I’ve been blogging online for just shy of five years now, and I literally write about everything and anything here—so if you pop by every day, you’ll find completely random topics to read about.

I’m engaged to a wonderful man named Erich. We’re coming up on a year of engagement next month and are just starting the wedding plans. (we’re shooting for next October, but we haven’t finalized a date yet). Erich and I bought our first house this year, moved in at the end of June, and now are adjusting to life as homeowners , long distance commuters, and that odd sense of settling down into that life that we saw our parents living, but didn’t think we’d ever quite reach.

We live in Providence, Rhode Island, having escaped Massachusetts and the frightening housing market that exists there. Rhode Island, being the smallest state in the United States, also has the longest official name: State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. I have not yet seen any evidence of plantations in Providence. Perhaps, though, my idea of great southern mansions isn’t quite what they mean by “plantation.” In any case, I like it here. It’s a very small state—only a bit more than 30 by 40 miles. But because of its location, it’s a huge melting pot of generations, cultures, and economic classes. Diversity is good. Erich and I both still commute to our jobs in Boston, however, so in many ways, we still haven’t left Massachusetts.

We’re owned by five… yes, five… cats. Numbers four and five joined us this past September, and we recognize that we’ve finally reached official “Crazy Cat People” status. You’ll see entries about them throughout the month, but to sum up, we have Colley, Fizzy, Gus, Noby, and Elly.

My hobbies include writing (blogging, stories, penpal letters, etc.), reading, cross-stitch, computer games, and movies. Both Erich and I are bonafide geeks—we play Dungeons & Dragons every month. We go to Renaissance Fairs in period garb. Occasionally, we hit the fandom convention circuit.

So that’s me in a nutshell. Welcome into my little corner of the internet. I love to hear from anyone who’s reading, so please drop a line in my comments to say hi or drop me an email! And please let me know if there’s a topic you’d love to have me write about over the month, whether holiday-related or not. With few exceptions, I’m up for anything!

Best,
Mel