writing time

writing time, originally uploaded by ellajohn.

It is very easy to not come here and write something down, especially now that I can post Ruby's bouncing videos, but I'm going to try to post every day of the month of December.

Thursday we drove to Farmville for Thanksgiving dinner at my brother's house. We were joined by my mother and my sister in law's parents for a potluck feast. I took cornbread dressing with pecans and apples, and kale from our farmer's market. I also took all the ingredients for the avocado, mango, pomegranate guacamole from November's Gourmet. John smoked the turkey outside, and my mother made her grandmother's Irish rolls. There was broccoli, a root vegetable mash, and glazed tomatoes. Shelly made what was perhaps the best cake I've every eaten, an apple spice cake with caramel frosting. I'll probably violate all kinds of copyright laws when I put the recipe here in a few days. Let's just say it was stunning.

My brother gave me some deer antlers for the children's nature table. As we drove down the pitch black country road heading towards home I was holding the antlers and said to John, "Watch out for the deer tonight." It was as though I summoned him. A huge buck with giant antlers was on the driver's side, and as we slowed down he panicked and crashed across the road and into the front bumper. What a sick feeling. He made it into the woods, but our bumper was cracked. Those legs just look so fragile. Luckily, two out of three littles were sleeping and didn't even feel the bump. The next day little John was walking around the house holding the antlers to his head asking if I had taken them off of uncle John's dog.

My mother came to our house the day after Thanksgiving and stayed until this morning. We barely left the house all weekend, a quick trip to the craft store and to the grocery store for supplies. We went to the local produce stand to get some dried beans called "yellow eyes" that I'd heard about. They sell local apples and have baskets of sidemeat and hamhocks. I didn't see the salt fish, but that is on the sign on the outside. There weren't any other customers, just three old men watching television and one woman at the register.

Yesterday the children and I put up our advent stockings, and this morning their December first stocking contained sterling Christmas ornaments from Ri, a Santa for John, an angel for Ella, and a snowflake for Ruby. Each day I put in a chocolate, a little candy cane, or a note describing the day's activity, cookie baking, cake making, hot chocolate, ornament painting, etc. A little gnome doll travels from stocking to stocking, and the treat is under the gnome in the morning.