Of noncooperative turkeys and very inconvenient allergies: Thanksgiving fun 2015...

Hi all, and I'm glad to be back with you on this sunny post-Thanksgiving weekend Monday. This is never an enjoyable day to be back at work, no sir. But we persevere.

The last time I was with you prior to our Thanksgiving hiatus was last Tuesday, and I was S-I-C-K. Oh my. I was a little concerned about how I'd fare on my big day on Allison's show given how poorly I was feeling, and how congested I sounded. It went really well, but I had to *struggle* not to provide a hacking cough as the musical accompaniment throughout. It was extremely fun though, we talked about how I got started blogging, belly dancing, rosary praying, parenting adventures, all sorts of things! If you'd like to listen, you can download right over here!

All right, so I hope that you all had a very nice weekend! I'm a little rushy rushy today, as I had a very un-fun class this morning (what? it's the end of the semester? let's everybody PANIC and start asking for extra credit!) and I have more grading to do than you could swing a rosary at, so I'm feeling just a hair overwhelmed. But highlights? Let's see...

On Tuesday evening, Mike and I went out for what we call our "dating anniversary." Our wedding anniversary is January 8th, this November date is essentially an excuse for us to dine out and consume specialty martinis at the restaurant wherein we had our first date. It was smashing. Wednesday was filled with preparations for Thursday. The kids and I went to my parents' house to bake pies with my mom, which of course made the process infinitely more time consuming than if the adults had just done it ourselves, but alas. 

Thursday morning dawned with Anne wearing a super cute Thanksgiving turkey outfit:

...which she wore for an hour and then took off, refusing to put it back on, claiming to be "hot." Par for the course with her these days. We hosted dinner for our parents, my grandmother, and my older sister and family who were in town, and everything went very well. We had a minor turkey crisis during which time Mike started to carve the turkey and discovered that it was not fully done. It wasn't a big deal, we just had to put it back in the oven for a spell, but this is why I avoid cooking turkeys. I distracted everybody with wine as this was ongoing and all ended well.

The next day I did some fun online shopping, went out to lunch with my mom and sister, and put out our wintertime Scentsy wax warmer:

Isn't it lovely? It's making our whole kitchen smell like cinnamon currently. Such a relaxing and fun day. On Saturday, we fetched our Christmas tree, and here is where the story gets interesting. ;-) In the past, we've gotten a scotch pine. The one we selected last year, however, ended up looking somewhat homely, and we're hosting Christmas Eve this year, so Mike suggested that we splurge a bit and get a Fraser fir. I have to say, you can certainly tell a difference. Our whole house smells like a Christmas tree, and the needles are much softer than we're used to. The trunk is thicker and fit into our stand without any of the usual wrangling and edited swear words. It's thick and full and we love it. There's only one problem.

I think I may have an allergy to it. :0 Ever since we got it, I have been coughing and coughing and coughing. Granted, as I mentioned, I've been sick. But my cough was clearing and getting better, and then we got the tree, and suddenly it's tight and worse. This is the first time that we've ever gotten this type of tree. Could I be allergic to it?! It seems more likely that my cough is still related to my other illness, but I do have fairly strong seasonal allergies, and have developed new ones in recent years. (isn't getting older grand?) Soooooooo, I'm not sure. I've been taking my OTC allergy medication and I do seem better. But maybe my cold is just getting better? I'm already tired of winter illnesses and it's not even December yet!

#martyr!

We had a great time decorating the tree, regardless of it's potentially allergenic qualities, and we also put out our Advent decor. Ohhhhhhhh! That is our topic for either tomorrow or Wednesday, depending upon when I'm able to post. So get your Advent thoughts ready!

Advent is also the topic of my foray tomorrow in the Catholic Mom Hangout podcast! I'll give you the link to my episode when it's up, but it's being recorded tomorrow afternoon. Fun, right?!

All right, dear readers. All you Americans, how was your Thanksgiving? Or otherwise, how was your weekend? Anybody in your household navigating the Winter Cold From Hell? Do write in to commiserate with me. :)