Whew! What a day.

[waaytoomuchintothis]

My mother who normally always insists on doing most of the cooking for Thanksgiving is a little slower this year as she is still getting past my father's death in February (she's 83), so this year the turkey and the dressing are my responsibility in addition to all the other stuff I do on Thanksgiving, and I am dragging. I usually do the dressing on Wednesday and sweet potatoes, corn pudding, deviled eggs and a casserole of sort sort on Thursday while she is cooking the turkey and rolls, cakes, and pies. This year, even with my wife's help, this is a lot of work. I suspect my mother shouldn't have been working this hard all this time. Tomorrow morning I will pull the turkey from the brine I set up today, and play with slot cars for four hours. There's nothing else I can do with the oven occupied with big bird. All the rest is made but not cooked, just stacked in the fridge. My wife is betting I fall asleep between putting the bird in and taking it out. She may be right, but it will be with slot cars!

[Ember]

Why do we insist on doing these things to ourselves? All in the name of enjoying ourselves. I'll admit though, I do kind of miss the fuss that used to happen before family Xmas.

[HomeRacingWorld]

It is part of the fun for me. The day started right with The General making a championship breakfast: Eggs over easy, biscuits, Burger Smokehouse ham steak and her special fried taters with onions. Full as a dog tick and ready to get busy.

We are BBQing tomorrow. Have Baby backs, short ribs and 2 pork tenderloins in Sweet Baby Ray's/Homemade rub marinade now. Kingsford is stocked, smoker is ready. Applewood chips are soaked as well.

The General made a great pasta sal...sala...sidedish and it's cooling off. She also has the fixin's for here green been casserole ready. Plus a nice meat tray all sliced. My daughter is doing the deviled eggs and pies. Friday my oldest son gets to come visit, so we are going on another steak run Friday morning.

Skunkworks got a needed cleaning and now in relax mode until tomorrow when we kick the tires and light the fires :)