Over the River and Through the Woods...to Wednesday Hodgepodge!

1. Let's start with something controversial...dressing or stuffing? What's it called at your house and what's included in your recipe...cornbread? oysters? sausage? chestnuts?

~ It's stuffing here.  I don't make it.  My mom is the Thanksgiving lady, but I do know it's a traditional bread stuffing.  We're traditionalists...no mucking it up with extra stuff like sausage or oysters.  We do use spices and celery and the like.  If you want to try the world's worst stuffing you need to have Thanksgiving with Tim's family.  Five sisters and none of them are good cooks.  The stuffing is pretty much wet bread.

2. Who do you sometimes compare yourself to?

~ I have a bad habit of holding myself up against nearly everyone and then find myself lacking.  It's wrong and I'm working on it.

3. When were you last inside an airport?

~ I think it was last summer when Megan flew to and from Alabama.  I haven't flown myself since 2002.

4. What is one side dish that absolutely must be included in a turkey dinner?

~ For our family it's corn spoonbread.  Tim and the kids are not big vegetable eaters, but they LOVE the spoonbread.

5. What Christmas song do you dread hearing?

~ The Twelve Days of Christmas.  That one just annoys the living daylights out of me.

6. If someone approaches you and asks for money do you give it to them? Do you drop money 'in a tin cup' that belongs to a person on the street? Do you have a specific charity you support during the holiday season and/or year round?

~ I've been known to drop money in the cup of a street person.  I have to visit Pittsburgh for that, though. Not much of that around here.  During the holidays I try to drop money in every red kettle I pass (am I the only one who misses when Santa used to ring the bell?).  We donate to several charities all year.

7. Share a favorite Thanksgiving memory. If you live in a country that doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving share a favorite memory associated with food.

~ I miss the huge dinners we used to have with my mom's side of the family.  There used to be like 15 or so of us around the table.  We'd all work together to get the meal on the table and to clean up afterward.  Conversation flowed fast and easy.  My grandparents lived in the country so we'd usually take a walk and then we'd gather around the table again and the whole family would play a game....UNO, Trivial Pursuit, or something along those lines and it would get CRAZY!

8. Insert your own random thought here.

~ I wish you all the happiest of Thanksgivings, the blessing of family and friendship, and the joy of a grateful heart.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!