R&R/No Black Friday, Another Turkey, More Weather Changes

R&R/No Black Friday-
Anya has it right, rest and relax today! After a long, productive day of roasting, baking, eating and enjoying our family our extended (including 1 new boyfriend) and playing board games, I crashed! Today it's relax and enjoy the day. Being more of a voluntary simplicity, frugal/smart shopper gal, I skip the craziness. When I see throngs of people knocking each other down on the news I think it shows the worst side of Americans- greed. Really sad that people are that materialistic. I blogged about this 3 years ago, and I think it's just gotten worse- Materialism in America I also plan ahead! Most of my shopping is already done, long ago, and the few things I still need are easy to find. No worries. Why go crazy when you can relax? A Canadian friend of mine said their Thanksgiving is more of a harvest/Oktoberfest kind of thing- no shopping involved. Lucky her!

Another Turkey-
We were happy to be gifted with a free turkey from hubby's company. Since it was a 15 pounder (small) I qualified for a "free" turkey at the grocery store a few days ago. I grabbed one, a smaller 12 lb. one was a good size for us. I'm thawing it today for more leftovers and to freeze. Since I gave away most of the leftovers to the 3 girls, there' wasn't much left. On to round two! I'll thaw it today and roast it tomorrow. Here's a fast roasting method I found, which I'll try  Fastest Roast Turkey Looks great for general purposes... then more gravy, mashed taters and maybe dressing :) I made a flour-less chocolate almond tart instead of a pumpkin pie yesterday and everyone raved! I also made Indian Pudding, so there's some of that too :) Yum, yum...

More Weather Changes-
The weather was crazy-warm the last couple of days, 60 yesterday! I had the sliding glass door open late in the day in the kitchen. A few raindrops, but very mild. That's about to change. Dave was restless yesterday so I told him if he wanted to rake some leaves he had a good window yesterday. Rain and possible snow is on the way, with more normal cold weather after that. High tomorrow of 47, then next day high of 31! A 30 degree drop. The back to a more normal 40's/30's weather. It's so weird to see so many leaves still on the tree! We need a good windstorm, which may be starting to happen now. Breeze is picking up and leaves are coming down a bit. It was so mild early in the month, then 8" of snow, and 4 degrees. We never had the normal leaf-falling weather. We always rake the leaves into the flower beds and then into the veggie garden. We did protect the plants, but the garden is still pretty empty. It's next. Fall leaves, come on already!!! Rain is coming on the radar, so hoping for some wind!