Thanksgiving was Dana and my 4 year anniversary. We got married the saturday after thanksgiving, so we knew that eventually it would fall on thanksgiving and this was the first time it did! We went down to Rockaway Beach to hang out with Troy, Allyson, and Christy Jo (who I haven't seen in FOREVER!). Camp Magruder was pretty quiet, and it was really nice to see Troy seem a bit more relaxed and Allison a bit more "at home" than our last visit this past summer. It is such a blessing to have them so close (5 hour drive), and I plan on visiting them more often. I deaned a junior high camp at Magruder this past summer and cant wait to do it again next summer. Dana hadn't seen me in "camp mode" and she got a good dose of that and a vacation out of it!
Thanksgiving was amazingly delicious, Allyson cooked up a storm. Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce... She's such a bad ass. I made Pumpkin pie and Apple pie. I did mini gluten free pies as well. Not a fan of gluten free baking. You can ask Dana Jill, even with regular pie dough, when it comes time to roll it out and put it in the pie dish I start losing my mind. The dough never quite does what I want it to and no dough is more stubborn than gluten free pie dough. Anyway, they turned out alright, the apples macerated a little to long so they were a bit mushy. The pumpkin pie was the best I've ever made (eclipsing the previous title holder last year's pumpkin pie from Christmas). We also made a gluten free skillet cornbread that was good (not as good as the glutinous one but still delicious) and we all shared a really yummy Cab Franc from 2012 that I brought in honor of our anniversary (we got married in 2012)
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| Digby was looking at me 1 second before I took this picture... |
We brought Garry along with us, and he spent a good amount of time in the car. We bought him a huge bone, and gave him that in the car while we ate thanksgiving. Troy and Ally have a super cute scruffy dog named Digby, and Digby isn't a fan of other dogs. We brought Garry inside and they were cordial at first, and then Garry just would not stop wining and wanting to wrestle with Digby and Digby wasn't having it so back to the car went Garry. At the end of the night we took both dogs out to a wide open area and through tennis balls for them to chase to get some energy out. It was fairly rainy so we were left with 2 soaking wet happy and tired out pups.
I'm also getting settled back into Tutta Bella. They needed someone to take over their new food truck, 'D'Asporto' and I've always dreamed of having my own food truck so it was really exciting when the director of operations reached out to me as a possible candidate for the position. It's been really amazing to see how the company has grown since I left. In my re-training I was assigned to read some training material that I had written years ago, which was a really cool experience and a good reminder that I need to be more patient when it comes to changing systems and structures, and that my opinion and my voice is valued.
Dana has been very sweet and patient with me as of late. With any job transition comes a new collection of stressors, and when I'm not diligently processing what's going on, I tend to be a real genuine douche bag to her. I'm also pretty good at apologizing and Dana is very forgiving, so it all works out in the end. She just made a giant batch of Mo-Mo's Mini's (delicious and delightful little Christmas cookies) that I've been trying to avoid eating all of them so that we can actually give them as gifts.
Don't know if I gave everyone an update on our Ketogenic experiment. I got down to 207 which was a loss of 22 pounds in 30 days. Dana saw some benefits in energy levels and clear thinking. She felt sick almost the whole time though. I am more than likely going to give it another go at some point next year for a couple months. I have gained 10 pounds back, and I'm thankful that we were able to go through something like this together. Didn't end up doing crossfit since it's ridiculously expensive.
That's all I have for you today; I know it's been a while since I've posted, and my excuse is that it's been a very busy season. A few posts I'm working on right now are the idea of being a stranger (partly inspired by one of my new favorite podcasts "
Harry Potter and the Sacred Text" That my friend
Hope introduced me to. If you even remotely enjoy Harry Potter I highly recommend it)And one that revisits the idea that life happens around food. I'm also working on a few more posts all at the same time so that I can get back to posting on a regular basis. As always comment or whatever with suggestions or questions. Love you all, Miss you. Thanks for reading.
