It smells like Thanksgiving in here

Because I have been busy in the kitchen all day. I made creamed corn, blanched green beans, mushroom soup for green beans, baked corn bread muffins to crumble and dried bread cubes in the oven to make stuffing, put the turkey in an apple brine, baked a pumpkin cheesecake and made a practice batch of the shrimp recipe I'm doing for my FNS application video. Also, I made a bleu cheese spread because I was considering doing it for the video, but decided on the shrimp so I am eating the bleu cheese dip with grapes, almonds and pita chips right now. It's delicious, I'll give you the recipe if you ask.

My "set" is all situated in the dining room, which is where I'm filming it because I couldn't find a spot or angle I liked in the kitchen. I have a basic script written on a huge dry erase board and all my prep and props laid out. I have to bake a batch of Amy's Honey Garlic Baked Shrimp just ahead of time to use as the "after" shot, it's marinating now. Susan is on her way over now to help me practice and then film it. I'm kind of nervous, I think I heard her car. I couldn't sleep last night because I kept going over what I should say all night long....

Anyway, tomorrow will be awesome. We are going to get up early, drink Mimosas with raspberries, put the turkey in, watch the parade, eat snacks, I'm going to make cloverleaf rolls and we'll finish up cooking dinner together while we drink wine and eat cheese. Joseph might not have to open Lorraine's after all, which would be an awesome unexpected treat. He may decide he should though, which would be okay.

We will thoroughly enjoy our Thanksgiving alone, but today we agreed that this is the last year at home alone for us. Next year for Thanksgiving we will make sure to be someplace with some people we love cooking and eating as a big family. Big, loud family dinners is something we talk about during our delicious quiet dinners together.

We wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving and hope that each of you is surrounded by the people you love most. Enjoy the delicious food tomorrow and the very special company around you, or in your arms. Both of our families are celebrating the addition of a precious baby girl this November, and we're are as happy as can be for both the Lord and Jones families. We are looking forward to meeting our nieces Elizabeth and Madeleine.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!