Thanksgiving Week in Review

It's been a busy week that included an exam (did I already write about that?), Thanksgiving, and my brother's three day hospital stay. I don't even know where or how to recap it beyond that except to say that I got a B on my exam, Thanksgiving lunch was tasty, and as of tonight, my brother is home and on the mend.

Dave had a big chunk of the week off, so we spent a lot of time loafing around--when we weren't cooking. Our contribution to Thanksgiving lunch at my mother's place was beans and vegetarian red chile and something called Mexican hot dogs, which I haven't eaten since I was a child. (What are Mexican hot dogs? They are just a hot dog stuffed with cheese, rolled in a corn tortilla, and deep fried. They are junk food and very tasty.) In addition to those, my mother made menudo with pigs feet (which is probably my all-time favorite food) and my aunt made red chile and chicharrones and a kind of cheesecake like dish called "Denver crunch" for dessert. It was all very good and very non-traditional.

(When I was growing up, we always had Thanksgiving dinner (more like lunch, actually) at my grandmother's house. She would make turkey and ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, red chile, salad, and bread. She would also often make a spiced cake for dessert and often some kind of punch, too. Christmas dinner was often the same things, but with menudo, tamales, and biscochitos added. By New Year's Eve, she would shed all the white people food and dinner would be menudo, tortillas, tamales, red chile, and biscochitos.)

After we left my mother's, Dave had a bit of time to rest before he went off to his mother's for dinner. I stayed home and worked on some Christmas cards I was making for a card exchange I am participating in this year. While I was working, I made the mistake of drinking a diet Sunkist orange soda. I had bought them thinking that orange soda was of course caffeine free. I was wrong. I was wrong to the tune of being still up at 4:45 the next morning. (Turns out diet Sunkist has as much caffeine as diet Coke. I've become accustomed to having zero caffeine except the minuscule amount in the decaf coffee I drink, so it was a bit of a shock to my system.) So that was fun.

Because my brother was in the hospital this year, my mother and aunt sent him some menudo and red chile (which I froze because he can't have it for awhile). We didn't see him on Thanksgiving, but Dave and I went to visit the day after, when he had settled into a room.

Friday we lazed about and ate leftovers, visited my brother, and came home and went almost immediately back to bed.

Saturday I was getting a little stir crazy, so after calling to check on my brother, I got up and took a shower and got dressed. We hit the Starbucks drive-thru and picked up some coffee (decaf soy latte for me and an Earl Grey latte for Dave), then we  drove up to a local art supply store and I picked up a couple of new sketchbooks, some Derwent colored pencils, a couple of Pitt pens, an Itoya calligraphy pen, and a handful of new acrylic paints.


We stopped at Annapurna after that and had a late lunch/early dinner. After that we stopped by the co-op to buy ingredients to make vegan Rice Krispy treats. As we were mulling over our choices in the chocolate aisle, my brother called to say that he was being discharged. We brought our groceries home and Dave went to pick him up. I met them back at my brother's apartment and we got him settled then Dave and I went out to pick up some groceries for him. We drove up to Whole Foods and bought him lots of vegetables, some fruit, yogurt, and a rotisserie chicken. Then we had to go by Walgreens for a few things.

We dropped those off and chatted for a bit, then we came home and made our vegan sweet treats. (They are tasty, but so sugary that I swear I can feel my teeth dissolving with every bite.)

After that, I sat down to do some painting and collage and, when I hit a wall creativity-wise, I worked on addressing some Christmas cards.

And speaking of which, here is a selection of the cards I made to send out:

I wanted them to be very flat and cartoon-like.

Each card is different.

This is one of my favorites.

 This is one of three dogs (?) I did.

And this suprised-looking black cat was deceptively difficult to do.