Cocoa eyeball, it’s my birthday!!

For the past… many months, or maybe all year, whenever I thought of my next birthday I thought I was turning 30. I don’t know why. Maybe because Jake turned 30 in May and he is my brainmate and therefore half my brain is already thirty? It didn’t bother me that I thought I was turning 30. I’ve got an awesome little family and I feel I’ve achieved everything I wanted to achieve by 30 so it is all cool. But I’m only 29. Got another year to achieve… I don’t know.

So last Saturday, we did Thanksgiving. Natey was here, and he is awesome. He did all the turkey stuff. First thanksgiving and he did the main bit! I never do the turkey, that is gross. So he took the bird out of the bag, removed the neck/giblets, and put it in the brine. Then on Saturday he took it out of the brine and rinsed it off and dried it. And then when it was done he carved it! That was mostly because Jake got a new electric knife and he was all excited to use it and HE DIDN’T PRACTICE AND THEREFORE HAD NO FUCKING CLUE HOW TO USE IT so the turkey took much longer to be ready to serve. Actually Jake gave up completely after a few minutes and walked off so Natey took over.

I really really REALLY have to update and print out all my thanksgiving stuff so I can have it all in a nice folder instead of the single plastic pocket it is in now. Gotta do it before I forget.

So we had turkey, mashed potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes, roast carrots/parsnips, mixed veg, apple sauce, cranberry sauce and gravy. Oh, and stuffing loaf. MMM. Matt and Kristen brought over their chicken/cheese dip but… ugh. Ok, so at least a week (I think? Maybe exactly a week?) before, I sent out a group facebook message saying MEAL AT 5 and other stuff… asking people to bring things. No one (other than Matt because I asked him directly to bring the dip) responded until two days before. And then… no one fucking showed up until 5. Meal at 5 means show up before then for fucks sake! It was a really good thing the turkey was delayed because we would have been sitting down eating already otherwise. Lisa was here at 1:30. Stacy and Nick showed up at 5 on the dot. Kristen and Matt were 5-10 minutes later. And they were bringing a pre-meal edible. And then Kristen had the fucking gall to comment that she was so hungry she could eat her hands. I had set out snacks HOURS before, made beautiful devilled eggs and celery with stuff in it and other things but that got eaten/put away because it was meal time. And really… she made this comment to my face, while Jake and Natey and I were all in the kitchen working hard doing all the last minute things (the day is relaxed up until that moment when EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE DONE AND HOT AND SERVED NOW). I love her but, that really pissed me off. And I am over it… until I think about it again. Which now that I have finally written about it, I don’t need to think about ever again. (Until next year when I will explicitly state SHOW UP BEFORE MEAL TIME.)

We finished our leftovers last night, so Thursday night, and Natey was here until Tuesday so we had our typical week’s worth of leftovers, but we had more people eating it. So good. It always tastes better as leftovers, maybe because stress makes things taste not so yum. Or because I’m sick of looking at the food on the day so don’t want to eat it. I do love hosting though, much more than I would enjoy going to someone’s house.

Tuesday, Lisa came over to babysit so Jake and I could take Natey to the airport. We were there quite early so we sat around for aaages just talking about nothing because that’s what we do. Natey is awesome, it was so fun having him here for 2 weeks. He is so me-but-not. Or… Man-Sez. I am Lady-Natey. I love that every time I see him I learn more ways in which he is basically me. It is weird because I wasn’t really that sad to see him go, because eh… he is kinda always here because I’m here. You know?

I don’t know what Ashley and I did on Wednesday. Maybe clean? On Thursday we went shopping at Target. I got new pants to replace my stupid trackpants with the holes in the buttcheek (I kept stitching them back up but gave up after 4 times) and Ashley got new warm pjs. And I got a butter dish, which would have been nicer to have for the big meal last weekend but we have it for next year! We looked at hats because I want Ash to have a nice black fedora so she can be like ‘Jackson’ but they only had patterned ones. Got some cute pictures at least.

Today is my birthday. I have done SO MUCH STUFF. I got a book in the mail, as well as 2 cards (Nanna and Ellen). I cleaned and tidied and sorted and watched Moonwalker with Ashley (3rd time this week… she loves it "Jackson caught the ball! Running! Singing! Hat! Jackson play peekaboo… where’s Jackson? Babies!") and got ready to go to the laundromat tomorrow. Woo, clean clothes. One day I won’t have to go to the laundromat anymore and that will be a fantastic amazing day.

I’ll post pictures and videos and things tomorrow. I uploaded them today but… eh, I’m lazy and have a new book to read.