Another Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and this year's was just as fine as any. I love Thanksgiving weekend, and this one was more enjoyable than I have had for the last few years. In 2020 and 2021, I was still in grad school and had to worry about homework. In 2018 and 2019, I had a lot of assignments for Sundance. So it's nice to actually have a four-day weekend again!

I made sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, mulled apple cider, and green bean casserole. I don't love green beans, cream of mushroom soup, or crispy onions on their own, but something about all of them together is magical.

Thanksgiving morning, I did a five-mile run and had to make a last-minute trip to the grocery store before I helped with final preparations. Of course, I had to turn on my Thanksgiving playlist. It was an enjoyable gathering. And after dinner I went on a walk and watched Turkey Hollow. Thanksgiving is such a mellow holiday.

The day after Thanksgiving kicks off Christmas season, but I wasn't able to get much decorating done. I went on a run, met an old roommate for lunch, reviewed Figgy Pudding Spam (watch for a review soon), applied to a job, and edited my nephew's college application essays. But I was able to get more done on Saturday.

Squishmallow tree

Also this week, Reggie likes to sit on me in the middle of the night. That's endearing but also annoying, especially when he licks my chin. And then he does this thing with his mouth that I can only describe as licking the air. It's very noisy. I wouldn't mind it so much if it weren't 3 a.m.

In July, I made a public Facebook post, and this week I keep getting "likes" from fake Facebook accounts of scantily clad women. I can't help but laugh at the futility of the scammers' efforts. My gay shield is impervious to your womanly wiles!

Last week I shared with you my candy cane pants. I washed them once, and I was dismayed to see the candy canes disappear! So I wrote a two-star review, and the company is sending me another pair—I'm getting green pants with trees on them. So if those fade too, then I'll have two pairs of faded pants, which is better than one faded pair. I feel a little bad, because they sell unprinted pants for the same price—but I wouldn't have bought them if I knew they faded so bad.

***

Now that Thanksgiving is over, it's the last week of pumpkinundation roundup until September.

Here is the Cafe Zupas Turkey Cranberry Panini. You can't go wrong with turkey and cranberry on a sandwich! 8/10.

The Cafe Zupas Pumpkin Chorizo Soup is OK. Not very memorable. 6/10.

Thanksgiving dinner included three Sam's Club pies: apple, pumpkin, and pecan. They were all typical; I was full, so they didn't stick out to me. 7/10 for all.

Here is Land O'Lakes Pumpkin Pie Spice Butter Spread. I'm not really a butter person, but this was sweet and pumpkiny enough that I liked it. 7/10.

I still had this Trader Joe's Sweet & Spicy Lightly Spiced Pumpkin Spread leftover from last year. It's best on meat, which I don't usually eat a lot of. And at Thanksgiving dinner, turkey is better with cranberry sauce. 6/10.

Bobo's Apple Pie Stuff'd Oat Bites are better than regular Bobo's bars. The little filling, though fake, provides a good contrast to the dense oats. 7/10.

Atlantis Burger Pumpkin Spice Eggnog Shake has been around since at least 2011, I think, but I don't get why it's their signature seasonal treat. There's really nothing in the flavor reminiscent of pumpkin. But it's fine as a shake, just not a pumpkin shake. 7/10.

I think this Kneaders Pumpkin Pie was overcooked, or maybe it had been in the fridge too long. It was OK. 7/10.

Kroger Pumpkin Eggnog doesn't have any pumpkin in it, even though that seems like an obvious, easy ingredient. It's fine as eggnog but not so much as a pumpkin product. 6/10.

The Crumbl White Chocolate Cranberry Cookie is typical for this kind of cookie. 7/10.

The Crumbl Pumpkin Pie Cookie looks amazing; it could taste better. 7/10.

Kneaders Pumpkin Cheesecake is fine, but I'm not a big fan of cheesecake. 7/10.

Random tidbits

 One of my New Year's goals was to watch a holiday-themed show every day during each holiday season, whether that's a movie, a TV special, an episode of a TV show, or something else. It seemed like a fun idea at the time, especially when COVID was raging.

But, you guys, I've learned something: watching TV is boring! Like, there are so many other things I would rather be doing. For the last couple of months, I've been trying to do strength exercises every day, and I've found that I like to watch my holiday show while I'm doing that, because it's so boring just to sit there. In the moments when I am actually just passively watching TV, I often like to do some planking. (I'm up to four minutes.)

Anyway, lately Food Network has been showing a lot of Thanksgiving-themed episodes of their shows. It totally makes sense that food shows would have Thanksgiving episodes. My favorite Food Network show right now is Holiday Baking Championship (which is better than Spring Baking Championship, but I like it a little less than Halloween Baking Championship), but a lot of the other shows have Thanksgiving episodes too.

In the fridge right now I have several bags of apples that I picked from our neighbors' tree that hangs into our yard. They're too wormy for eating out of hand, but I like baking with them.

I have learned that I really don't want to have heavy desserts hanging around, so I've been making lighter treats with them. Last Sunday I made an apple cobbler. It's very simple, but it's surprisingly delightful. The recipe calls for sugar in the apples, but I like to omit it. It might affect the texture, but the extra calories aren't worth it for me.

Now that trail season and goathead season have ended, I have a lot more free time, so on Thursday I was going to watch Thanksgiving-themed reruns of Holiday Baking Championship from 2019. But, like I said, that's so boring! So I opted to bake while watching the baking show. And I made apple crisp, kind of improvising with the recipe. I like making crisps because the topping allows for a lot of variation, and it's not too sweet or heavy.

And we had lots of leftover tomatoes from the garden, so I made them into a final tomato sauce for the season. It wasn't as good this time around, perhaps because the tomatoes weren't as good (most of them were picked green, then ripened off the vine), but also because the carrot ratio was off, and because I forgot to put the celery in at the right time.

Let's see, what else about this week?

Facebook announced it's removing certain fields from people's profiles. So from mine it's going to remove political and religious views. Good thing I already removed the "interested in women" field!

One day I walked into the restroom at work, and water drops and a water stain were smiling at me.

And I was excited to get my package with some new candy cane pants. I can wear these without people accusing me of wearing pajamas.

Reggie loves to sleep on my bed, and I even found him sleeping on his back. Way back circa 2015, the Church History Library had a lot of young service missionaries on the autism spectrum, and one month there was an activity where people would submit surprising or unusual things about themselves. One of the autistic missionaries submitted, "Once we found my cousin's cat sleeping on its back!" I had to feel bad for him that that was what he felt like sharing.

I taught the youth Sunday School class again today (my coteacher was gone this week). Among other things, I talked about Amos 8 and how there was a famine of hearing the word of the Lord because they didn't care for the poor and needy (verse 4). So I had the youth send messages to people they thought could benefit from a nice message. They seemed to enjoy that. And I also played a game where they wrote down what they were thankful for, then crossed out anything that other people had. I gave prizes this week—I usually teach on fast Sunday, so that's not usually a realistic option.

And Saturday I did my usual eleven-mile temple run, which isn't that special anymore. Then I came home and did a leg workout, which left my calves pretty sore. (I can't wear skinny-fit pants because they get caught on my calf muscles.)

Turkeys and deer on the golf course. Will that snow ever melt?

***

Since Thanksgiving is this week, this is the penultimate week of pumpkinundation roundup.

Trader Joe's Fall Zucchette Pasta is made with butternut squash. It's OK as pasta. The shape is cute, but I actually don't really like the shape. It falls apart easily, and hot water catches in the little cup shapes, making it potentially hazardous. 6/10.

I fell in love with Trader Joe's Turkey Sausage Stuffing Fried Rice last year. I love fried rice, but having a Thanksgiving theme is so much better! 9/10.

I used to get the Roxberry Pumpkin Bash Smoothie every fall when I worked downtown before. It's not as sweet as I remember, but I guess that's why it's a smoothie and not a milkshake. 7/10.

Trader Joe's Spicy Pumpkin Samosas are a nice change from everything being sweet. They definitely have an Indian taste to them. 7/10.

I have had the Crumbl Apple Pie Cookie at other times (most recently the Fourth of July), but it seemed a little off this time. It's a buttery sugar cookie with apple pie filling. 7/10.

The Crumbl Pumpkin Cake Cookie is a typical pumpkin cookie. I prefer pumpkin cookies with chocolate chips inside. 7/10.

The Trader Joe's Gobbler Quesadilla is good, but I think it would be better without the kale. 7/10.

The Trader Joe's Autumnal Harvest Soup isn't as good as I remember; it's more tomatoey. It's OK. 6/10.

Random November things

 I suppose the most interesting thing about this week actually proceeded with little fanfare. After more than a year, I finally resubmitted my revised version of my article on the history of Pioneer Day! I hope the journal likes my revisions. It would be awesome if it could be published by next July 24, but of course that's not up to me.

On Monday evening, I knew it might be my last opportunity for a trail run this season, but I got home after dark, so I took my headlamp and ran to the top of the hill I like going up lately. 

This picture makes it look lighter than it really was.

Then we had snow, which does not appear to be melting very fast. If the snow is not going to melt, I would rather have it continually be snowing so we could get more water. But I'm not in charge.

My default run for late fall/winter/early spring is to run to the Bountiful Temple (eleven miles round trip), so I did that Saturday. And I passed turkeys on the Bountiful Golf Course, which is always fun in November. (It's just not the same when I see them in February.) And one of them was even dead.

It's nice to have someone who loves me, even if that someone isn't a someone. Reggie loves to sleep on my bed, and when I'm in bed he likes to come sit on my chest, if only for a moment. (I like that when I'm awake, but not so much at 2 a.m.) I like that Taylor's new album makes reference to "a cat, purring in my lap 'cause it loves me!"

Do you like my Thanksgiving pillowcase?

I just love him!

So overall, it wasn't that exciting of a week. But my blog isn't over yet because of...

***

Pumpkinundation roundup!

Trader Joe's Harvest Apple Salad is a typical salad with a sweet vinaigrette. I don't love salad in general, but I like this one fine. 7/10.

Brach's Candy Corn is the best brand of candy corn. When people say they hate candy corn, I often wonder if they have the wrong brand. 7/10.

I was really thirsty, so I went to Cafe Rio just to have Cafe Rio Pumpkin Spice Horchata. I don't drink much horchata, but this had a nice flavor. 7/10.

Here's two ice cream flavors: Handel's Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream (top) and Handel's Pumpkin Cheesecake Ice Cream (bottom). The pumpkin pie was enjoyable but typical. 7/10. The cheesecake was tangy like actual cheesecake, but I don't love cheesecake. 6/10.

After my long run, I had this Favorite Day Pumpkin Spice Hot Drink Bomb. It was just a white confection with some vague flavor. It was OK. These hot drink bombs are fun, but I think they're a weird fad. 6/10.

The Good & Gather Apple Pie Date & Nut Bar is Target's answer to the Larabar. It's fine. 6/10.

The Crumbl Chocolate Pumpkin Cheesecake Cookie is a chocolate cookie with a pumpkin cheesecake topping. The frosting did have both pumpkin and cheesecake flavors, but the flavors were overwhelmed by the chocolate. It ended up tasting like most of their chocolate cookies. 6/10.

Thanks to a friend's suggestion (thanks Sandra!), I went to Rockwell Ice Cream downtown and had four flavors of ice cream, since I'm a glutton like that. The Rockwell Pumpkin Cheesecake Ice Cream was what you expect, I think, but since it was the last of the four flavors I ate, it didn't stick out to me. 7/10.

The Rockwell Pumpkin Smash Ice Cream is pumpkin ice cream with brownies in it. It tasted like pumpkin pie rather than typical pumpkin ice cream. I love brownies, but I'm not sure I think pumpkin and brownies go together perfectly. 7/10.

Rockwell Apple Pie Ice Cream had actual apple pie filling, and it was great! 8/10.

The Rockwell Apple Cider Sorbet has an authentically fall flavor. Sorbet isn't as satisfying as ice cream, but this was great in its own right. 8/10.

The Vitality Bowl Pumpkin Bowl has açaí mixed with pumpkin in the base, and the topping includes pumpkin seeds and nutmeg, along with various fruit. It was fine, but it really didn't taste much like pumpkin or spices. 6/10.

Safe + Fair Honeycrisp Apple Pie Granola has a nice apple flavor. I've had better granola but also worse. 7/10.

Kneaders Apple Pie is a typical apple pie. (They apologized for the pie not looking pretty, but I was more mad about the single-use plastic.) 7/10.

And Kneaders Turkey Cranberry Croissant is a year-round sandwich, but it's especially suitable for this time of year. There's a reason it's available all year. 9/10.

Apple Pie Toast Crunch came out last year. I think it should come back every year, and also come out for the Fourth of July, because it's great! 9/10.

I made Krusteaz Pumpkin Spice Quick Bread with zucchini mixed in. I would like more nuts, but it's fine. 7/10.

I also made it into pancakes with zucchini, which were hard to cook. They stuck to the griddle, either because of the griddle or the zucchini or both. But it's still a 7/10.

The RubySnap Isabella is a pumpkin cookie with raisins and mascarpone frosting. It's definitely unlike any other pumpkin cookie you'll get. 8/10.

I ate the Trader Joe's Roasted Turkey & Sweet Potato Burrito while it was hot, so it made it a little hard to taste. But you can't go wrong with a burrito! 7/10.