Saturday, November 23, 2013

Last Day of the Fall Harvest

Started a sunny, windy day with this week's American Top 40 re-run. We jumped back to 1983, this time moving to late November for a round of pop, ballads, country, and New Wave. Hits that Thanksgiving weekend included "Islands In the Stream" by Dolly Pardon and Kenny Rogers, "Suddenly Last Summer" by the Motels, "Heart and Soul" by Huey Lewis and the News, "Total Eclipse of the Heart" by Bonnie Tyler, "Crumblin' Down" by John Cougar (Melloncamp), "PYT (Pretty Young Thing)" by Michael Jackson, "Say It Isn't So" by Hall & Oates, "Say, Say, Say" by Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson, and "Uptown Girl" by Billy Joel. The number one song was a favorite of mine from Lionel Richie, "All Night Long."

Today was the last day of the Collingswood Farm Market. They always end the weekend before Thanksgiving. I'm just glad I got to be there this year. This time last year, I would have been on my final week of being laid up with a fractured ankle. Despite the blustery cold, it was very busy with people buying produce, honey, eggs, and cheese for their Thanksgiving dinners and craft items for Christmas presents. I didn't really need much myself. I only bought a block of Colby cheese (I forgot cheese at the Acme yesterday), cauliflower (wanted to make mashed cauliflower again - last week's was really good), apples, a bag of baby spinach, and cranberries to make Cranberry Bread to bring down to Mom and Dad's on Thursday. I treated myself to two large, soft English Toffee Cookies from Springdale Farms and admired the pair of alpacas at the alpaca yarn booth just as you entered the Farm Market. The black and white patched alpaca decided to take a nap right there; the brown one just went on eating his hay brunch.

My yard sale runs are done for the year. It's too cold for people to be sitting outside and selling things, and most people's minds are probably on the upcoming holiday this weekend. I went straight home instead. I put everything away, then put on the second disc of Now That's What You Call Christmas! and dressed the American Girl, Sailor Moon, and Cabbage Patch Kids dolls for the holiday season.

All of the American Girl dolls have their own special Christmas outfits. Samantha wears her Cranberry Christmas Dress with the huge lace collar. Molly sports her cute green velvet Christmas Dress. Felicity looks stunning in her bright blue Christmas Ball Gown. Josefina is as elegant as a Spanish princess in her pretty yellow Christmas Dress and Mantilla. My modern doll Jessa wears the bright red and gold brocade Chinese New Year Outfit. (It's too nice to save for February!) I put the Sailor Soldiers in vintage fashion doll gowns from yard sales, thrift shops, and in two cases, dollar stores. (I got rid of most of the dollar store outfits I had because they were so cheap, but Lita's bright green dress with the puffed sleeves and Ami's cute ice blue gown with the elbow sleeves and star netting looked so good on them, I couldn't bring myself to give them away.) The Cabbies wear real Christmas baby dresses found in vintage shops.

I ran Very Merry Christmas Songs as I made a second batch of cookies for the Acme's Thanksgiving Employee Luncheon. The cookies were barely cooked when I tossed them in a bag, grabbed a coat, and hurried off to work so I could enjoy the festivities, too!

Work was busy all day long. I did just have enough time to eat when I arrived, and later when I finally got my break. There were two kinds of meatballs, sausage and peppers, turkey with or without gravy, green bean casserole, a noodle casserole with chicken and broccoli, brownies and mini-cupcakes from the bakery, cheesecake, little cupcake-like cookies with peanut butter cups in the center, a thick chocolate cake sprinkled with chocolate chips, my Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies, and almost every kind of soda the Acme carries. I had the turkey with gravy (too salty), green bean casserole (yum), noodle casserole (double yum), Diet Wild Cherry Pepsi, and cupcakes for lunch. Dinner was the meatballs, peppers, peanut butter cup cookies, Cranberry Canada Dry, and a slice of chocolate cake. I'm very full now. It was probably a good thing that it slowed so fast by 7PM, I was able to leave without a relief.

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