Gobble, Gobble

Well, true believers, I'm headed home for Thanksgiving on Wednesday so I probably won't put up any posts until I get back. Apparently some of you are too wrapped up in your own lives to make smart ass comments anyway, so perhaps this is not quite the loss it might seem. Hopefully my Fafarazzi team won't suffer too much from my absence.


Anyway, I'm hopping the Greyhound Wednesday morning and heading back to Madison. I think my uncle John is driving up from Illinois, and I'm sure there will be a couple mystery guests as well. As always our holiday plans include the following:


1. Cooking and eating a large Thanksgiving meal, mainly comprised of about 1,500 calories worth of turkey, with some mashed potatoes and corn on the side.
2. Busting out the festive Thanksgiving decorations, which basically involves salt and pepper shakers in the shape of acorns, napkins with turkeys on them, and the infamous Ziggy Thanksgiving decorations.
3. Watching football.
4. Watching an artsy-craftsy movie with my mom (I think she checked out Transamerica from the library, but I've already seen that one).
5. Visiting some sort of exhibit at the Historical Society.
6. A little bit of Christmas shopping.


Also on the docket this year will be discussions about some large purchases that I am thinking of making sometime in the near future (automobile, flat-screen TV, dining room table and chairs).

PAINTING UPDATE: Although I didn't have time to get it all finished, my great room (living room/dining room/kitchen) is now about two-thirds painted. Condos are somewhat obnoxious to paint, because there are a lot of doors, windows, and an air conditioner (hence wood trim) to paint around, plus cabinets and the kitchen island, not to mention an excessive number of nooks and crannies. Also, there isn't a lot of room to move furniture to. So far I've painted the entrance way, the long wall, most of the "window wall," and most of the island. I still have to paint the kitchen, the short wall, and the closet. I am not sure what I'm going to do about the space behind the refrigerator since it's very hard to reach and probably quite dusty. Then on to the bathroom.

OTHER NEWS: I also learned today that Blogger Beta allows you to import symbols from Word. I'm not sure if I was doing something wrong before, but BlogSpot used to either not paste anything or give me one of those generic squares. However, now I can write words with accent marks, such as élan or pièce de résistance, and use symbols such as the always useful pilcrow sign (¶). You might not be able to notice the change, but rest assured when I read my own blog I will do so with a thick French accent.