EOW No. 8

It’s been a few weeks, hasn’t it?  We had Thanksgiving two weeks ago (gulp) and last week I was out of the country for a work trip.  This Thanksgiving, my cousins from California came in town and it was lovely and quiet to celebrate with family.  Also, look at my massive pumpkin pie from Thanksgiving!  This is what you get when you use a double lamination on your pie crust.  It was so flaky though - even though it looked like it landed from outer space.

Pumpkin-flavored UFO

It seems as though Fedex / UPS / Amazon hasn’t stopped delivering packages to our house for a month and in light of that, I thought I’d share a few non-Christmas shopping recommendations:

The Librarian Is In podcast from the New York Public Library has been such a pleasure to listen to this holiday season.  Gwen and Frank, two librarians at NYPL, are very relaxing and funny to listen to and I’ve marked down almost all of their book recommendations.  You guys know I’m a sucker for book podcasts - this one doesn’t spoil the books in their recommendations and Gwen also gives children’s books recommendations for those who enjoy reading for little ones.

NPR has released their annual book concierge for 2019, one of the things I most look forward to around this time of year.  I get so many good reading recommendations from this compilation as well as good gifting ideas (okay maybe I lied earlier about no shopping).  A few standouts on the list that I’ve read so far and enjoyed: The Sentence is Death, A Woman of No Importance, The Old Drift, The Haunting of Tram Car 015, The Lager Queen of Minnesota, Exhalation, and Gideon The Ninth.

I’m also going to share the Make-Ahead Mashed Potato Casserole recipe that I prepared for Thanksgiving.  Hands down, the highlight of my Thanksgiving dinner was my cousin Eric interrupting the conversation at dinner to tell me how awesome he thought the potatoes were.  Then he proceeded to eat half of the baking dish by himself.  Folks, that’s when you know something is a hit.  These potatoes may take longer to make than the traditional mashed potatoes but clearly they’re worth the effort.

Miss Mae, grinning about her new blanket

In pet corner, I finally caved and bought a new blanket for Mae that actually fits her.   She was getting laughed at by all the barn friends, so we’ll donate her old blanket to a big ol’ horse who needs a slightly used one.  She’s been a delight to ride lately and trainer is quite happy with her as well.  This weekend we are going to take her out on the trails with a group of horses.  Fingers crossed that I don’t die, we have a great time, and this is the beginning of a great trail riding partner.  With Ryon, we used to be out on the trails basically every weekend that the weather allowed.  Hopefully 2020 brings lots of uneventful and pleasant trails!