Playing Catch Up

 Occasionally, when I am this far behind in documenting every-day life, I may just let it go, however, that will not be the case this time because, Lord knows I will want to look back with sadness/fondness on this past Thanksgiving. Fond, because I managed to get past that pesky pneumonia scare and live to see another holiday; sadness because it was just the two of us this year. Our daughter-in-laws got to visit THEIR families this year. Rarely do we drink champagne, as evidenced by the very bottle Bruce is pouring having been in our fridge for months, but he just got it into his head that this was the day to finally pop the cork.

 The gravy, I am remembering that as very tasty. What will I think of this in years to come? We vacillated about whether to even cook a turkey but in the end we found the smallest fresh one Publix carried. Can you say expensive for turkey? Did it translate into taste? NO!
It looks perfectly good, right? Trust me, it was not, although the dressing was perfection, a small consolation. 

Looks sort of lonely, right? 

Actually we were good. I was reminded of our year in Vancouver when it was just the two of us eating our turkey from the Granville Market on the 20th floor overlooking False Creek. This time it was lovely because we were surrounded by all of our belongings, rather than someone else's. Should you care to read about our Vancouver Thanksgiving, click here and you will be rewarded with some beautiful sights and a funny story too. Reliving that boot story is one of the reasons I so keep on blogging!

Before we leave this special day in November (!), instead of making an apple pie, I decided to try a new recipe, sort of an apple upside down cake. It began by making buttery syrup, followed by apples and pecans.

A thick cake batter followed and in yet another instance of being grateful to have Bruce around, he flipped it when it was done.

Although I had high hopes for this dessert, it sounded better than it tasted and was just okay. Next year I will just stick with apple pie, Bruce's favorite.

Woo hoo, the next night we had the pleasure of watching the FSU/Gators game at the lovely already decorated house of the Parsons!

Oh my, what a game! With both Seminole and Gators fans in attendance, it was, at times, very tense.

Eventually the Seminoles prevailed! What is interesting is that in the linked post, they won that game as well. I was never so happy when I discovered how to watch college football in Canada. A Seattle station was the answer!

Some time or other, we went to Florida Mall for the first time in ages.

It's pretty interesting how stores everywhere are photo-op ready, isn't it?  Our reason for going there was to visit Uniqlo where we purchased a few things. Again, we don't get out much, so when the clerk put our purchases in this bin and they rung up automatically, we were amazed.

For the first time in ages my sewing machine came out and I made a new bag for my pickleball gear using some of the vintage fabric from the 60's I have been stashing. My other bag was getting dirty, so this one Bruce sprayed with a scotch guard kind of product then figured out how to air dry it for 24 hours.

We got a new queen sized bed for the second bedroom, replacing the outdated double one. Both the platform bed and mattress were purchased from Costco, although they did not arrive on the same day. Make that the same week. In any event, finally, the mattress arrived.

Don't ask me why, but I decided to flip the quilt over and I have to say I am happy with it because the quilting, done with great pains, shows up much better.

The tournament was a blast!! Before we knew where our seats were, we chose some just like our Dover Shores pals, Jessica and Juan. 

Now I bet you are wondering why I am including them in this account, so I won't keep you in suspense any longer. Your friend Gail, without realizing it, tried stepping from behind where they are sitting onto the next step and it did not go well. Like stepping into thin air, I took a tumble and was oh so lucky to only scrape my knee. You can well imagine how Bruce and Bill were feeling at that moment! What a dummy, although I did hear from someone else that I was not the only one! 

Arriving at the tournament, and to the actual seats we purchased around 9 in the morning, we barely budged as we were in awe of the professional players. That was easy to do as we were sitting so close we could hear them talking to themselves. The balls kept coming right to us and in some cases, the players themselves did as well. Bill took this photo of me and Anna Leigh Waters, the teenage phenom, who sits atop the standing of the women division. BTW--she turns 16 in January.

We actually had a good long chat which was so nice. So, she is #1 in the world and her counterpart, Ben Johns is for the men. 

Together, as a mixed doubles team they are virtually unstoppable. We just loved seeing everyone up close and the level of play is unreal. The two ladies below are two who have practiced at Dover Shores when we were there. Not together mind you, as this match was what some might call, pretty tense. The lady in the foreground lost to Anna Leigh on Championship Sunday.

We were watching center court while plenty of matches were happening all around us. Bill got up for a few minutes to watch what was happening on the outside. Held at the United States Tennis Center it is huge as one might expect. Over 1,200 players of all skill levels competed.

Other than one trip to the bathroom, I stayed glued to my seat while Bruce was kind enough to go and get us a pizza to share. As day turned into night, I finally got up to look further afield, returning to watch Tyson McGuffin in the semi-finals.

That would be Bill sitting on the front row beside our empty seats.  When I tumbled and Bill hopped up to get some ice, Tyson had watched me fall and asked him how I was. Pickleball is so accessible to fans now but who knows what the future holds as the game is growing by leaps and bounds. Oh yeah, another thing is this was televised nationwide on the Tennis channel and it seems as if the three of us were hard to miss.

Okay, getting close now.

The Christmas tree dilemma. Should we go artificial this year or not? 

We didn't, and one thing that came to mind was, when a person told me that they change their ornaments frequently, I realized that we change trees instead. One year it is tall. One year it is fat. Another year it is skinny, and this year it is SHORT. Cute though.

As I type, Bruce is making magic with his wrapping. More on that next time. He also made a little magic out front, coming up with a contraption to decorate our outdoor tree. 

Lights and my beloved bunting too!

This is the first year it will be displayed outdoors since our market days. The weather has been very dry and warm so hopefully it will be okay. 

You know what? I am leaving stuff out. Plenty. 

Thus, there may just have to be a Playing Catch Up sequel.

Until then, I remain,

your friend,

Gail