This past weekend I spent some time working on my Thanksgiving menu and grocery list. There’s a part of me that knows the planning and the list-making should probably feel like a chore, but OH MY WORD I ADORE IT. I mean, it’s fun to plan the menu and all, but making the Thanksgiving grocery list is one of the great joys in my life. I type it and categorize it and arrange it by aisle and basically fall just a hair shy of including charts and footnotes. I even give myself mini-deadlines for certain categories so that I don’t wind up buying two grocery carts of food the week of Thanksgiving.

(I know. The crazy is a lot to take in.)

(Especially that whole “mini-deadlines” thing.)

(But somehow my admittedly CUCKOO GONE CUCKOO INSANE grocery shopping habits keep me calm and easy-breezy during a fairly hectic time of year.)

Anyway, when I was making our menu and trying to think of some easy appetizers that I could basically just assemble and serve while we have family here next week, I remembered one of my all-time favorites. And it occurred to me that I’ve never mentioned it here.

Get ready. Because if you have not tried this particular delicacy, I am about to change your whole life.

Oh. Now listen.

Buy yourself a jar. Pour about half of it over a block of cream cheese. Set out a bowl of Wheat Thins (or whatever cracker you prefer). Then sit back and watch your guests LOSE THEIR DADGUM MINDS over your wondrous appetizer creation.

Seriously. I don’t know what it is, but it’s one of those flavor combinations that works on every single level. It’s sweet and salty and crunchy and creamy and I have to quit talking about it or I’ll have to make some right now and I’M NOT SHARING, EITHER.

So. If you’d like to use this most delicious concoction on a block of cream cheese over the holidays, here’s all the info.

The website: dr-petes.com.

The stores that sell the Dr. Pete’s products: state-by-state store listing.

Now go forth and share cream cheese with praline mustard glaze with all the people you love.

Or, you know, just make a snack for yourself.

There’s nary a morsel of cream cheese-related judgment here.

All last week I kept thinking, “Well, I should probably write a blog post.” But then I never did. Which is why I’m sitting here on a Sunday afternoon and feeling like I have way too much bloggy ground to cover.

So I think I’ll make a list instead.

Yay, lists!

1) First things first. I got some new pens.

I’m so excited about the pens. I can’t even tell you. They have a structured felt tip, and I’m pretty sure that my life will never, ever be the same. I don’t want to speak too soon, of course, because I know that these things take time, but it’s possible that these pens may even replace my twenty-year obsession with the Sharpie.

2) This past Wednesday morning I was thinking and praying through some stuff, and a song that we used to sing in choir popped in my head. I looked it up on YouTube, and oh my goodness – I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve listened to it in the last few days. WHAT A WORD.

3) The Compassion Bloggers are headed to Peru this week.

You can follow their posts over on the Compassion Bloggers site – and you can follow them on Twitter, too. I can’t wait to read all about it!

4) When we bought this house, it came with an old JennAir cooktop that we vowed and declared to hold on to until it quit working (I am really weird about replacing stuff that still works). The cooktop was the 70s live and in person, with two burners on one side and a grill (complete with fake charcoal) on the other. I only used the grill side once or twice over the last six years, so for better or worse, I have mostly cooked with two burners ever since we’ve lived here. It wasn’t even that big of an adjustment; we just made it work.

But then the big burner decided that it was no longer interested in participating in the cooking fun. Which means I was basically left with the cooktop equivalent of a hotplate.

My new cooktop came in Saturday morning, and after a little research, D decided that he could install it himself. I didn’t bat an eye, mainly because he is detail-oriented and methodical and patient and basically my opposite when it comes to assembling or installing things. He worked all day Saturday, but by last night, I had me a fancy new cooktop. WITH FOUR BURNERS, EVEN.

And this afternoon I made an inaugural pot of taco soup.

Please note that I have not yet finished painting the kitchen cabinets that I started painting way back in the summer. I won’t even bother making my list of excuses. Just know that I’ll definitely finish in the next two weeks because we are hosting Thanksgiving at our house. Nothing like a holiday to put a little fire under your decorative feet.

5) Around 9 o’clock this past Friday night I realized that I was bored. I haven’t felt bored in a really long time, mainly because, well, WRITING A BOOK. But now that the book is finished and I don’t have to think about revisions or edits or anything like that anymore, there’s a little bit more free time around here. Anyway, D fell asleep in his chair pretty early, and the little guy was asleep, and I was absolutely confounded about what to do with my time.

Oh, I know that I could’ve finished painting those kitchen cabinets, but that would’ve been far too productive.

Anyway, I decided to look through some of our DVDs and see if there was anything I wanted to watch. I elected to watch Notting Hill, which is still every bit as good as it was in the late 90s, and then I watched Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, which was very entertaining even though I am ancient and fell asleep in the middle of it and had to finish watching it early Saturday morning.

Way to rock it, Mamaw.

6) Speaking of Saturday morning, I had an epiphany about my pillow usage when I was making up our bed.

The epiphany was that my pillow usage is completely out of control.

Seriously. Most of those aren’t even stunt pillows. They’re sleeping pillows. And apparently we like A LOT of sleeping pillow options.

7) I spent some time yesterday trying to plan our Thanksgiving menu. I don’t normally cook a turkey, so I found a Bobby Flay recipe for pork loin that looks really good. The more I think about it, though, the more I wonder if it really goes with our traditional Thanksgiving sides. So – do any of you have a really good recipe for pork loin or pork tenderloin that you’d be willing to share? Thanks in advance for your help.

Have a great week, y’all!

…and while it has absolutely nothing to do with politics, I cannot stop listening to this song.

That is some goodness right there. I mean, I know that Vince Gill could sing harmony with a billy goat and sound so good that he and the billy goat would both get nominated for some awards, but what I love the most is how easy and laid-back and SWEET, SWEET 70s the whole song is. I’m even crazy about Kelly’s dress, which looks like a 2012 take on something that Donna Fargo would have worn to the CMAs back in 1973.

I have no idea if there were CMA Awards in 1973, much less if Donna Fargo attended. Those were simply hypothetical examples. Please keep in mind that historical accuracy isn’t my strong suit.

Anyway.

My parents and Martha came into town yesterday (Sunday) so that they could go to Grandparents’ Day at the little guy’s school today. I took Mama and Martha to Steinmart(s), and true to their individual preferences, Mama spent the whole time looking at Christmas decorations while Martha spent the whole time looking at jackets. In fact, she had to make sure to get back to my hometown today because tomorrow she’s going to Jackson with her friend Mary Ann to pick up a jacket. She actually found the jacket when she was at a Steinmart somewhere in south Mississippi a few weeks ago, but they didn’t have her size, so the Steinmart people called their stores in Jackson and LO AND BEHOLD one of those stores had a small. And that is why Mary Ann’s daughter went to Steinmart and picked up the jacket and now it’s just waiting for Martha to take it home.

JACKETS.

JACKETS JACKETS JACKETS.

When we were in Steinmart yesterday, Martha found her size in the jacket that she’s picking up tomorrow (are you following this multi-city Steinmart tale? I realize that the details can be a bit confusing), and she tried it on for Mama and me so that we could see how perfectly darlin’ it is. Now that I think about it, she could have just bought it here and saved herself the extra trip to Jackson, but then Mary Ann’s daughter would have to return it, PLUS Martha would miss out on the chance to stop by one or possibly two Steinmart stores in Jackson, and, well, NOT AN OPTION. I mean, they may have gotten in new jackets since Mary Ann’s daughter picked up the other jacket! And you just can’t have too many jackets, you know! Especially around the holidays!

JACKETS JACKETS JACKETS!

We had a great time with everybody here, and it’s always a treat to see A. with his grandpeople. He is almost as tall as Martha now, and HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN? I tried to snap a picture of them together before everybody headed home, but I apparently had the camera set to “extremely blurry.” At least I have a mental image, though. So sweet.

Okay. I’d better wrap up this post. I need to read up on all the constitutional amendments that we’re voting on tomorrow so that all the fancy wording on the ballot doesn’t confuse me. I realize that I don’t write much (or, you know, any) about my political leanings and whatnot, mainly because I don’t think anybody gives a rip, but I will say that I am such a fan of the voting. My parents set such a wonderful, consistent example in that regard, and while I very rarely heard them criticize an elected official, I always saw them voice their opinion through their vote. They taught me to be grateful for the privilege of having a say, and from that perspective I am just as tickled as I can be to participate in election day. I have no idea if I’ll be happy with the outcome of the Presidential race or not, but I do know that I won’t take my vote for granted. Oh no ma’am.

This would be an excellent time for someone to step forward and sing America, the Beautiful. I’ll wave the flag.

Get out there and vote, everybody.

And if you want to make the day extra special, wear a sassy jacket, too.

Yesterday afternoon I spent some time getting ready for trick-or-treaters. I actually took the candy out of the bags and poured all of it into a container (what can I say? I was feeling fancy.), and around 5 o’clock I checked our front stoop to make sure that there were no shoes or garden implements or Nerf swords to get in our visitors’ way. I decided that it would probably be a good idea to turn on the outside lights, especially since little kids sometimes trick-or-treat earlier in the evening, so I stepped back inside, flipped all the switches, and immediately noticed that nothing happened with the lights on either side of our front door. Not even a flicker.

I walked back outside and checked to see if the bulbs were blown, and when I realized they weren’t, I figured I might need to tighten them. We’ve had ish-ahs with our front lights for the last year or so, and we’ve known that we were going to replace them at some point. But since I have apparently turned into a person who is going to sit back and wait for something to BLOW SLAP UP before looking for a replacement, I’ve just been biding my time. I figured that the lights were fine – and since they’re original to the house, I felt a little sentimental and nostalgic about them.

Which, let’s face it, IS WEIRD.

Anyway, I tried to tighten one of the bulbs, but nothing happened, so I moved to the second bulb, and when I tried to tighten it, I heard a loud “POP” behind the light fixture. I thought maybe the bulb had blown, so I walked inside to grab another from the laundry room.

But then I noticed that our foyer looked a little dark.

And the driveway lights weren’t on anymore.

And the lights in the half bath and laundry room weren’t working.

And OH, NO.

Since I like to think that I am very handy (even though I can break just about anything in a fraction of a second, as evidenced by the fact that, well, LIGHTS NOT WORKING), I walked down to the basement and flipped a few switches on the electrical panel. When I couldn’t seem to find a solution to the fact that we were without power on the front side of our house, I quickly implemented plan B, which was to sit down on the couch and catch up on Twitter while I waited for my husband to get home.

Clearly I am very resourceful.

D walked in the door about five minutes later, and he had barely put down his bag before I launched into the issue at hand: “Hey-all-the-lights-in-the-front-of-the-house-blew-out-and-I-can’t-fix-them-even-though-I-went-in-the-basement-and-flipped-some-things-but-I-don’t-know-what-to-do-did-I-mention-that-I-can’t-fix-them?”

“Hi,” he replied. “How are you? Did you have a good day?”

See? That’s how he does me. I try to have a perfectly good freak out about a home improvement something-or-other, and he has the nerve to be calm.

So he walked back outside, took a look at the lights, and quickly uttered seven words I was not expecting to hear: “Um, this light bulb is on fire.”

I present you with Exhibit A.

Well he was not kidding.

And also?

ENOUGH WITH THE HOME REPAIRS.

All I can guess is that our house was built in 1973, and almost 40 years later, it is tired.

Come to think of it, I know exactly how the house feels. I can relate to it on many, many levels.

Anyway, D couldn’t get the lights to come back on, either, so now we’re now adding an electrician to our list of BFFs. Hopefully he’ll get along beautifully with our plumber, our AC guy, and the guy installing our cooktop. I’m thinking of inviting all of them to our Thanksgiving dinner. I hear the cooktop guy makes a mean squash casserole.

I have to say, though, that there have been a couple of things that have made me laugh in the midst of all the house craziness. Here is one of them:

He was George Washington for Halloween. CRACKED ME UP. Plus, I’m grateful that I took this picture mere minutes before the lights went BOOM. It’s a lovely memento of a simpler time when we were unaware of complications with our wiring.

And then, this morning, it was like Ye Olden Days when I was putting Velcro rollers in my hair.

Caroline Ingalls would be so proud, don’t you think?

It has been delightfully cool here for the past few days (as opposed to this past Saturday night, which certainly was cool but most definitely not delightful), and that means that we are once again enjoying things like yoga pants and long sleeve t-shirts and fleece-lined slippers. And when I say “we,” please know that I am really only referring to myself since neither of the fellas in this house is really big on yoga pants.

However, if they ever tried the yoga pants? LIVES CHANGED FOREVER.

Anyway, the cool weather always makes me crave soup, but I have to be careful about fixing soup because, as I have mentioned before, I am married to someone who feels that soup is not a meal. He sees soup as more of an appetizer, so unless I find a recipe that’s super-hearty, I don’t usually make a lot of new soups. I just stick with the old stand-bys. Now I personally happen to love and adore and treasure soup, but it’s not nearly as fun to make it for supper when two people may or may not look at you after they finish a bowl and say, “So. Are we having anything else?”

I’m gonna be honest. That’s usually the moment when I want to go all Zorba the Greek with the soup bowls and just slam them right down to the ground. I don’t actually do that, of course, but that’s mainly because I like my bowls and really don’t want to go to the hassle of replacing them. Not to mention having to sweep up all those pesky shards.

But this past Sunday afternoon I was watching the most recent episode of Trisha Yearwood’s cooking show (which I adore, by the way), and she made a tortilla soup that looked absolutely delicious. I decided that I had to try it – regardless of whether or not it was perceived as a starter course – so Monday afternoon I went to the store and rounded up all the ingredients. It was super easy to make (I even used a rotisserie chicken as a shortcut), and the flavor is out of this world. It’s the perfect mixture of broth-y and creamy, and get this: my husband LOVED IT. He mentioned two or three times that it was absolutely delicious, and tonight he was happy as could be that we were having leftover tortilla soup for supper.

THIS REACTION IS UNPRECEDENTED.

Next time I might add an extra can of each of the vegetables to make the soup even heartier – more of a chicken tortilla chili, I guess – but the recipe is so tasty as-is. I think y’all will enjoy it.

Trisha’s Chicken Tortilla Soup

That recipe might be just the thing for your Wednesday.

And finally: I have been riveted by the Sandy coverage over the last couple of days, and my heart goes out to all of you who have been affected by the storm. Know that you’re in my prayers. Stay safe.

It was last Wednesday, I think, when the Student Association president at State tweeted a picture of a sign that said, “We Believe 8-0.” She announced that some students were starting a movement, and they encouraged all Bulldog fans to make We Believe signs to encourage our football team that they’d be 8-0 after the Bama game. I thought her idea was a great one, but in all honesty I wondered if it would catch on. After all, when most people announce that they want to start a movement or launch a crusade or go viral or whatever, my first reaction is a teensy bit on the skeptical side because I tend to think that sort of thing works better when it’s organic.

However, it’s a good idea to keep in mind that I don’t really know anything about anything. And also that I am pretty much a marketing person’s worst nightmare because my response to any sort of strategy is usually somewhere along the lines of Hey, I’m really more of a behind the scenes person, and I’m not real big on networking-type stuff, so how about we just all get some fried chicken and talk about last night’s episode of Scandal? Does that work for y’all?

Apparently, though, the SA president at State knew exactly what she was doing (ah, youthful courage and moxie – I do envy you), because by late Wednesday afternoon, my Twitter and Facebook feeds were COVERED UP with #WeBelieve pictures and posts. It was everywhere. And by Wednesday night, my inner skeptic was dead and buried, which means that I totally jumped on the #WeBelieve bandwagon and snapped this picture of my child.

OH YES I DID.

The whole #WeBelieve thing turned out to be so fun and so heartwarming. And by the time Sister rolled in to Birmingham Friday night, we were both just as fired up as we could be about going to Tuscaloosa on Saturday. We woke up Saturday morning, watched a little GameDay, then started getting ready so that we could meet some friends for lunch before we drove over to T-town. I am normally pretty low-maintenance about my football game attire, but for some reason I couldn’t decide if I wanted to dress up a little bit or go the practical route. I bet I changed clothes four times, and in doing that I got so burning up hot that I ruined my hair and had to re-style it. Before I knew it, we were running about fifteen minutes behind schedule, and I was ILL AS A HORNET because I LIKE TO BE EARLY.

Seriously. If five minutes early is good, then fifteen minutes early is better, and thirty minutes early – well, that is just bliss.

We finally made it to lunch (I went the practical route with my attire, and that turned out to be a good call), and I was so flustered by the time we walked in the restaurant that I ran straight into a sign that was right inside the door. It made such a racket that I was certain that I’d either broken A) the sign or B) my big toe, but thankfully both remained intact. My pride, however, took some time to recover.

After lunch we drove to Tuscaloosa, where we found a place to park fairly easily and spent the better part of three hours roaming around the campus. We watched the Homecoming parade, hung out for a bit at Starbucks, checked out the tissue paper signs on sorority house lawns, and basically had a lovely time. There were a couple of strange things about the afternoon, though. One was that until we went into the stadium, Sister and I could not seem to escape cigarette smoke. I don’t know if it was the sort of thing where the more we noticed it, the more we noticed it (does that make sense?), but we apparently found the tailgating section where people were enjoying the Marlboros (or the brand of their choosing, I reckon), and we couldn’t get away from it. Over the course of the afternoon it got to be a little bit like a Saturday Night Live skit. One woman even unintentionally exhaled straight into Sister’s face, and we got so tickled that we couldn’t breathe.

The second odd development is that I noticed on more than one occasion that some of the high school- and college-aged girls had forgotten to put on their pants (or leggings or SOMETHING) before they left the house. There seems to be a trend where a long shirt counts as a dress, and I would just like to address this trend in all love and say UM, NO. I think it’s a good Rule For Life that if a really good breeze (or, for that matter, leaning down to pick up something you drop) has the potential to cause you some public embarrassment, then it really can’t hurt to put on some additional clothing. I’ve seen this same trend at work here in Birmingham, but I really noticed it yesterday when everybody was walking around in their Homecoming finery. I don’t mean it in a judge-y way at all, and obviously I am a mama and old and all that, but there were a few times when I was tempted to run up to a perfectly darlin’ girl and fashion my big ole scarf into some sort of wrap skirt.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

After Dawg Walk was over, Sister and I decided to go ahead and begin the hike to our seats in the stadium. I haven’t been to Bryant-Denny since they added the upper decks to the end zones, so I didn’t have a really good frame of reference for how high up those seats are. But MY WORD. By the fourth level of the ramp I was trying to motivate myself with some pretty spirited self-talk, and by the time we got to the sixth level, I had lapsed into a prayer language and begged the Lord for mercy. Sister and I moved up the ramp at a pretty good pace, and oh, was I ever sorry for that when we finally got to the top. If I’d known at the bottom of that ramp what I knew at the top of it, I’d have gotten in line for the little shuttle thing and let someone drive me up that ramp. I might have even faked a twisted ankle in a moment of weakness.

Getting to the top of the ramp was just half the battle, though, because then we had to make the vertical ascent to our actual seats. I’m not scared of heights at all, but the stairs in that upper deck are so steep that I was afraid to turn around and look down for fear that THE VERTIGO, IT WOULD GET ME. We were on row 29, which basically means that we hiked halfway up Mt. McKinley and then braced ourselves by holding on to the bleachers while we sidestepped over to seats 25 and 26. I had no idea that watching a football game was going to require rock wall training, but I’ll know better next time to stick some ropes and carabiners into my purse.

Even though the temperature wasn’t that cold, we noticed as soon as we sat down that the wind was going to be SOMETHING ELSE. I was wearing a scarf, but within five minutes I’d pulled an even bigger scarf from my purse and wrapped it around my neck, too. And within five more minutes I’d taken that extra scarf and used it to cover my ears because, well, they were getting a little numb. It was fine, though, and we were pretty happy and good-natured about the whole BRACING OCTOBER WINDS thing when my friend Daphne took this picture of her older son, Sister, and me before the game started.

But then.

That wind picked up even more, and it seemed like there was nothing we could do to shield ourselves from it. By the end of the first quarter, Sister and I were looking more like this.

Oh. I was so very, very cold.

And by mid-way through the second quarter, I just took that gray scarf and wrapped it around my head like a tourniquet. I WAS NOT MESSING AROUND.

You see how that printed scarf is still around my neck? That’s because I used it like duct tape to seal off the air flow into the gray scarf. It was like some sort of twisted football fan edition of Survivor, y’all, and I used everything at my disposal to stay warm. Daph wasn’t wearing her coat, so that became a blanket, and luckily Daph also had some hand warmers that I tucked inside the cuffs of my sweatshirt and am now considering bronzing because they are just that dear to me. I did have the good sense to wear some really warm socks and fleece-lined shoes, so at least my feet weren’t freezing. And I’ll have you know that my tourniquet scarf kept me from getting windburn.

So see? I AM PRACTICALLY AN EXPLORER.

The game didn’t go State’s way, and while we definitely were hoping for more in that regard, it’s tough to complain about our season so far. Alabama is an incredible team – sort of eerily phenomenal at every single part of the game – and I’ll be shocked if they’re not in the National Championship game again this year. The ‘Dogs play A&M next, and I have a feeling that #WeBelieve will be going strong again this week. Because, well, we do. Our boys have come a mighty long way over the last few years.

We’ve had our #WeBelieve sign on our front door for the last couple of days – mainly for fun since we live in the middle of a whole bunch of Bama fans – and late last night when Sister and I got home, I pulled the sign off the door and moved it to our kitchen. This morning when I got out of bed, I walked down the hall and saw that the little man had made some edits.

In case you can’t see it, it says, “Sadly, we lost.”

And listen. You have to know that the comma after “Sadly” WARMED THIS ENGLISH MAJOR’S HEART.

But as much as I loved that comma, it was what I saw at the top of the sign that made me grin from ear to ear.

That boy of ours may only be nine years old, but he is already fully acquainted with Bulldog fans’ unique brand of optimism. And hopefully he’s right, because, you know, AGGIES.

#WeBelieve