Well, the good news is that I finally figured out that I could thaw the frozen meat that I found in the basement of the village grocery, give the thawed meat to the wolf at the intersection of the two snow-covered trails, then make my way to the previously undiscovered hunting lodge at Dire Grove.

The bad news is that I may be just a wee bit obsessed WITH A COMPUTER GAME.

Just so you know: I never could bring myself to buy the full version. I know my personality, and if I start purchasing and downloading hidden object games? Oh, it’s all over, my friends. My family will have to fend for themselves and learn to get by on frozen chicken pot pies (that they cook for themselves, mind you, because I’ll be way too busy thawing pretend meat in a pretend microwave FOR A PRETEND WOLF).

However, even though I didn’t buy the full version, I have it, because my brother-in-law bought it for me as a little surprise.

IT WAS A GIFT. I couldn’t NOT play it. THAT WOULD BE SO RUDE.

So after supper last night I grabbed my computer and opened the game and the next thing I knew it was four-ish hours later and OH MY WORD HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?

I knew when I climbed in the bed last night that I was going to dream about that silly game, and I absolutely did. Right before I woke up this morning I had a dream that a friend of mine had a toolbox that she couldn’t open, and when she off-handedly said, “You don’t happen to have a key for this thing, do you?” – well, I was so puffed-up with pride that I could barely find adequate breath to say, “Why, I DO have a key. I found it in the safe in the office. The secret code is 4997, you know.” And then I opened that tool box and there were little pops of light all around it as well as a light tinkling of bells in the distance.

It’s perfectly fine if you pity me. It might even be fair.

Especially since I might end up wearing a t-shirt that looks like this before it’s all said and done.

I believe the word that you’re looking for is “KLASSY.”

Yes ma’am.

I’m hoping that there are six or maybe thirty of y’all out there who have experienced a similar LOSS OF ALL REASON where a computer and/or video game is concerned. Like maybe you secretly play your kid’s DS when he or she is at school? Or maybe you like to put the hurt on a little Mario Kart to wind down after dinner? Or maybe you have unraveled every Zelda-related puzzle known to man?

OH, PLEASE LET IT BE SO.

There’s strength in numbers, people.

Especially if one of those numbers knows how to solve the puzzle in the electrical box at the historical society.

I’M JUST SAYIN’.

So this was going to be the post where I told you all about our Thanksgiving. I was going to tell you about the caramel cake that Martha brought (this sweet lady in my hometown makes them! and her icing is perfectly divine! and she wraps the cake in plastic wrap and wax paper and it stays so fresh! so fresh! the cake is just so good and fresh!). I was going to tell you all about the three – no, four – trips that I made with various and sundry family members to the Steinmarts. I was going to tell you about how Sister and I got pedicures while we watched the Arkansas/LSU game, how we revamped my cousin’s wardrobe, how we hollered (HOLLERED) during the State/Ole Miss game and how we may or may not have stayed up really late to re-watch the highlights for good measure.

And, of course, I was also going to tell you my theory about tucking pants into boots. Because naturally that’s the most important information of all.

But every single one of those plans got derailed at approximately 8:30 tonight when I decided to play a game that my brother-in-law and husband have been playing on their iPads today. I do not have an iPad of my own, mind you, but I was so intrigued by bits and pieces of their conversations (“Have you found the spark plug yet?” “Yes. It’s in the lawn mower, and you have to have it to start the generator.” “But what about the keys to the tool box?” “I’m not sure where they are.” “Just make sure that you cut up some fire wood.” “Got it.”) that I decided to download a trial to my laptop so that I could see what all the fuss (and intrigue) was about.

Well.

Let me just say that if you enjoy any sort of quest/mystery/look for the hidden object/try to figure out the puzzle-type game, you will be completely carried away with Dire Grove. Now granted, I’ve only played the trial version, and I’m reluctantly contemplating buying the full version for my computer because I DON’T KNOW IF I CAN STAND IT IF I DON’T, but sweet mercy. It reminds me of the late 80s/early 90s when I’d start playing King’s Quest on my brother-in-law’s computer and suddenly five hours would have passed and I’d wonder how in the world I missed supper and why was the house so quiet because oh my word had everybody gone to bed already?

I get a little obsessive when there’s a quest involved. This bit of information should be surprising to approximately no one.

So even though I’m a little scarce with the details right now, I have to say that it was a really good Thanksgiving. We had lots of family here – which was a huge treat for us considering that we don’t have the luxury of living in the same town as our relatives – and we managed to cram a whole bunch of fun into a relatively short amount of time. It was a loud and busy and chaotic few days, and I adored it.

The whole Dire Grove discovery was just icing on the holiday cake, really.

So what about y’all? How was your Thanksgiving? Did you make some good memories? Did your team win? Did you do any Black Friday shopping? Did you spend part of your weekend trying to figure out new and inventive ways to serve turkey and dressing leftovers?

I can’t wait to hear. Or read, as it were.

Plus, everybody knows that reading blog comments is the best possible way to decompress after working like crazy to solve a mystery in the English countryside. IT’S EXHAUSTING WORK, PEOPLE.

Have a great Monday, y’all!

So for the last few days I’ve been on a little family trip, and if you’re wondering why I haven’t mentioned anything about it before now, it’s because our house has been empty since Saturday and I didn’t want to give a heads-up to a local RING OF THIEVES.

Because I’m sure that it’s totally the norm for a RING OF THIEVES to read blogs and then plan their heists accordingly.

Not that robbing our house would qualify as a heist, mind you. A wee small heist-ette, maybe. And only then if I’d just gone to the grocery store and therefore had an inordinate amount of cheese in the refrigerator.

We actually planned our little family getaway several months before I found out about the trip to Ecuador, and when we realized the timing of it all – what with the family trip falling in the middle of what was sure to be Ugly Re-Entry Time – my husband was a little worried that there would be some point when I’d be bawling my eyes out while he and the little man were having the time of their lives. Honestly, I thought it was a pretty dead-on prediction, but as it turned out, the time with my people was just the thing to counter the last of my re-entry blues.

Except for the part where I forgot to check in on Southwest until about 12 hours before we left town and we were way down low in the B boarding group and the flight was completely full and I spent a good portion of Saturday morning wondering HOW, HOW COULD I HAVE FAILED MY FAMILY WITH THE LOW-B BOARDING GROUP, HOW? HOWWWWWWWW??!?

So I was very level-headed and absolutely loaded with perspective about all of the plane-related events. As you can clearly see.

[I just wrote a whole bunch about our trip and then deleted it because I decided that my details were beyond boring.]

[But we went to Universal in Orlando.]

[When I figure out how to share some info about the festivities without making you want to claw out your eyeballs with a salad fork, I will certainly try again.]

[However, you can rest assured that a fine time was had by all on hand.]

[I mean, WE SAW HOGWARTS, Y’ALL.]

It was delightful.

And to top it all off, today in the Orlando airport I had one of my most epic people-watching days EVER thanks to two female bodybuilders. Now I don’t know for sure that they were bodybuilders; I am merely making that assumption based on the fact that their arms were so cut that it looked like each woman could have picked up a whole row of chairs and flipped it through the nearest window, not to mention that when they walked past me I could hear their abs rippling. So if they weren’t bodybuilders, they were, at the very least, weight lifting aficionados.

Aficionadas?

I have no idea.

So the bodybuilder-esque women were sitting on the row across from us at our gate, and I was trying so hard not to look at them only HOW COULD I NOT LOOK AT THEM WHEN I WAS SO COMPLETELY FASCINATED? I had an endless list of questions in my head – do you train together? are you on your way to a competition? is body building big here in florida? have you ever tried the mushroom swiss burger at dairy queen? do you know that it has sort of a gravy-ish substance on it that I find strangely delicious? are you surprised that I am not personally involved in any sort of hard core weight lifting? do you know jillian michaels? – but I was too scared to strike up a conversation because, well, they seemed very intense and focused and also intense.

I tried to distract myself by texting a friend of mine who is as obsessed with people-watching as I am. And y’all, just as I started typing out that text, I realized that the bodybuilder women were eating chicken breasts from a Ziploc bag and I thought, “OH MY WORD THEY’RE PROTEIN LOADING. AT NINE THIRTY IN THE MORNING.” I continued with my texting so that I wouldn’t, you know, STARE, but I couldn’t get over the fact that they brought their own chicken to the airport. They took their chicken through security, y’all. THAT IS SOME DEDICATION.

My time in the Orlando airport also helped me to solidify some thoughts about this whole tucking-pants-into-boots trend, but that information will have to wait because quite frankly I don’t know how you could possibly handle the news about the chicken-eating bodybuilders and my opinions on the boot tuck-in all in one day. I can only ask so much of you, especially with Thanksgiving just a couple of days away.

Anyway, we’ve been home for about five hours, and I’ve already baked my sweet potatoes and am about to baptize them in some butter and brown sugar. Tomorrow I don’t have to go anywhere, so I’m going to stay in my pajamas and cook all day and then maybe change into some different pajamas and cook some more and then maybe watch some TV. So basically I’m going to have a pajama party that involves preparing large quantities of various and sundry high carb foods, capped off with a night where I watch DVR’d reality television programming. THE LORD IS FAITHFUL AND WORTHY TO BE PRAISED.

It’s good to be home.

And it’s especially good to be home WITH NO PLANS TO LEAVE.

Happy Thanksgiving, y’all.