Dear Daughters: Thanksgiving Grocery List

Dear Daughters,

If we were all neighbors, and someday I hope we are,

I would invite you over for coffee one chilly morning in November, and we would work on our

Thanksgiving grocery list.

You could sit on the love seat in the kitchen and laugh and roll your eyes, while I tried my best

to get you to pay attention to all of the important Thanksgiving things I needed to announce.



This partial list below has a history you know.

Great cooking women in our family’s history still impact this list because they created it.

 Turkey-  Nonnie swore by the Riverside turkey at HEB.  I bought those for years because of her.

I have now become a turkey of least resistance buyer ,and I buy Butterball.

I can’t resist the idea of a 1-800 number hotline.

No one else in the house is awake when I put that 25 pound behemoth in the oven ,so it is nice to

think I could call someone.


Cornbread Dressing- For the bread portion of the dressing, Mamaw (your great

grandmother) always bought hot dog buns and toasted them in the oven. She also made

homemade corn bread.  I buy the herb flavored Pepperidge Farm packages of bread crumbs. I

also prepare 2 boxes of Jiffy cornbread mix.


Cranberry Sauce- It is at this point on the list that we reveal our blue collar, no nonsense roots.

It is also where we reveal our love of old school, Thanksgiving meals prepared in South Texas public

school cafeterias in small Texas towns. (Examples: Riviera ISD, Ricardo ISD, Falfurrias ISD, Sharyland ISD)

What was part of these wonderfully prepared meals?  Canned, jellied cranberry sauce.

There. I said it.

I have NEVER tasted a fresh cranberry dish at Thanksgiving that I liked or that didn’t make my eyes

squint from tartness.

No thank you.

It is still early.

We have time to plan.

We still need to discuss Katherine’s Sparkle Salad and its origin.  My dear friend Mary Jo made it in

her Home Economics kitchen at Sharyland High School where we taught.

She and her students created wonderful Thanksgiving feasts for all of the teachers for many years.



I love you sweet girls.

Keep a tight rein.

It is getting colder…watch your driving.

I love you,

Mom

 

Joining in at

52 Mantels

Feathered Nest Friday

 

The Legend of White Spray Paint

Once upon a time,

a retired high school English teacher ,who loved the written word,

discovered an avenue for that word love, and it was called blogging.


(In the interest of full disclosure, I chose blogging because my 3 adult daughters all said,

“Mother, don’t you dare get on Facebook.”)

And so White Spray Paint was born.

Why the name White Spray Paint?

I wrote the answer to that in my very first post.

“My mother was a great proponent of white spray paint and its multiple uses and problem solving qualities in home decor. This has been an important part of our family's home toolbox for as long as I can remember.

She sprayed everything and taught me to do so as well.

White spray paint transformed every piece of old furniture, that my father hauled in a cattle trailer, to the first garage apartment my husband and I had.

As family members arrived with precious treasures to share -my mother cleaned and sprayed, cleaned and sprayed.

White spray paint covered changing tables,baskets,picture frames,mirrors, lamps and wicker screens in the bedrooms of our three daughters- 

her precious, kindred spirited granddaughters.

She made their bedding, their curtains, their pillows and shams- all highlighted by bright, white furniture we had sprayed and redeemed.

White spray paint traveled in the back of my suburban to every dorm room, apartment, and rent house that our daughters lived in while at Texas A&M ( as well as to all other homes thereafter) .

In all of this white spray painting, I know we left random spray marks in alleys and parking lots throughout town.

We have always painted with such great abandon.

She taught us that too.”

And so dear friends, my blog White Spray Paint was born.

Because of its name, I may have accidentally ended up in the world of DIY blogs,

but that is not the story I have to tell.

That would have tickled my mother. 

I can hear her now…   ”DIY? Well who else is going to do it? Of course I do it myself.”

I have likened my blog to that funky, dusty thrift shop on the edge of town-

sometimes open, sometimes closed- with treasures hidden in its depths.


Just know how grateful I am to those of you that are part of the wonderful motley crew who has joined me here.

You’re “doing it yourself” everyday too.