It's Been Crazy Today:

So, I'm hosting Thanksgiving at my house.

My brother Michael, my sister Elizabeth, her boyfriend Johnie, my cousin Ara, his wife Cicely, their friend (and mine!) Ali, and my college roommate Jane.

So, a total of 9 people.

I've totally gone insane: 20 lb turkey (I want leftovers), gravy, 3 kinds of stuffing (my family's [totally plain], Cicely's [cornbread], and Matt's [cubed bread with veggies and we're adding sausage, because Matt wants it]), mashed potatoes, sweet potato balls (gross, but Ara and Michael love them), two kinds of cranberry jelly (ok, one is from a can), green bean casserole, and my family's favorite Thanksgiving treat: rigatoni with meatballs, sausage, and beef. I think that's all.

Today was my first real day of working. Besides going to the grocery store three times (it breaks up the monotony to go many times - and besides, it would be heavy to carry home all I was buying from the store in one trip), I made pumpkin pie (Cicely's recipe), apple pie (Matt's favorite kind of pie), and a cranberry tart (that one was fun - I mostly made it up). All of which I'm going to serve with fresh whipped cream and ice cream (vanilla and maybe cinnamon?). Which I still need to buy tomorrow. Oops!

I also managed to chop vegetables like crazy. All the vegetables that go in the stuffings, everything for the red sauce for the rigatoni. People who've seen me cook will be pleased to know that I've only cut myself twice. Which is probably a record for number of people cooked for vs number of times I chopped myself instead of a vegetable.

Tomorrow, I make more cornbread, one of the cranberry jellies, and clean the house. And company comes at 4! I promise to take lots of pictures. And drink a lot of wine. And post about it.