Skip to main content

Reheated With Love

I discovered a special freedom yesterday like I've never known!!!  Due to work schedules I just didn't know how we were going to pull the Thanksgiving holiday off.... it was suggested that I have it catered!   So slightly begrudgingly, my husband agreed that having it catered would be something worth looking into.  After pricing the different store's holiday offerings, I decided on Fry Marketplace to cater my Thanksgiving meal.

BRILLANT!!!  So two things:
  1. I chose Fry's solely on price and locale.
  2. There was going to be no way of knowing how brilliant the idea was until yesterday's Thanksgiving meal.
So three express meals and one gluten free meal at Fry's cost me $149.  With my $5 off digital coupon that brought my meal to $144 that was then quickly back up to $149 with the cans of black olives I had to buy.  Then the hubs brought home 2 Village Inn pies (something we do EVERY year) for $19, the whipped cream for $4.72 and rolls for another $5 bringing the total for the meal to $177.72.

I'm not gonna lie here... I have done Thanksgiving for less than that and I have done Thanksgiving for considerably more than that, but EVERY Thanksgiving comes with the same amount of preparation spending the hours the night before to prep and then trying to rearrange the refrigerator (always throwing stuff that you'd like to keep) to find room to store everything until you can put it together the next day, the same amount of mess that you inevitably clean up over and over because you have to clean up after prep, clean up after you cook and then clean up all the serving dishes after the meal, and the same amount of time away from your family.  No literally!  Every Thanksgiving, I am so tunnel-visioned to complete the meal on time that I feel like I lose 2 days of my life every year!  This year my preparations consisted of putting the meal in the oven.  I did doctor some of the dishes a bit.... I added butter and milk to the mashed potatoes, pepper and thyme to the stuffing, butter and herbs to the outside of the turkey, but this meal had NONE of the pressure I usually feel in preparing such a huge meal and I got to spend the entire morning with the hubs actually ENJOYING OURSELVES!!!! And when we ate this meal.....

IT WAS FABULOUS!!!!  The turkey was moist and succulent the stuffing was flavorful with that wonder crust on the top that we all love... everything was WONDERFUL!!!  The best part!  Dishes were done and food was put away an hour after the meal was done.  Instead of spending two days on Thanksgiving, I spent 2 hours!!! 

For those who would argue that my meal didn't contain the "love" of a home cooked meal... I contend that with the lack of stress and the abundance of time I got to enjoy my family this holiday, this one was reheated with love and I will DEFINITELY be doing it again!

P.S.  It was also decided when the hubs and I picked up our meal boxes, that for $45 for an express meal box containing all the fixins, it was worth buying an additional meal box to donate next year. We wished we would have done it this year!   Really, I just cannot tell you how positive this holiday experience was.  Thank you Fry's Marketplace!!!

Comments

Past 7 Days....

The Old Clunker

A few years back I received a Creative Zen Micro Photo for Christmas. It was wonderful! The fact that I could finally carry around all my music in a super small (or I thought at the time)2.25" x 3.5" music player was sheer freedom from carrying around that old, large, portable cd player and I won't even go into the tons of music cds that also had to go along for the ride. Ok... so I'll mention them briefly, hahahahaha! And I was also surprised by how much lighter this music player was. At 5.5 oz., wearing it fashionably on an armstrap to the gym put me in the leagues with the top fitness buffs. Then something shifted... I was no longer hip, or in, or cool anymore. Suddenly everything shrunk and my music player was now a gigantic dinosaur! What the heck?!? Now everyone was sporting music players that were as big as the face of a watch and were a million times lighter than mine. All of a sudden I was back in the 7th grade trying to convince my mom to buy me the latest

MY VERY FIRST CRICUT CARTRIDGE GIVE AWAY!

Ok ... so the time has come. I've got some BRAND NEW, NEVER BEEN USED, STILL IN THE PLASTIC Cricut Cartridges to give away over the next couple of months and it starts with one of my ALL-TIME FAVORITES...... Hannah Montana! YAY! I LOVE this cartridge! It's got the most beautiful guitar images along with musical notes and FIVE fonts! I used the regular font and the rock star font to create my Father's Day card this year (see above). I also used the Hannah Montana cart (see below) to create a beautiful butterfly (FREE Gypsy cut file HERE ), and am currently working on a project using the gorgeous solitaire diamond. There's a rose and lips and decorative hearts, even a Pegasus ! There's just so much on this cartridge.... I use it a lot! To call this a "font" cartridge is terribly misleading. It's been a long time favorite and now I'm THRILLED to be able to give it away to one of my awesome readers! So here's how to win: Become one of my follower

Make It Crafty Blog Hop

Woo Hoo!!! Isn't this hop AMAZING!?! All the projects on this hop are incredible!!! If you are mid hop, you should be arriving here from Carisa's awesome blog, WELCOME! If you haven't started this hop from the beginning, you're definitely going to want to.... so many prizes in store!!! Click HERE to start at the beginning. Prizes Up For Grabs 1st prize - Rubber Collection (Peaches of Plenty, Petals and Palings, Daffodil Dell, Ivy Swing) 2nd prize - Whole Digital Collection (10 digital stamps) 3rd Prize - Four digital Stamps from the collection The hop will end Friday 24th and the main winners will be announced Christmas Day! Random winners will be announced at a later date. How To Play Along Along the way, look for puzzle pieces. They won’t be on every post so you need to keep an eye out for them. The puzzle pieces make up one of the NEW images. At the end of the hop there will be an email form where you can submit your answer. This is so that your answer is private.