Happy Thanksgiving

 Thank you all for your encouragement from my post yesterday. We have so much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving!

To my American friends, I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving! 

Much to be Thankful For

There is so much that I would like to say during this Thanksgiving season, but finding words to express it is quite difficult. I know I will fall far short of expressing what I am feeling. Sadly, I've never been much of a writer, but even less so now. It is a tremendous effort to focus and organize my thoughts these days.Thinking of what to say, how to say it and how to word it in a grammatically correct way becomes a contemptuous chore. Which has been part of the reason for my infrequent posts; it has been easiest to say nothing at all.

For the last eight months my husband has been unemployed. The first time he was laid off, (after fifteen years with a wonderful company and a job he loved), was devastating, but to face the trauma of multiple company layoffs over the last six years has been a nightmare that is incomprehensible to us. After this latest layoff we feared that the career he had worked so hard to establish was completely ruined because his work history looked so unstable. Most companies, if they are even hiring, would just pitch a resume like that.While it took eight very long months and many resumes sent, a new job was started on Monday last week. For this new opportunity we are so very thankful.

Our hearts are overflowing with gratitude and thanksgiving for God's provision for us during this time of extended unemployment. Our two adult children, who both still live at home, have full-time jobs and graciously contributed. Our nineteen year old son delayed college and donated practically his entire paycheck, with no complaints. With their help, my odd jobs and unemployment benefits we have been able to stay caught up on our bills. There was no money for extras and there have been many struggles along the way, but, by God's grace, we have survived the storm...again.Were it not for our precious children things would be very different for us right now. We are very blessed.

It is also with heartfelt gratitude that I thank each of you for your patience with me during this time of sporadic blogging. Losing my mom, dealing with multiple job loss and all the emotions and struggles that encompasses, and my mother-in-law's end stage Alzheimer's...well sometimes just coping with life is all you can manage.

I hope things will settle down now and this extended season of trials will end for our family and hopefully after a time of stability and emotional healing my mental fog will lift and my creativity will flourish.

Speaking of creativity, during the past few months, I have given much thought to this blog and the direction I want to take it. After all that I have been through, with the multiple job loss and this extended season of difficult trials,  I sometimes think about posting on topics regarding that, but my blog has been mostly nature and gardening related and it felt weird to do so. There are more home projects that I have done that I would like to share, but again, I feel funny posting them here.

After one such post, someone suggested to me that I might want to start another blog for things not related to my normal topics so that my readers wouldn't be surprised to see something out of character for Robin's Nesting Place. That was a great idea and I attempted to start another blog but I can barely manage one much less two or three.

I think I've come to the conclusion, that for right now, during this season of my life, I will just post whatever it is that I want to blog about, right here, at Robin's Nesting Place. My desire is to keep the blog as a hobby blog but that definitely encompasses many topics, including photography; crafts; home projects; gardening; cooking: bird watching; thrifting and things related to living on a tight budget and anything else related to home and garden. It really isn't that much different from what I've been doing, just more broad which should lead to more frequent posts that will hopefully still appeal to my readers and maybe even grow my blog a bit more. Guilt/pressure/stress free blogging is all I can creatively manage right now.

I hope that is okay and those of you who have become my blogging friends these last four years will continue to read and follow. I appreciate you all!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We live too far away from family to make the trip home to Alabama over Thanksgiving. Sometimes we share our meal with friends and several times we've had family here for Thanksgiving. This year it's just us. I cooked our traditional Thanksgiving meal, minus the turkey. It's just a day of relaxing, eating and enjoying each other. We have so much to be thankful for this year!

Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours!

Happy Thanksgiving!

It has been quite a while since my last post. Thank you all for the comments that have been left for me.

This has been a difficult month for me. I've had a nasty respiratory virus that's had me coughing and not feeling particularly well for about a month and other health related things that have been bothersome.

I've also been very discouraged and disappointed in some people that I know who have made very poor decisions and have hurt their loved ones. I've been sad and probably even depressed.

I've always wanted my blog to be a place of cheer and encouragement for those who visit. It makes my day when people comment that a picture or a post has brought them cheer.

Honestly, it has been difficult for me to see much beauty in the ordinary things lately, so I've not been taking many nature pictures and the ones I have taken have not pleased me.

I really needed this special time of Thanksgiving to focus on those many things I'm thankful for. I needed to be reminded to focus on blessings and not problems. It has been a very enjoyable Thanksgiving for us even though we couldn't be with extended family this year.

I'm feeling better now both physically and emotionally and hope to post more regularly again.

I'm so thankful for each of you who faithfully reads this blog of mine and I'm thankful for your blogs that I've continued to read, even though I haven't felt much like commenting recently.

I hope that each of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and enjoyable time with your loved ones.

On a side note, my computer is sounding strange tonight. So, if by chance you don't hear from me, it may be that I have computer problems. I do hope that isn't the case.

Happy Thanksgiving

My mom, (in the picture) and dad, who live in Alabama, surprised me with a visit last week. Since we usually plan trips home to Alabama around Christmas we aren't able to share Thanksgiving with extended family. I thought it would be a great opportunity to have Thanksgiving with my parents while they were here, so we had our meal on Saturday. We'll have a smaller version of the meal today.

I always cook the same things for our traditional Thanksgiving meal:
Turkey
Southern cornbread chicken and dressing served with gravy and jellied cranberries
Sweet potato casserole with brown sugar and pecan topping
Green bean casserole
Rolls
Sweet potato pie

My dad has a strong aversion to any kind of poultry including turkey, so my mom made her pork chop dressing and I made the chicken dressing for us.

Because I get so many hits on my blog for recipes, (like 69 out of 100 hits today were for squash casserole), I thought I'd share my favorite Thanksgiving family recipes. I've used these same recipes for over 20 years, they are so delicious.

Southern Cornbread (for dressing)

1 c. all-purpose flour
1 c. yellow corn meal
1/4 c. sugar
4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
2 eggs
1 c. milk
1/4 c. cooking oil
shortening

Preheat oven to 425. Stir together flour, corn meal, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add eggs, milk, and oil. Beat just until smooth, (do not over beat). Put a small amount of shortening in an iron skillet and place it on stove top burner, when shortening is hot, pour the cornbread mixture into the hot skillet. Let it cook for just a few seconds until it starts to bubble, (this is the the secret to crispy southern cornbread), then put the skillet into the oven. Cook on 425 for 20 to 25 minutes or until the top is golden brown.

Chicken and Dressing

Chicken

1 large chicken, (breasts can be used but dark meat makes a richer broth)
1 c. diced celery, (more or less according to taste)
1/2 of small onion
2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper

Pour salt on and inside the chicken to scrub and clean it well, rinse off salt. Place chicken in a large stockpot and cover with water. Add celery, onion, salt and pepper. Add enough water as it cooks so that you end up with at least 1 quart of broth. Cook until chicken falls off of the bone. Cool and pull apart and cut into small pieces.

Dressing

1 pan of cooked cornbread
2 slices of bread, cubed or 1 c. dry bread crumbs
1/2 c. milk
1/2 stick of butter
2 raw eggs
chicken broth
1 Tablespoon of sage, (more or less according to taste)
2 hard boiled eggs, chopped
cooked and chopped chicken

Cook a pan of cornbread. Cool and crumble bread into a large bowl. Cut sliced bread into small cubes or add bread crumbs. Beat together eggs and milk pour into bread mixture. Pour broth over bread. Add melted butter. Add chopped eggs and sage. Mix well. At this point I usually get a little taste to see if the sage taste is coming through if not I add more. Make the dressing thin and wet so it will be moist when done, (moist dressing taste far better than dry and mine has never been too moist no matter how wet it was because the bread soaks it up). Pour half of the dressing into a greased 10 x 13 pan. Place a layer of chicken over the dressing. Cover chicken with remaining dressing. Bake at 350 until set and golden brown on top. Do not over bake. I usually double this recipe, freeze it and serve the other one at Christmas.

Gravy

1 can of Campbell's cream of chicken soup
1 Tbsp. butter
1/2 c. milk or half&half
2 boiled eggs, chopped
a pinch of black pepper
a pinch of salt

Pour ingredients into a small saucepan, cook until hot, stirring often. More milk may be needed to get the desired consistency. Serve over the dressing, along with cranberry sauce if desired.

Sweet Potato Casserole
(my mother-in-law's recipe)

3 c. sweet potatoes, cooked and mashed
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1/2 c. butter
1 c. sugar, (less can be used without affecting the taste of this delicious casserole)
1 t. vanilla flavoring
1/3 c. milk

Add ingredients together and mix well. Pour into a lightly greased 8x8 casserole dish.

Topping:

1 c. light brown sugar
1 c. nuts
1/3 c. all-purpose flour
1/3 c. butter, melted

Mix ingredients for topping and crumble on top of casserole. Bake 25 to 25 minutes at 350. Can be made ahead and frozen.