Dear Kid,

Happy Small Business Saturday!

Of all the faux holidays (many of which I love) this may be my favorite—at least when I put my grown-up hat on (which admittedly isn’t all that often).

I love that in an age of huge corporate organizations (many of which I love), there is time specifically to “thank” (and by “thank” I mean shop) small, local businesses.

Also, it’s (I just made this up) Turkey Soup Day. The first round of leftovers is over, and we’re on to soup-mode.

Soup is comforting. Soup is fortifying. Soup is healing. Soup is medicinal. Soup is warm. Soup is…soup. There have been books written about soup (quick, name two not including recipe books).

Love, Mom

Stone Soup by Ann Mcgovern

The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo

Add more Soup books in the comments

Dear Kid,

Hope everyone gets to spend some time to rest, relax, and enjoy the holiday. (And help with the clean up.)

I love it when a holiday comes together. Happy Thanksgiving!

Love, Mom

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Dear Kid,

It’s almost turkey time!

Which means it’s time to think about food. And that means lots of questions.

Turkey? Absolutely. That one’s easy.

Potatoes? Of course. But which kind? Sweet potatoes or mashed potatoes? And if sweet potatoes, with marshmallows or pecan streusel?

Cranberry sauce? Yes, but smooth or chunky?

Stuffing? Well, duh. My fave. No real questions here because I’m making it with corn bread and lots of veggies and without sausage because me.

Gravy? Probably. Hoping to make it without icky lumps or a flour aftertaste.

Rolls? Some kind of bread. Unless we decide we have too many carbs. But it’s Thanksgiving, so….what the heck.

Corn pudding? I love corn pudding, but since we’re having corn bread based stuffing maybe not.

Salad? Quite possibly. If for no other reason than it will be nice to have salad already made on the day after Thanksgiving.

Veggies? Yes. Because we love veggies. And because that will alleviate all the guilt around dessert.

Dessert? Is that even a real question? Of course!!! It’s practically the law, right? But what kind? Pumpkin pie? No, I think I’ll put some pumpkin in with the sweet potatoes. What about something chocolate? Love chocolate. But tradition is more apple-y. I’m thinking my favorite apple crumble sort of pie thing. (It really needs a better name.)

Beverages? Water, beer, wine, Diet Coke, Diet Sprite Cranberry (yep, fall fave), coffee, tea. Did I miss anything?

Football? But of course!

And the most important part? Family and friends.

I can’t wait.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

I have gotten some of the Best News Ever.

No, I didn’t win the Lottery. That would be amazing considering I didn’t buy a ticket.

I got a letter. From Grandpa. And in the letter was an article from Scientific American which discussed all sorts of things some people think are true but aren’t even close to accurate. Like the Loch Ness monster doesn’t exist (except in ceramic), aliens have never visited earth (except as costumes on Halloween), and the earth is not flat (wait, seriously? People still believe that? What?).

More about people going for fiction over fact another day.

But the Best News Ever (by which I mean “the best news in the last 10 minutes”) is that the idea of having to drink 8 glasses of water every day is hokum (extra points if you get the reference).

Of course you need to get liquid, but liquid comes from all sorts of places, like food and coffee. Food and coffee—two of my favorites! This is awesome.

I think I’ll celebrate by drinking an unnecessary glass of water.

That’s 1.

Love, Mom

P. S. Thanks for the article, Grandpa!

Dear Kid,

You might have heard the rumor that it’s Movember. You know that because A) I wrote about it yesterday and B) you’ve been on the planet for a while. Probably more the second, but still.

And you might have heard about the celebration at the end of the month.

Which means you know a bit about November.

But did you know that November is also International Drum month? And that it’s National Caregiver Appreciation Month? (Thank you, Caregivers!)

Here’s the biggie: it’s Peanut Butter Lovers Month.

Not Peanut Butter Month. Peanut Butter Lovers Month. Seems to me the idea would be to hug a peanut butter lover, right? Apparently not.

November is Peanut Butter Lovers Month, time to celebrate our favorite food! Americans will celebrate by eating more than 65 million pounds of peanut butter during the month of November.

Wait, what? 65 million pound during one month? During a month that features turkey no less! That is a huge honkin’ amount of peanut butter.

So, in honor of PBL Month, here are some fab facts about the “pb” part of pb&j:

• An acre of peanuts will yield enough peanut butter for 30K sandwiches. The average peanut farm is 100 acres. You do the math.
• The peanut plan flowers above the ground but the fruits grow underground. Weird.
• It takes 540 peanuts to make a 12 ounce jar of peanut butter. Unless there’s more than normal taste-testing involved. By law, for a product to be labeled “peanut butter” in the United States, it must be at least 90% peanuts. The other 10% is stickiness.
• 75% of homes in the US have at least one jar of peanut butter. Some of us are overachievers.
• Peanuts are sometimes called “goobers” which comes from “nguba”, the Congo language name for peanut.
• Archibutyrophobia is the fear of getting peanut butter stuck to the roof of your mouth. Don’t know why you’d be afraid of such a thing—you know it’s going to happen (see “other 10%” above).

How are you going to celebrate Peanut Butter Lovers Month? (Please do not suggest peanut butter and jelly instead of turkey on Thanksgiving…)

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Last night was date night.

First Daddy and I went to the Contemporary Arts Center downtown. I generally modern art. Dad generally doesn’t. But this time we were in complete agreement—neither of us cared for the art currently on display.

My favorite part was the sign in the UnMuseum part of the exhibit that said not to climb on or lick the art.

I kid you not.

Here’s all this art that patrons are encouraged to touch and snuggle with and they feel a need for a sign that says not to lick any of the art.

It makes me seriously worry about the people going to the exhibit. Ick.

Then we went to dinner at Pi Pizza and Beer.

The décor was very, very Pi. The math symbol, not your sister.

We had πr² (Pi Squares) for appetizers.

Then we had pizza (surprise!) for dinner.

We didn’t have room for dessert (but I really liked the idea of a piece of Pi).

Date night was fun (but not entirely diet-friendly!).

Love, Mom