It’s the Thanksgiving holiday weekend here in Canada, and our house has been smelling so good all day, with that lovely scent of roast turkey. The only problem? We had salmon for dinner! Not that the salmon was a problem - it was delicious - but my taste buds were hankering for turkey (but ask me next Tuesday and you’ll probably get a different answer).
The reason the house smelled so good today was because my husband has decided to cook a full-blown Thanksgiving meal this Monday with recipes from the Nov 2008 issue of Bon Appetit. Several of the recipes can be made ahead of time, and since we’re going to my sister’s tomorrow for a family Thanksgiving dinner, he figured he’d do most of it today so all that will be left to do on Monday is roasting the turkey and whatever needs finishing. You can see our Thanksgiving menu here. The wonderful roasted turkey smell was from the turkey wings roasting in the oven in preparation for the gravy!
Since Daddy was busy in the kitchen, Dylan and I spent much of the day together doing artsy and crafty things, including our Day 11 drawings, and playing games.
Dylan’s Day 11 Drawing
This is what I love about my little boy: he loves to draw hearts and butterflies and flowers as much as he loves to draw trains and cars.
Belle’s Day 11 Drawing
I messed up the jawline - I find the actual shape of a face to be more challenging than any of the individual components, which is kind of strange. But true. If I could draw from imagination this lovely lady would be sporting a funky scarf or something equally camouflaging, but I need to have the actual thing in front of me so I just decided to be happy with the mussed up jawline!
Things I’ve Learned This Week
I’ve been thinking tonight about the things that I’ve learned this week. Here they are, in no particular order:
- Never go shopping for jeans shortly after you get a manicure. Those buttons will get your nails every time.
- Along the same lines, if you’re going to mess around with something like a flower petal craft set the morning after you get a manicure, especially one where the instructions state that the included paints are high quality and therefore might stain, be prepared for certain consequences nail-wise.
- I haven’t let go of self-judgment as much as I thought I had. I committed a social gaffe on an email group I belong to and the embarrassment is lingering on and on - it was all done in a moment of unthinkingness (that’s not a word, is it?) and it’s incredible how hard I have had to work at forgiving myself over it! On the brighter side of things, I do recognize that it’s all about self-judgment (and not about the social gaffe itself), which is a step in the right direction.
- Changing the tendency to make assumptions is a very powerful thing. Making assumptions and jumping to conclusions is now high on my list of habits I no longer want.
- Putting together file folder games can be a very addictive thing.
Every week in which I can say I’ve learned a lot always qualifies as a good week …
Tags: Art, the big draw, Thoughts
Especially love the smile on Dylan’s butterfly.
The face is fine. If you look at sketches by Da Vinci and others, they sometimes tend to have not a single perfect line but a flow of movement in the lines that may encompass several lines where one would “do.” Isnt that why they are sketches?
Nice to have a husband wanting to cook a dinner like that. Hope you have a delicous meal.
i like your face! self judgement is tough, isn’t it. sometimes i kill myself over a line that isn’t straight, or ends up lighter than others. but c’est la vie… I’m learning to not be as OCD.
Is your husband available for parties? what about for U.S. Thanksgiving?
Belle’s face reminds me of a painting of the Bronte sisters. And ! love the butterfly! I’ve strung all my Bug’s paintings up on a washing line across the kitchen, I don’t know how I’ll choose which ones to keep. I love baby art!
sweet drawings!
Thanks for the lovely comments, everyone!
Suki, you are so right - that’s why they’re sketches! And I’m really starting to see all of them as learning tools, for play, for fun, and for practice.
Erin, Ward loves to cook so much, he’d be cooking all the time if he could - if I mentioned doing a U.S. Thanksgiving for someone, he’d probably say, “Where? When? How many courses do they want?”