Thanksgiving: family, a tacky shirt and why I don't clean my kitchen

   This week's adventure is about Thanksgiving. I know, I know...not really exciting but still an adventure. This year I got to host Thanksgiving dinner for part of my beloved family and between all the prep, cleaning, cooking, entertaining and everything else, it can be quite an ordeal. Thankfully, I love doing it and I love my family!

   In preparation for the day my son and I cleaned the house. He did everything else while I scrubbed the kitchen top to bottom. It had been a while and after it was done I went to cook in it and realized why I don't clean it often. I love to cook and I do it all the time. When the kitchen is spotless, I don't want to mess it up and cooking is messy. Cooking is a form of art and as an artist, I need to feel free to drop food on the floor, spill spices and splatter grease. But when the kitchen is clean, I tend to be more restricted in my cooking endeavors. And that just doesn't work for me. So I am okay with having a organized and tidy yet, dirty kitchen.

   Something very important to me is food, real food, happy food, living food. I eat almost nothing that comes with a label. I also don't eat any animals or products that came from a factory farm (concentrated animal feeding operation). That being said, my food options are often limited, especially when I don't cook for myself. So this year's Thanksgiving adventure started at Farmer Ben's. At Farmer Ben's they sell what I refer to as, "happy animal" meat.

   Going to the farm was an awesome experience! Not only could I see the animals, the conditions in which they are raised but I also got to talk to Jessica, farmer and co-owner. She doesn't normally run the store but she was there when I showed up and was an extremely personable wealth of valuable information about all of the meat they sell and ways to prepare it. Turns out she also went to school with my older brother (small county). Its a pretty great thing in my book to be able to have a good rapport with the people I get my food from.

      Here is what I picked up for the dinner (I'm not a huge fan of turkey).

  Threw this together with organic veggies (some from my garden!), herbs, spices and bone broth...

In all honesty I didn't know exactly how I was going to cook it all until the night before but the consensus was that it was delicious!

                                                      It's all cooked!! (that's me)

   I made some paleo stuffing and a grain free pumpkin cake that tuned out awesome. My fam brought some potatoes au gratin and my mom's spectacular home-made biscuits and we feasted! Simple and lovely!

   I enjoy providing delicious, healthy food for my loved ones but these gatherings are just as much (if not more so) about the people that are seated around the table! Love my family! (my son likes to make faces...I have no idea where he gets it)

   A tradition in my family at holiday gatherings is music...actually any time the family gets together in a room with a piano, it gets played...a lot! I was so excited when it occurred to me that when everyone came over, there would be other people playing music in my home. I love that! There has always been so much love surrounding the piano while growing up. And I love that we still do this today. In fact, even more now than ever.

                                        This picture warms my heart to no end!

   Lastly: the turkey shirt. You may have noticed that bedazzled beauty I was wearing in the photo above...I made that bad boy just for this day. In all honesty, I'm not exactly sure why. I don't dress like that normally but for some reason I needed to make this shirt. My son will confirm that every half hour or so while working on this shirt, I would stop to pace around the house and wonder out loud, "why the hell am I making this shirt?!" I was up well past midnight affixing jewels onto a brown, puffy-paint lined turkey with googlie eyes. The turkey print fabric, turned into a collar with eyelet lace sewed to the underside is the crowning glory! I put a lot of thought into the details of this shirt, because when you make something such as this, it is all about those details. Those details will literally make or break the design!
                                 
                              And as you can see...it turned out pretty amazing!

   I'm actually pretty proud of it. Not proud enough to wear it any other day of the year, but proud none the less. I even considered making a custom tacky shirts business. Want one made to order for any holiday? Contact me...seriously!

 
   Over and out until my next adventure! Thanks for reading and feel free to leave me a comment...tell me about your Thanksgiving, messy kitchen or to order your tacky holiday shirt!




Adventure tip:
Holidays can be tough and quite stressful. I know many people who don't have the loving and supportive family dynamic that I am blessed with. It is important to take care of yourself as best as you can any day but especially in higher stress situations. Check out The Daily Love for quotes, inspiration and more to help keep your spirits up and to keep love in heart when dealing with difficult situations.