Thanksgiving

We were lucky enough to be invited out to our friends pub for Thanksgiving dinner today, so I had the opportunity to take my sweet old time doing whatever I wanted.  We slept in and had a late breakfast with our Sunday latte.  It was the Victoria Marathon today so we also spent some time looking out the window at the runners and their families coming back from their run.  Some had medals around their necks, some were limping a little bit, but almost everyone was enjoying the sunny Fall day.

After breakfast I started to clean up by washing the dishes.  I do this 'chore' almost daily, usually in the evening before bed as we have no automatic dishwasher in our little kitchen.  This is not an unusual situation for a rental apartment, especially in an older building like ours.  I don't mind as it reminds me on a regular basis how to be careful about how many dishes we use, how much soap we use to clean our plates, and besides, we only have so much counter space!  Because the dishes need to be done daily, I like to do them once only and leave them to air dry.  In the morning I put them away and start the whole process over again.  One of the things I enjoy the most about 'doing the dishes' is finding a way to put all, or at least as many as I possibly can, on the dish rack.  I treat it as a 3D spatial puzzle.  First I have to plan the order in which to wash the various pieces that require cleaning so they can be appropriately layered on the drying rack.  Since the best laid plans do not always work, I have to find a way to actually make them fit. I try use every available inch of the rack but still provide enough room for the air to actually dry the dish.  Included here is a photo of today's creation.  Can I really call it a creation? I'd like to think so.

Another of today's creations was we made our first batch of almond milk.  Yup.  Grind your own almonds, add water and little something to sweeten and/or flavour it and strain it through a nut bag .... ta da!  So no more hunting around for the best price on Almond Milk.  We make our own.  No extra packaging either.  Probably fewer calories, too!  However, I will have to find room on the drying rack for one more bottle, won't I? You can see the gauze nut bag hanging to dry beside the rack of dishes above.

Well that's it for today - a glimpse of some of my life's small things.  I have so much to be thankful for.  Happy Thanksgiving to all Canadians!