You have destroyed his spirit, you have taken him from us. All that I could forgive. But Debbie..... pastels?

I can't believe I have 500 followers. That's intense. Hey y'all! Am I continuing to live up to your expectations?

...with that in mind, I have created a new page^ entitled "Suggestion Box". Depending on how often it gets used, it may or may not remain there for the foreseeable future.

I don't know what to write. And this encompasses my fiction as well as this blog. The fairy book has been "almost done" for months, and yet I still haven't written more than a few sentences towards the ending. I even tried taking a break from it for a while and then printing out the whole thing to try and refresh the story in my head, but still when I sit down to write:

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

Nothing.

lolz

I was starting to lose weight for a minute there. Then I ate a feckton on the weekend and have leapt straight back up again. 107 lbs this morning. I have a feeling the 104 lb goal for tomorrow won't be happening.

But I need to SNAP THE EFF OUT OF IT because I know this is water retention as a result of the vitamins*. My measurements have gone down from where they were at the end of the summer, and I'm roughly back to where I was when I weighed 96 lbs (how that's possible I have no idea): 32" - 23" - 32". And I can see bones sticking out, so rationally I know I'm not fat, but I just want to FEEL like I'm not fat. Just once. I want to enjoy Thanksgiving without cowering in terror under the dinner table.

I'm actually cooking quite a bit for Thanksgiving this year. I already made my vegetable soup, and am cooking the Brussels sprout fricassee tomorrow. (The recipes are also up on the recipe tab^, but blogger is being a biotch won't let me edit that page.) I'm spending the night at Dad's house tomorrow, for the first time in like 10 years.... o.O

I made a pumpkin pie tonight as well! My own recipe, finally perfected after several years of trial and error. Here it is:

You need

- 1 pumpkin (you need a specific type for baking)

- packaged pie crust (unless you want to make your own; I'm rubbish with pastry)

- 1/2 cup dark brown sugar

- 1 cup heavy cream

- 1/2 tsp cinnamon

- 1/2 tsp ginger

- 1/8 tsp nutmeg

- tiny pinch clove

- 2 eggs, and the yolk of a third egg

To make it:

- Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Cover the bottom of a pie dish with one of the pie crusts and bake for 5 minutes. Let it cool down completely.

- Use your Herculean strength to cut the pumpkin in half (not kidding--I had to use a meat cleaver and brute force). Scrape out the seeds, and then boil the pumpkin for about 20 minutes, or until you can easily stick it with a fork. Let it cool down a bit and then drain the water and scrape out the middle of the pumpkin. Show it who's boss with a potato masher.
- Put all the mashed pumpkin in a cheese cloth to drain the excess water, and let it drain for a couple minutes. If you don't have a cheese cloth, you can just use lots of paper towels--layer like 2 or 3 on a plate and spoon the pumpkin into the middle, then lightly squeeze the water out. Repeat until tons of water stops coming out.  

-Preheat the oven to 425 again. 

- In a mixing bowl, combine the pumpkin (you shouldn't need more than 2 1/2 cups of it; save the rest for soup or mini pumpkin pie cupcakes or something), the sugar, cream, and eggs, and the spices. Mix it up real good. 

- Pour the pumpkin mix into the pie dish, over the pre-toasted crust. Most prepackaged pie dough comes in 2 sheets, so you can use the second sheet to make little decorative things to put around the edges of the pie if you like. Brush the dough with a little egg, trying not to get too much on the pumpkin. 

- Bake for 10 minutes on 425, then turn the oven down to 350. Bake it for about 40-50 minutes, or until a toothpick stuck in the middle comes out clean. Keep an eye on the crust while it's baking--if it starts to turn too brown too fast, cover the edges with a thin layer of tin foil. 

- Don't worry if the pumpkin part looks like it's risen too much once the pie comes out of the oven. It will settle back down. You should let the pie cool for two hours before serving it, or before sticking it in the fridge. 

 Have a nice Thanksgiving, my fellow Yankee readers! Try and enjoy it--you all deserve it. <3