Day 346 of 365

The cookie bake gang

I drove down to my parents' house for the annual cookie bake with my mom's college friends. They've been doing it for more than 30 years, I believe, since they were seniors. It rotates among the houses -- two in New Jersey, one in D.C., one in Connecticut, though the other NJ couple now lives in Boston. When all the kids -- there are five of us from the group -- were living at home in our younger days, we loved this weekend together. Lots of cookies and extra presents.

This is one of the few photos I've taken of myself this year. We first tried the face-recognition timer, but I didn't think to re-read the manual on that feature, so we didn't get it to work right. Alas.

Day 330 of 365

Serving 12 this Thanksgiving

We had 12 people over for Thanksgiving this year, our biggest gathering yet. To fit everyone, we had to bring out the old table from the attic (the first two people on either side are at the smaller one) and we placed most of the food on the hutches on the left and in the back and let everyone serve themselves. It was a spirited, enjoyable way to spend the holiday.