Week of November 24, 2025

Short work week, long holiday week.

On Monday after work and school, Charlie and I took apart my Shopsmith quill to figure out exactly which parts we needed to track down, since I’m pretty sure I’ll never get that replacement quill from Shopsmith. I filed a credit card dispute and ordered some secondhand parts. More on that soon. I also gave Charlie a broken lantern he could take apart himself.

Wednesday Charlie and I ran a lot of pre-Thanksgiving errands while Amanda tidied up the house for guests. That afternoon Charlie helped us with some food prep. Amanda drew out a recipe for green bean casserole, and Charlie put it together all on his own! As one of Charlie’s teachers put it, even if you can’t read words yet, you can still read through pictures.

Thanksgiving day we had the Crisante family over for a second year. That morning Charlie helped us prep and decorate. While Amanda made the cheese board, Charlie went and grabbed some of his favorite pretzels from the pantry and put them on the board. We weren’t planning on pretzels, but when your 4yo adds them himself and is excited to help, you leave the pretzels. We all munched on them. An hour before our guests arrived for lunch, we had some energy to burn, so Charlie and I went down to the pier to run around.

We kept the menu the same as last year (and split up the work again) and had a great time. We started with a root vegetable soup for lunch, then went out for a walk in the woods. The kids played in the backyard while we cooked the turkey. We ate dinner, had some mint tea, then some apple crumb pie for dessert. The kids played together really well. Looking forward to it again next year.

Friday Charlie and I went down to Tarrytown to pick up some coffee, visit Transom Bookshop (I bought Ray Nayler’s Where the Axe is Buried and Charlie bought Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen’s How does Santa Go Down the Chimney?), and check out the new DeCicco’s Market in Sleepy Hollow.

For dinner that night I repurposed the leftover turkey into red curry soup, which I think I’ll do again next year. Much better than reheated turkey and gravy. Red curry paste, mushrooms, shallots, scallions, turkey, broth (which you can make from the turkey carcass!), coconut milk, cilantro, rice noodles, lime juice.

Saturday we went to the Home Depot kids workshop to build an ornament, then we floated around Peekskill for a couple hours, hitting up the library (closed because the heat was out), Bruised Apple Books, and lunch at Copperhead Club. Charlie and I spent about an hour and a half outside while Amanda went horseback riding, then we made some cast iron pizzas and watched Despicable Me 4.

Check out the excellent store map from Bruised Apple.

Sunday Charlie and Amanda made cookies and I tidied the workshop and processed a log into blanks so I can turn some Christmas ornaments soon. Charlie came out to the workshop to tell me the first batch of cookies were ready, and he ended up helping me split the log and he took the bark off for me.

Rainy day.

Quote from Charlie this week, when he walked into the room while Amanda and I were chatting:

Are you talking about me? I heard you say “cute”!

I didn’t have a chance to make my batch of hot sauce over the holiday, but perhaps I will this week.

I’m off to read more of Ray Nayler’s Where the Axe is Buried.