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2024 Thanksgiving Menu and Meal Prep Timeline

* image These past few months have been busy for our family, especially since our oldest joined a local swim team. Between juggling our work schedules and balancing school with practices... we're all pretty wiped out. Although it's a lot of work, I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving. Preparing the holiday meal for our family fills my heart with joy, and I can't wait to get started. To make things easier for me, I don't deviate much from  our first Thanksgiving  as a family. The dishes I make are familiar ones, and the recipes for them live at my fingertips. Keeping the same menu year after year means I don't have to spend time researching recipes or planning a new one. Here are my tried-and-true Thanksgiving recipes, as well as my prep timeline for the big day!

Ten in 10: A Very Slight Improvement

Ten in 10 Logo

Since I had the day off from work, I allowed myself to go shopping on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. A coworker had given me a tip on some sales at Gap and Ann Taylor LOFT, so I bundled up and headed into Manhattan to try and find a good deal on work-appropriate clothes. Unfortunately I struck out big time at Gap. The XS sweaters that I tried on were way too big, sagging off my body as if someone draped a brightly colored potato sack on me. I didn't even bother trying on other items of clothes that were an XS and left pretty disappointed.

When I got to Ann Taylor LOFT, I headed immediately over to the corner of the store designated for Petites and grew even more frustrated. I didn't love the style of the clothes and thought they were too old for someone my age. Nevertheless, I pulled some shirts off the rack, hoping for the best, and was about to head into the dressing room when a sales associate named Doris convinced me that I also had to try on one of their sweater dresses. Then she asked me whether I checked the sale section on the other side of the store. When I said I hadn't, she dragged me over there to search for anything that might be left in my petite size of "00 P." Yes, you read right. I'm a Double-Zero. Petite.

Success! There were some pants in my size. Doris grabbed a pair in light gray and then led me back to the dressing room. Then the unthinkable happened. I couldn't fit into the 00 P! For the first time in YEARS, the 00 P was TOO SMALL!!! Even sucking in what little gut I had didn't help; I couldn't zipper the pants. I was so excited that I let out a loud "Wahoo!" Doris thought I was happy because the pants fit well, but I popped my head out and asked her if she could find me a pair of pants in the next size up -- a 0 P. And, whaddya know... THEY FIT!! Naturally, I bought the pants. And, to celebrate my graduation to a larger size, I also bought the sweater dress. ;-)

The change in my pants size may have absolutely nothing to do with my Ten in 10 goal of gaining weight, but I'm viewing this very slight improvement as a step in the right direction. Even the littlest sign of change is encouraging for me, and I want to feed off of that (no pun intended) as I continue my challenge. Especially since I have signed up to run the More Magazine/Fitness Magazine Half Marathon in New York in April!

PS. Have you heard? I'm donating my January ad revenue to aid the relief efforts in Haiti. Find out how you can help!

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