Three of the dishes to take with me tomorrow are done. I made au gratin potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes and zebra brownies (chocolate and vanilla cheesecake with an Oreo crust.)

The fourth, a pecan pie, died in the oven. Our oven is a disaster zone anyway because it was not installed right and the door doesn't shut. After several hours of cooperating it decided to burn the top of the pecan pie to an unrecognizable char while leaving the filling soupy. What a waste of expensive ingredients. It was probably my prettiest crust ever with cutout leaves all around the rim. As soon as it cools it goes up the hill to the compost heap. Maybe some mouse or squirrel will find the pecans a delicious Thanksgiving treat!

I have two more pies to make crust and bake. Both will be pumpkin and both baked later this evening when the oven has a chance to cool off and perhaps, Lord willin' , work right. I am not going to try the pecan pie again because I have made five trips to the grocery store to buy ingredients as the menu changed and quite frankly, I am broke.

My friend, Michael, is driving his Mercedes tomorrow so I will just lean back and relax on the 45 minute drive to the cabin (also so that we can escape as soon as possible together with one of us pleading a migraine. Me probably. And probably the truth.) He was a last minute invite and our hostess gave him a list of things to bring as well so we were just commiserating on the phone about how we wished we had just had T-day dinner with each other and called it a day~

Just another reason I am looking forward to a change of scenery. I cannot begin to count the reasons, but they mount up daily. The first and foremost is family!