The Turduckin has landed

My fridge is full to bursting of things like turducken, heavy whipping cream, and cranberries.

Tomorrow is school and work, and I'm off to start my baking (and to continue to write those last two papers).

I never thought much about Thanksgiving until I spent that fall abroad and it was just really... different. It was only then that I realized how much I really like the holiday. Dan and I hosted a Thanksgiving when we were living in England. It took weeks to find pumpkin pie filling and recipes had to be converted to metric and the firemen were all on strike. But, in the end, it was American friends and British ones, with a real football game on the satellite TV and then the next day everyone asking me if I "enjoyed my day off" because, apparently, cooking dinner for 15 people is a day off.

Plus, many of my British friends can now say that they've tasted pumpkin pie and know what an American biscuit really is.

But, you know, book time:

How Not to Be Popular Jennifer Ziegler

Sugar Magnolia (but please, call her Maggie) is sick of moving. She's sick of starting over once again, sick of her former best friends becoming an email folder full of "sent" messages with only a few replies. And, what was worse, this time, she had to leave behind a boyfriend who dumped her just a few weeks later, over email.

So, they'll only be in Austin for 4 months, and Maggie just isn't going to make any friends. No sir. It'll be lonely, sure, but it will be so much easier when she has to leave.

The only thing is, Maggie forgot that just because you are turn off the popular kids and hang out with losers doesn't mean that you didn't make any friends.

Funny and fairly realistic (despite *spoiler alert* the big cry fest in front of the entire student body)*** What I really loved was the writing, Ziegler has a way with subtle metaphor in her descriptions that we just don't see enough of in funny, light-hearted fiction. And I totally wanted to smack Maggie upside the head for moping over Trevor the whole time (annoying! and he was so! obviously! not! worth! it!) but, it was pretty realistic that she did that.

I really liked it and just ate it up!

***If you highlight that bit you should be able to read it.