Well I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. I certainly did. In my previous blog post I decided that I had to make a second cranberry dish to bring for Thanksgiving dinner. After all, I always bring the same thing, and with Thanksgiving being on a Thursday, I needed to Shake It Up. So in addition to my usual homemade cranberry sauce which follows the recipe on the cranberry bag, I thought hard to figure out what I would bring. After all, Thanksgiving is all about tradition, so maybe I didn’t even need to worry about it for today. But I decided that I still needed to bring a second dish. I got a recipe from my cousin for a cranberry orange relish dish that my aunt used to make. It is a very simple recipe — half a bag of fresh cranberries, chopped up in the food processor, the juice from one orange, the zest from the orange, and sugar to taste. It turns out that the cranberry lovers all enjoyed the relish — it was a success! So, I am glad that I was able to Shake It Up and do something different on a very traditional day of the year.

Let me know if you did anything outside of your usual Thanksgiving Day routine to Shake It Up! I would enjoy hearing what others have done.  And if you didn’t do anything for Shake It Up Thursday this week, there is always next week!

🙂

Welcome to Shake It Up Thursday!  This past February, as I was driving to the same parking spot at the same grocery store, where I buy the same salad, then drive to work where I park in the same parking spot, I realized how much I am a creature of habit. I decided I needed to “shake it up.” I always wore pretty much my standard outfit to work — khaki pants, a waffle Henley shirt, and a fleece vest. On that particular cold Thursday in February, I decided to park in a different parking spot. The following Thursday I wore a necklace that usually sits in my jewelry box. And the following Thursday I sat in a different chair in our daily meeting at work. You know the meeting — the one where everyone always sits in the same spot, as if the seats were assigned.

So every Thursday I have been doing something outside of my usual routine — it doesn’t matter how big or small — to Shake It Up.

I started telling others about my Shake It Up Thursday, and a few suggested that I start a blog. So let’s see where this goes —

This Thursday is Thanksgiving, so we will out of our usual routine, and you can say that will automatically be shaking it up. But think about this — every year people tend to make the same thing for Thanksgiving. I always make  my delicious cranberry sauce. You know the recipe — it is the one on the cranberry bag. Well not everyone thinks it is delicious, but I continue to bring it every year, because I enjoy making it, and I think it is delicious. But if I do the same thing every year, I am not really shaking it up! So I will need to do something different this year. Of course, I will still make the cranberry sauce, because people will be expecting it on Thanksgiving, but I plan to make a second cranberry dish.

So think about how you can get even a bit outside of your routine to Shake It Up Thursday!