Meet the Shaneyfelts

Archives for 2025

Thanksgiving Week Prep

Happy Monday! I am off all week and so, so thankful to have the whole week off school. It feels like it hasn’t been that many years that we’ve been getting the entire week off for Thanksgiving–we used to go the Monday and Tuesday of this week and it felt very wasted. I LOVE having all week off for Thanksgiving!

As an adult, it helps me prep for the holiday since our Thanksgiving starts Wednesday. We also don’t host Thanksgiving (thankfully ha! It would be crazy here), so if I did, my prep would look way different. Here are some things I’ve done or are doing this week to prep for Thanksgiving:

1. Utilize my planner

I’m still a paper planner person right now, so I always start out by writing down which places we’re going to on which days and then I list all of the dishes I’m making.

2. Plan and shop early in order to avoid the crowds at the stores

While I’m writing down which dishes I’m making on certain days, I also have my grocery list next to me and I go through the ingredients to see what I already have on hand and what I need to add to the grocery list. I like to get my shopping done early in order to avoid the crazy crowds (I’ve been at the grocery store on a Wednesday before and it’s insane) and to make sure the store doesn’t run out of certain ingredients I need.

3. Develop a plan for when I’m making my dishes

Since we have one Thanksgiving on Wednesday. night and one on Thursday night, cooking is going to be very easy this year! Usually we’ve got our Thanksgiving Wednesday night and then again Thursday around 11, so I really have to plan out what I can start Tuesday night (usually pies) and then what is cooked Wednesday and Thursday morning. This year will feel like a breeze with so much time between the two, but I will still have a plan of which dishes I’m making in order.

4. Make sure all of the serving pieces are washed

I’ll do this on Wednesday morning. I like to make my pies from scratch, so I wash all of my pie dishes again since they aren’t dishes I use consistently.

5. Relax and Enjoy!

Sometimes things don’t turn out like you had planned or envisioned, and that’s okay! Part of enjoying the holiday is letting go and remembering the real reason for Thanksgiving–for being thankful and enjoying time with family!

What are some of your tips for Thanksgiving prep?

Wordy Wednesday

Hey hey! It’s currently Tuesday night and I’ve got just a few minutes to blog before I have to get Merritt off the couch (she and Dustin fell asleep sitting up on the couch and I’m not waking anyone up yet LOL)–so this post is going to be random thoughts for your Wednesday!!!

-Dustin asked me to make a Christmas list for him, so I started working on that. I plan on doing a post–maybe for Monday!!–sharing a few of my wishlist items because I always love seeing other people’s lists. I can usually get inspiration from other people’s wishlists. What are some things you want for Christmas?

I finished watching this movie yesterday while Merritt was napping and it was so cute! I love Candace Cameron Bure and her daughter was in this movie, too. She played Candace’s grandmother after she time traveled back to 1945 to her grandmother’s store. It’s on Great American Family, so if you have Youtube TV, you now get that channel, or you can subscribe to FrndlyTV for access! I love watching Great American over the Hallmark Channel now.

-Body image is such a strange thing. This isn’t going to be super long because I will do a post on this at some other time, but before I had my blog, I started dieting right after I graduated college and over the course of two years, lost 60 lbs. I kept that off for many years (maybe about 10) but once I started fertility medicine, the weight started to creep back on. After Merritt was born, I worked really hard to lose weight and it took about a year to lose the baby weight, but then I had all that extra weight to lose that I had gained over the course of 9ish years. Anyway, I’ve slowly been losing since June and now I’m down about 35 lb. Of course I can tell in my clothes because I’m now fitting back into some of my old clothes I had kept, but then I look at pictures of myself and I can’t tell–isn’t it so strange how it takes a while for our brains to catch up? I thought I’d share in case anyone else have ever been in that same boat and knows how I’m feeling.

-I think it’s time that I upgraded my kindle. It’s VERY old, so I’ve looked at the paperwhites and think that’s what I’m going to go with. So if you have one, do you like it or wish you had something different?

Okay, it’s bedtime! Merritt is now sleeping next to me, and I am looking forward to her recovering from HFM so she can sleep back in her own bed 🙂

Friday Favorites!

Happy Friday from the shortest week! Monday was a virtual day for our students which meant it was a work day for teachers–while I went to school to work and sit in meetings, I didn’t have to talk much LOL. We were all off Tuesday for Veterans Day, so this really has felt like a 3 day week…..and we’re getting closer to Thanksgiving Break!!!

As always, today I’m sharing a few FAVORITES!!!

one

My sister took family pictures for our Christmas card last weekend. We took them in her yard and the colors were pure magic! If you’re in north Alabama (or even central!), she’s a great photographer! This was one of my favorite more casual pictures–it’s so fun!

two

I’ve got two books that I finished recently that I really liked and both were so different from one another.

My book club read The Academy and we had very mixed reviews. Some didn’t like it because they didn’t feel like it had a plot. Others (me included) loved it because it was filled with drama that we weren’t part of LOL! This is a boarding school novel, and I found the boarding school life so fascinating. Elin’s son and then daughter attended boarding school, and she decided to write this story after her daughter kept calling her and filling her in on all the drama happening at her own school. There is a part two coming next year, so there are some unanswered questions.

I just finished The Boomerang last night and WOW!! It was my first Robert Bailey book to read. He’s a Huntsville, AL, lawyer turned author and the review I read of this book that prompted me to read it compared him as John Grisham meets Yellowstone–sold! It was a really good read and it centered on there really being a cure for cancer, but the US government (DOD) kept it secret. You’ve got to read it–I was hooked from the beginning. **It’s free on Kindle if you have a Prime membership!!

three

Terrible picture of me, but Banks came to visit me yesterday at school!!! He and my mom spent the day together and they brought me a coffee on their way home. My students loved Banks visiting 🙂

four

Tuesday, the kids and I went to Home Depot to look at their Christmas decorations. They were amazing! We all (me included haha) were so enthralled with the animatronics. If you haven’t been to Home Depot yet, you. need to make a stop. Harrison is also standing in front of the Christmas tree I told Dustin I wanted haha!

Have a great Friday!!