Sorry for the temporary radio silence. I was on work travel and things were a bit busier than expected. So we'll have two posts today and one tomorrow to get caught up!

Thanksgiving is two weeks from today. That means that preparations move into high gear.

• If you are traveling for the holiday and plan to anything except drive: good luck finding a ticket at a reasonable price. You may need to be very flexible about your travel times.If you are in this situation, make a note for next August/September so it doesn’t happen again.

• If you are hosting, all your lists need to be in place: shopping list, task list and schedule, menu, guest list, etc. (But last minute guests are always welcome!)

• Do as much of the big cleaning and de-cluttering as possible. THe less stuff in your way, the easier it is to navigate the holidays.

• Iron table linens and polish silver as needed.

• Make sure your fridge is clean and you know where the leftover containers are.

• If you have houseguests, set the guest room now. Also, plan the other meals for their stay.  After cooking a big meal on Thursday, you won’t want to  have to come up with ideas and shop for ingredients on Friday.

• Grocery shop for all of your non-perishables this weekend. For perishables, plan to do your grocery shopping at an off-hour.  Nothing good can come from tryingto shop the Saturday before Thanksgiving – unless it’s at 2 am.