…sitting back…..wiggling my toes….enjoying the first cup of tea in the day…..
Thanksgiving is over. We had a LOVELY day. About half of my family was present and it seems that everyone had a good time. There was the usual embarrassment of riches, the true “groaning table” that the PR firms show as the ideal Thanksgiving meal. Thanks to waves of help on dish duty there’s not an overwhelming amount of clean-up left to do. I have two loads of linens to run through the wash, and the last of the glasses and silverware, and a turkey roasting pan to wash. The floors need a good sweeping, and maybe a little wiping here and there, and we’re back to normal.
Collectively and individually we have a lot to be thankful for. I’m sure that message gets lost now and then in the living of life, but it was very obvious seeing the family gathered together. We have lovely, well-mannered children who are healthy. We have loving spouses, and we share concern for each other’s families. My brother-in-law is walking (unaided, no less) after his serious accident in July. My niece, who still hurts from her accident last week, is on the mend. My mother, who will be 89 in just a few days, was there to celebrate with us. We are blessed, so blessed, and I wish the same for all of you.

It almost feels like the night before Christmas tonight. When my family decides to celebrate Thanksgiving here I pull out all the stops. My house is cleaned, and the china is washed, seating is planned, and the menu drawn up. Today I was doing some last minute garden cleaning, before the threatened rain/snow arrives tonight. In the last two weeks we’ve had the carpets and windows cleaned and the roof re-shingled. (That was a joke, guys. We DID get the roof re-shingled, but not just because the family is coming to dinner…..chill out! *G*)
Today, I spent the day returning things to their rightful places. Quilt frame poles to the guest bedroom closet, the laundry basket to the bathroom, out of season wreaths and decorations to the basement…..you know the kind of day I’m talking about. We took the time to make a great salad for dinner, and watched the news, and then we finished the last of the organizational chores.
Tomorrow we start cooking for Thanksgiving. We’re doing the backbone of the menu, turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, and rolls, but there are a few other things I want to do, just for fun. I have a pesto/pignole/sun dried tomato/cream cheese spread I want to make, and an apple cranberry pie. I’d also like to try a Kentucky bourbon sweet potato recipe, and a to-die-for chocolate cookie with chunks of chocolate mint. I may be over ambitious. I usually am.
I’ll probably make things in the order listed, and if I don’t get to them all, it’s okay. I’ll do just as much as I can, and not regret that I couldn’t do it all, if that’s the way it falls.
Thursday, I’ll have lots of help. My oldest sister, her youngest daughter, and that daughter’s son will join Dear Husband and me to do the last of the preparation. We’ll set tables and peel potatoes, and resume relationships that have been put on hold for a bit.
So…..tonight feels rather like the night before Christmas, when all is ready, and waiting for the next day to dawn. I know that I’m a day off, but that may be a good sign. It’s given me a moment to sit down to blog, and enjoy the peace.
Should I not have the chance to get back to you before Thanksgiving, my family and I hope that you all have a wonderful day, and that your life is filled with blessings, both large and small.
Happy Thanksgiving!

I wanted to share a list of suggestions that came in an e-mail on stress management. They seem like a great collection of ways to deal with the burdens in your life. I hope that something here makes your holidays a little lighter.
* Accept that some days you’re the pigeon, and some days you’re the statue.
(EWWWWWWWWWW)
* Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them.
(Good advice. I hope I’m not the only one who needs it.)
* Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.
* Drive carefully. It’s not only cars that can be recalled by their maker.
(This hit just too close to home.)
* If you can’t be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.
(IF you can’t compliment a woman on her dress, tell her how pretty the buttons are!)
* If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it .
* It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others. (Hm……all of you who think I’m crazy to wash and iron the garage curtains just hush up.)
* Never buy a car you can’t push.
* Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time, because then you won’t have a leg to stand on. (NOW you tell me!)
* Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance.
* Since it’s the early worm that gets eaten by the bird, sleep late.
* The second mouse gets the cheese.
* When everything’s coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane. (Uh huh. I invariably choose the longest line in any store, too.)
* Birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live.
* You may be only one person in the world, but you may also be the world to one person.
* Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once. (Name one!)
* We could learn a lot from crayons…
Some are sharp, some are pretty and some are dull. Some have weird names, and all are different colors, but they all have to live in the same box. (This one’s my favorite. *S*)
*A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.

Thank you, for the kind messages for my niece. She’s doing better than I expected She is able to move under her own steam, but she’s bruised, and battered. I was concerned that she would need assistance for the next week, but she seems to be able to do enough to care for herself.
She’s staying with us again tonight, and I think that’s about all I can get her to do without hog-tying her.
In a week or so, she should be over the worst of this and on the mend.
Thanks for the very kind messages, both for her, and for me.

Today I was casting around for blogging subjects. I’d pretty much decided what I wanted to say when I went to visit my sister’s blog, and discovered that she had beaten me to it.
October and early November were warm, and the colors in the trees quite spectacular despite the drought. We became lulled into the idea that winter would never come. WRONG!! It hit today with a vengeance! We had snow flying sideways. It was surprisingly cold, without enough warning. The humidity and the wind speed made the cold seem worse.
My mittens and gloves and mufflers and hats are all in a bin, waiting to be moved into the closet next to the door. Of course, I went out without them. Luckily, I wasn’t out in the cold too long.
Fall is still my favorite time of year. I miss the colors and scents. I miss the freedom of walking out the door without having to stop to add layer after layer to stay warm and dry. It’s much harder to slip into the car with all the extra clothes.
Whining? Yeah. It’s obligatory. Winter is here.

I received a call at 2:30 this afternoon, and it was my niece….the one you all want to come clean for you. She was on her way to pick up her sons after school, when a 17 year old girl broadsided her car. The paramedics had to cut her out of the car, and she was taken by ambulance to the local hospital.
She’s going to be okay. Her sister and I and a friend spent about five hours with her in the ER, making sure that nothing was broken. Her car was totaled, and she hurts from her neck to her hip, and maybe her foot, but it seems that she will recover from the ordeal. The doc requires her to be off work for at least four days, and she’s already fretting about who will do her job.
So, if I’m a little more absent that usual, you’ll know that I am caring for my niece. Keep her in your prayers, please.

Ta DAAAAAH! I’d like to invite one and all to welcome my youngest sister to the blogging world. You’ll find her blog a bit edgier (is that a word??) than mine. She cuts to the heart of an issue while I tap dance around it. If you don’t agree with her opinions, you’ll find her open to dialog, and she’ll do her darnedest to persuade you to her side! *G*
So, go on over and welcome the Looie, at Just My Opinion.
Welcome to the group, sis!

Thank you for hot showers, Lord! A hot shower has to be one of the all time great inventions. How can you contemplate facing the day without a hot shower to help you make the transition from horizontal to vertical, from dead to the world to up and running?
Just to head off the comments, a hot shower to me is probably a lukewarm shower for most of the rest of you, but it serves the same purpose, and I can always increase the temperature for those mornings when muscles need more help.
I was in the shower on Thursday morning thinking about a blog entry I had made that mourned the fact that great blogging ideas always come when you can’t write them down. It struck a chord with Bogie, and she blogged about it.
I had six ideas I was juggling, and I hurried to dry off and get to my tape recorder. I wasn’t going to let them get away from me this time, no sir! I clicked on the record button, and it wouldn’t go down. I tried again. No luck. I opened the recorder, thinking that the tape was hung up in the works, and discovered the problem. NO TAPE!
I just laughed. What else was there to do??
See? A hot shower can even help you through the first snag of the day!

I’ve talked about it before. I dislike seeing the promotion of Christmas prior to Thanksgiving. For those of you who may read this blog who are not from the USA, Thanksgiving falls on the fourth Thursday of November, which is the 24th, this year.
I know that a lot of people are so heavily into Christmas as a decorating/cooking/gift giving/party season that they need more time to prepare than I do, but it bothers me to see us commercialize Christmas. With that in mind, I refrain from decorating or starting my shopping until after Thanksgiving.
Usually.

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