Quiet after the storm

It has been an amazing holiday that started five days ago with 15 other people sleeping in my little farm house, Thanksgiving dinner was wonderful with family, friends, and two young men far from home (first Thanksgiving for one-quite an initiation), and 50 biscuits, sausage gravy, and pancakes for breakfast yesterday till everyone was full again.  Leftovers, and then leftovers again.  It has been a week full of love, and hugs, and grandma rock-rocks, and freeze tag in the orchard.  The children were disappointed that we have no snow, but devised a plan to slide down the sledding hill in the mud using their coats instead of sleds.  Um.  No.

 I told the little snots if they didn't look happy and hold still so I could take a good picture, I wasn't going to let them go home.  They did not believe me.  13 pictures later...perhaps photo shop can help.

The house is quiet.  There is one piece of pumpkin pie left.  I will make turkey soup tomorrow.  Tonight, I think I'll have leftover spaghetti for dinner.  Alone.  All by myself. 

I miss you to the moon and back.

 

NaNoWriMo Update

Not that anyone is excited about this but me...drum roll please...I just passed 30,000 words!  I am 19 days into this writing event with 12 days to go, and I think I'm actually going to make 50,000 words this time.  For the first time ever.  And it's not that this draft is the next big thing, but I'm putting on paper thoughts that have been batting around among the cobwebs in my head for several years.  So it feels good, and it feels satisfying, and it makes me happy and excited. (I know, I need to work on my long run-on sentences.  My draft is full of them).

If you have no clue what I'm talking about, you can check out the web site at nanowrimo.org

I'm taking the afternoon off today, but I'll be back to writing tomorrow after church.  I need to get ahead on my word count so I'm not typing into the wee hours of the morning when my kids are here for Thanksgiving week end.  Oh my word, I need to get going on Thanksgiving preparations, too.  Life is BUSY.

Thanksgiving

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, but I had my family over last Saturday. The children all have Thursday plans and I just wanted to sit down to dinner with them, rock the babies, and have some face time and hugs.

I'll head down to Dad and Carmen's tomorrow afternoon. I think their count is up to 40 for dinner. I took the ham over from our dinner, and a couple of baked pie crusts to help out the cause over there. Carmen made ham and beans as a dinner for the wanderers tonight as they wander in, with sliced ham for sandwiches. I didn't figure she'd want the leftover turkey, because tomorrow they'll be making their own leftover turkey.

They seem to be managing. Still getting thinner, but still smiling. I don't know if it's denial or not, but I'm still hopeful for a full recovery for both of them.

On another grateful note, tonight my niece Tiff had her little baby girl. She was over 8 pounds, I can't remember exactly, and looks a lot like her daddy. Oni, welcome to the world. Mom and baby are resting comfortably, or were a bit ago...that changes fast when you're dealing with a hungry little baby. Congratulations Tiff and Bernard. All my love and best wishes.

Giving Thanks

Well, my children all have plans for Thanksgiving, so I planned this great early Thanksgiving meal on Saturday, tomorrow. Alli is going to make the turkey and I will bake a ham. I had great plans to get much of the work done earlier in the week but work and Enrichment meeting and yada yada yada...and it just didn't get done. So I was up bright and early this morning cleaning like a mad woman. All the Christmas projects I've been working on are stuck here and there. Got the table cleaned off and expanded, made two batches of bread, washed sheets for five beds, made up one bed four to go. So the question is how many pies can I make in four hours before the troops start descending and I must stop to rock grandchildren? I have ten pie pans I'd hoped to fill. We'll see. Don't have the floors done either. That may be put off until another day.

But none of that matters because in a few hours my house will be full of children, grandchildren, parents and miscellaneous visitors. I'm so excited. I had a count once...6 kids, 7 grandkid-type (under 8 years old) people (including 5 month old twins--how fun is that?). Then there's Mom and Andy, and tomorrow for dinner another 4, or 6, or 8 people will show up, I'm not sure. Doesn't really matter because there will be lots of food.

Isn't this what Thanksgiving is all about? Gathering together to visit and give thanks. Some days this is the best paradise ever.