Ending November and beginning December makes me a little frantic. No, a LOT frantic. I'm the ultimate procrastinator. Well, perhaps that's a bit harsh. I just procrastinate some, not all, the time and all the stuff.
But wait! What happened to Thanksgiving?
We had a lovely Thanksgiving at our house. I only made half the dinner for that day and Gail made the other half. Mike's Mom brought the cranberries and we had pleeeennnty of yummy food. We spent time playing games and enjoying one another's company afterwards, and some of us even watched a movie ("Brave") later on. Since I only had done half the meal, I actually did some baking on Wednesday, PURCHASED rolls instead of making them, AND I had time for an itty bitty cat nap before everyone arrived on Thursday afternoon! I would call that pretty successful.
But my thoughts did turn to what I was thankful for. Lots of times during the week. I wanted to produce a lovely photo essay about the things I am thankful for. But I had another one of those "FAIL" moments with my camera. It was put on hold (the essay). Then Mike took me camera shopping on Black Friday. I'm still learning about the new camera. Electronics carry a huge learning curve with old folks. Plus, Blogger is incredibly slow and driving me crazy!! And, you know me and photos on the blog.....hard, HARD, HARD for me to do
But here goes on what I am thankful for this season:
1. My family. Beginning in the front room, here is my lovely living room mantle decorations with a plaque, flowers and photos of my children. I am so grateful for our wonderful, forever family!
3. My work keys and a book from my work place. I do love my job and I'm so grateful for it. I enjoy the folks I work with. I enjoy the good surroundings. I enjoy my paycheck and feeling appreciated most days. I do look forward to retirement someday, but that's quite a ways off. In the mean time, I'll continue to be grateful to have a career that allows me to take care of bills and do some travelling and learn LOTS of stuff! Always, lots of stuff right at my fingertips and students who keep me on my toes and kind of in the loop with what is going on the rest of the world.
4. My bike helmet. Thankful for health and strength.
5. My overflowing refrigerator the day after Thanksgiving, full of leftovers. Only now all the leftovers are about gone (oink, oink). The bounty we enjoy is just INCREDIBLE and I always want to be aware and grateful for everything we have and take nothing for granted. Here's a photo of some extra stuff gathered in at the Thanksgiving turkey sales. Mmmm, Turkey!
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| Hmmm. Looks like it is time to defrost the freezer. |
6. A full basement/pantry shelf of home-bottled/dried. I am thankful for the resources we have to preserve our bounty. It doesn't go to waste. While living in Hawaii those 9 years, the seasons were so constant that there was produce most of the year round of one kind or another, so food preservation and storage wasn't done the same. And things didn't preserve as well. Here, we have the means and know-how and habit of doing this in our family and for that I am grateful.
7. The (practically) perfect pecan pies I made ...and they have ALL been eaten and I have thoroughly enjoyed every single supersweet and nutty bite!! EVERY bite--and I had a lot of bites!!! Thank you to Mom and Dad who grew and shared the pecans, and THANK YOU to Mike who shelled them for me to make those yummy pies for Thanksgiving and last Sunday. Yes, we ate three pies in 5 days. Three pecan pies, 3/4 of one huge apple pie, and TWO [rather small-ish] pumpkin pies. OINK, OINK!!
8. Eggnog. I just really enjoy eggnog. I found someone else who likes it more than I do, however. ;-) Student worker, Emily, was chugging some down on her way into work one morning. Good thing it's usually just seasonal in the stores or we two would be a whole lot bigger!
9. My Dishwasher. I just love it that someone (or something) can make my dishes all clean and sanitized with such little effort on my part. No boiling the water, no dishpan hands. It's great.
10. Our love of word games. Here's a few. And I'm grateful that so many of our family members love to play them WITH us!
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| This scrabble score sheet hangs with honor on our fridge. Eric beat me and MIKE!! |
11. I am thankful for music. I seldom listen to music EXCEPT at Christmas time. But Eric has changed that a little. He's always singing, he plays the piano and sings and practices. He brings music into our home on MORE than just Christmas.
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| I'm thankful to be able to enjoy Eric's music. I should take voice lessons from him before he moves out. 12. I'm thankful for my automatic clothes washing and drying machines. Kind of like the dishwasher, because I've been without these little babies, too. But, thankfully, I didnt' have to boil water (very often), etc. MOST modern inventions I really enjoy. Immensely.  |
* That print of the Resurrected Lord has been hanging on our kitchen wall for many a year. I ordered the print via mail about 23 years ago from Deseret Book. Not "e-mail," but MAIL. That was before you could order things online!! ha.
Well, the temple picture and the picture of Jesus arrived in the mail one day and the kids excitedly stood around, watching me open up the packages. When I showed the picture of Jesus, three-year-old Nick said, "Ooooh, who took DAT picture?!" We've always adored that story.
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