A Lazy Day

I am finally ready to blog. I have sat down to blog several times in the last few days, and always ended up canceling the post because I was too grumpy to write nicely. Today I realized why that was. Today, I rested. There have been a lot of wonderful things going on in this house the last month or so, but rest has seldom been one of them. That all changed today. For the first time in YEARS, I did not get out of my pajamas all day. That's right - I'm still wearing what I woke up in. I will sleep in it again tonight. I slept until 11:00. (Don't judge). And I took a nap. For at least an hour. I never nap. It was wondrous. And now I'm ready to blog =-)

How was your Thanksgiving? Ours was wonderful. It started officially last Sunday when we hosted a Thanksgiving feast for our church group. Have I mentioned my church group to you yet? Brett and I have been the directors of the 25-35 singles group since late January or early February. I can't remember which. It has been an interesting year. Lots of work, lots of prayer and LOTS of blessings. We were excited to celebrate this sweet holiday with them. But I have never hosted a Thanksgiving meal before. It was a potluck, but we were making the turkey and our favorite side dish of all time - grilled macaroni. And then of course, as the hostess, I filled in what I felt was lacking, so we also made stuffing, green beans and a yummy cherry mixture that my mom has always made that we call Heavenly Hash. I love that stuff! I don't know why I had never made it myself before. I used this recipe that I found on Pinterest.

The event itself went very well, but the prep... well, there were a lot of bumps in the road. First of all, the turkey. Brett wanted to cook it on his rotisserie. The rotisserie that I got him for his birthday last December because he had been wanting one for a long time, but we still hadn't used. The rotisserie was supposed to hold up to 25 pounds. Guess what? It lied.

Getting the turkey on the spit and over the grill was quite a feat. And then it wouldn't turn. So we got it into a turkey bag and into the oven and moved onto the macaroni. Everything went smoothly for a few hours and then we checked on the turkey. According to our research, it should have taken 4.5 hours in a 350 degree oven to cook this 20 pound turkey. After 3 hours, it was 40 degrees warmer than it was supposed to be. Yikes. It turned out fine when we reheated it with a compound butter mixture the next day, but we learned our lesson. Never trust the oven. Check the temp regularly!

So Saturday evening at about 6:30, after cooking a 20 pound turkey, a double batch of grilled macaroni, and the Heavenly Hash, the dishwasher is finally full (I have been rinsing dishes and getting them loaded all day, to keep our workspace clean) so I am ready to start it and get the rest of the dishes rinsed and ready to load. I turn around from the sink to see if there is any more silverware on the island that I can load and my slippers make a squishing noise. I look down and water is everywhere. A pipe had come out of the wall so all of the water that I had just used to rinse the dishes had gone into the cabinet and onto the floor.

It was a hectic night. In fact, just trying to remember it all so I can tell the story right now is making me tense up, so I'm going to shorten the story and say that the plumber got to our house at 8:30 Sunday morning. He was gone by 8:45 and I got to cleaning. The good news about not being able to use our kitchen Saturday night was that I got every inch of the rest of the house cleaned and decorated, so all that I had to worry about Sunday was the kitchen/food.

But bump #3 came at 9:00 Sunday morning, right after the plumber left, when I opened our freezer and water came pouring out. A repairman had been at our house Saturday morning to check out our dishwasher and ice maker. He unclogged something in the ice maker and said that it needed a part, but it should start making ice in a little while. Well in the turkey/sink drama, the freezer was totally forgotten. So Sunday morning, I decided to check and see if we had any ice (for the first time ever - it has been broken since we moved into this house. Ice didn't seem like a big enough deal to complain about, but when I had to contact someone about the dishwasher, I figured I may as well mention the ice maker too). Well believe it or not, I opened the freezer door and out comes a huge puddle of water. I couldn't believe it when I was down on my knees cleaning up water from our kitchen floor AGAIN. And there was an inch of frozen water covering the bottom of the freezer. The repairman had unclogged something alright. And water was a flowin'! Not a huge deal, because we didn't think we would need the freezer for the party (we were wrong - someone brought ice cream to go with her cherry crumble), but when Brett came into the kitchen to break the ice off of the bottom of the freezer and clean it up a little, he tried to open the freezer, and it was frozen shut, so the handle came off in his hand. I'm not kidding.

That's all I'm going to say about that. The rest of the morning went well. I got the stuffing and green beans made and the turkey reheated and everything laid out just in time for the party. People started showing up at 12:30. And they kept coming. 20 people RSVPed. We were thrilled about that number. This class has been slowly growing all year, and if 20 people showed up, it would be the biggest event we had all year. Our dining room only seats 6, so we borrowed some tables and chairs from the school and set them up in our living room. I had chairs for 18 and I knew we could fake the rest. We have a few stools and we could totally sit on couches if needed. I wasn't worried about seating. Until 31 people showed up. Once again, I'm not kidding. We had 31 people. In my tiny house.

But that's really the end of the story. There were no other bumps. I had a horrible headache the whole time and couldn't find our Aleve, but that was the only negative. Everyone had fun, there was MORE than enough food and we were able to enjoy each other and reflect on God's gifts. It really was a time of giving thanks. 13 of the 31 stayed and hung out until 4:30. That's always a good sign - people not wanting to leave. I am more thankful for that group of singles than I can say. I feel WAAAAY more at home with them than I did in the newlywed class. They are just a great group of people.

So that is how our Thanksgiving began. Work was great this week. We had only about half of our usual kids and staff and we got to send lots of teachers home early, making everyone happy. Thanksgiving being on a Thursday is AWESOME! It means a three day work week and a four day weekend. And this weekend has been so good!!!

We celebrated with my dad's side of the family on Wednesday night and my mom's side Friday afternoon. That means that on Thanksgiving day, Brett and I got to spend the day alone, just the two of us. What a gift! We made homemade pizza, watched tv, looked through the ads, and did a little shopping. It was SO NICE!

Lunch at my parents house was at 2:00 Friday, so we were home before 5, giving us plenty of time to put up our Christmas tree. It's so beautiful!!! My camera doesn't take good pictures, so it's not really worth trying to post a picture, but I am hoping to have lots of people over this month so they can see how pretty it is! I love Christmas trees. Ornaments are SO much fun, and it's so great opening the boxes of ornaments and being flooded with memories of receiving and buying all of the ornaments.

And as I mentioned before, today has been very restful, but not totally unproductive. Not only did I sleep until 11 and take a nap, but I also managed to wrap most of the presents we have bought (a few are weird shapes and need different boxes), wash dishes, clean the shower and do 2 loads of laundry. And now I'm blogging! Totally productive! I'm not willing to check my email yet - that can wait one more day, but I may go ahead and make another wreath tonight. I need to finish 2 before Monday. One for our door and one for the school. I'm hoping to sell some at school!

So I guess that I am off to start wreathing. I wish I had a pop tart. Why does that sound so good right now? Go figure =-)

Happy Thanksgiving.