::: it's been a hard day's night :::

This week, I have all of my kids at home. It hasn't been like this for a while, with Houdin being gone at discipleship training for the past couple of months and Bard off at college. It won't be like this again for a while. On Monday, Bard will head back to college and on Tuesday, 18-year-old Houdin will leave for an eight-month outreach placement to Africa. But while they're all here, I'm reminded of the dynamics of this family, both good and not-so-good. The changes we're experiencing are positive; we're all learning things as we move through this transition towards more permanent change. I'm taking notes, my friends. I'm taking lots of notes.

With all of the Thicket Dweller kids under one roof again, plus a couple of friends along for the ride, it's impossible to avoid a jam session. Most of the family used real instruments to belt out The Beatles, Coldplay, Muse, Leonard Cohen and Kimya Dawson, but a couple who are not as musically adept and a couple who are just plain goofy joined in on the Beatles Rock Band instruments. Can you believe that these silly people played for hours? HOURS? After serving a second dinner and a third dinner and a couple of snacks and a few desserts, this roadie headed for bed. I'm told they knocked off for the night around 3:00 A.M.

This house will be so different when they're gone.

::: turkey carcass soup :::

Hop on over to Time to Cook and dig that turkey carcass out of the fridge. Didn't make a turkey this year? Go borrow a carcass from the neighbors. It's worth it for a batch of Turkey Carcass Soup. I've got a pot simmering on the stove as I type.

::: happy thanksgiving! :::

::: bare :::

The branches of the silver maple outside my window are completely bare now. Where less than a month ago there fluttered beautiful leaves the color of which I can only recall now by looking at photos, there is nothing. Three weeks ago, I couldn't see beyond the tree for the abundance of leaves. Now, I can see all that was hidden behind it.

Maybe this is why the starkness of winter is so sobering to me. It reminds me of what it feels like, what it looks like, to shed all outward beauty, all color and opacity and splendor, and just stand, naked and vulnerable and transparent, cold and singular on a hill, exposing everything you've managed to cover for so long--the forgotten kite, the abandoned nest, the broken branches--and slip away into a deep sleep, like a grandmother who has dozed off in front of the tv with her mouth open and her bifocals askew. 

But deep season-long sleep is for stately trees, not for common women with families and friends, feasts and fast-food-drive-through lunches, plans and obligations, electric bills and grocery budgets, mice in her fruit cellar and children needing taught. And so the hibernation must take a different form, the nightly kind, with some reading of King Arthur to little girls who are learning to knit and embroider, and some episodes of The Office while snuggled in bed under a big, down blanket, and some blogging with the fierce sound of little mouse-teeth scraping away at something determinedly underneath my big bathtub.

Which means that Spring must come each morning, with a handful of vitamins and a glass of Benefiber, a must-have to-do list, and the sheer will power that keeps one sleep-stiffened foot shuffling in front of the other.

Drawing by Monet

Easter Service, Part II

Easter Service, Part I

Thank You

Today is Thanksgiving.

So often, I spend Thanksgiving day cooking and cleaning, preparing or traveling. While that can be fun and, at least in retrospect, is rewarding, while I'm in it, I often feel overwhelmed, overworked and overspent.

But there is always some shining moment in the day, like a baby girl devouring a great big turkey drumstick. Or the kids putting on a Thanksgiving presentation, with Bard reciting a poem by Jack Prelutsky and Houdin dressed like an indian, his face covered in orange Mary Kay foundation (who would actually WANT to be that color???) Or my father-in-law waking us up before the sun even rises to go on a Turkey Walk by strolling through the house at some non-human hour making some non-human noise that's supposed to sound like a turkey gobbling.

This morning, while I was snuggled cozily in my bed after a crazy night of eating individually holiday-wrapped Reese's Cups and watching Shrek 2, the last thing on my mind was waking up. And then, at some non-human hour, the phone rang. It was so early that the sun had just peaked over the frosty hillside. With my sleepy head pressed against the phone receiver, hoping I had the right end to my ear, I could hear that non-human noise.

"Gobblegobblegobblegobblegobble. Gobblegobblegobblegobblegobble."

It's Thanksgiving. And even though our budget or our work schedule can't handle a trip to Illinois to spend the weekend with the rest of our family, my father-in-law, God bless him, has brought a piece of it here.

Today, we'll be pulling our Christmas decorations out of the fruit cellar, taking down the fall foliage that remains from our Family Gathering, and preparing for our Thanksgiving meal, which will be on Saturday this year so that another family whose budget is a bit tight--and whose man-of-the-house will be working today--will be able to join us for in breaking bread and giving thanks.

While my heart longs to be with the rest of my family (it's my husband's family, yes, but it's the only family that I have and couldn't ask for a better one), I'll thank God for my husband and kids, and I'll thank God for His many blessings. Yes, it's easy to complain about the budget, the work schedule, the preparing, the cleaning or the traveling (or, as this year, the lack thereof), but I know that it's more lovely to give thanks.

On this day, I thank God for family, for love, for forgiveness, for eternity, for God's salvation, for His perfect timing, for free will, and for the chance to start a new life with every single moment.

Thank you for reading. Thanks for the inspiration you give me. Thank you for your insight and your wisdom and your companionship. Thank God for you.

Have a truly thankful day.

You Are Mashed Potatoes

Oridnary, comforting, and more than a little predictable You're the glue that holds everyone together.

What Part of Thanksgiving Are You?