thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is unsuprisingly my favorite holiday. I get to spend the entire day cooking, weeks in preperation, and get to have in my home friends and sometimes strangers, who need a warm meal, some good wine, and the love that only comes about Thanksgiving day.

This year, it is three in the morning and I'm surrounded by boxes in a cold desolate kitchen. Almost all of my pots and pans are in those boxes, and I've got out one sautee pan, one fry pan, and my faithful single nonstick for eggs in the morning. There will be no smell of turkey this year, no last minute panic as something in my kitchen goes wrong. Instead we are cleaning out the freezer and taking a very out of season peach crisp to a friends house to celebrate with someone else as the hostess. As happy as I am, and as much as I enjoy the company of said friend, I do find it sad that for the first of ten thanksgivings with my sailor I will not be playing hostess. Instead I'll be cleaning and packing all day, and then getting dressed and headed toward a friends house to enjoy that she prepares.

But even amidst the slight sadness of moving away from my home, and starting anew again, I'm so very thankful.

I'm thankful first and foremost for my sweet Jesus who died for me. How blessed I am that he chose that path, and was thinking of me in that moment. What an amazing blessing.

I'm thankful for a new friend who opened her home to us, and thankful for the experiences that have connected us.

I'm thankful that God has not only provided for my needs every single day, but gone far and above my wants. I'm blessed beyond measure and want for nothing. How amazing that he chose my family to have that amazing blessing.

I'm thankful for my husband, who everyday becomes more and more of my dream come true. I'm always amazed at a new way that I fall in love with him every day.

I'm thankful for my amazing children. The bee who is just starting to realize the world that she is living in and how she will mold and change it, even on a local level. And sweet sweet Huck, who seldom fusses and will smile quickly and easily and loves to cuddle with me. Some days I can't believe that I was trusted by God and man to care for these amazing little people. I can't wait to see who they grow into.

I'm thankful for my homes, current and future. Currently we have been blessed with a house that fits our needs, even exceeds them, and next week we will be able to own our own home that we can put to work for our family and neighborhood.

I'm thankful for God providing family every time we move. No matter where we go I've always got family.

I'm thankful for the family I was born into. While we may have our issues and our problems, without them, and without my past with them, I would not be the person who I am today, and I like who I am today.

Childhood

Most of us become parents long before we have stopped being children. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook

I'm so glad I've not grown out of my childhood yet. I'm still very much a child in many ways.

My kids don't want an adult for a playmate. They want someone who will climb in a box with them and then tell a story and turn it into a beautiful castle. They want someone who will sit on the floor with a bucket of water and pour it from one container into another for an hour, and who will laugh at the funny sounds that cows sometimes make and lay on the ground and watch the ants go in and out of their little hill.

My kids need an adult sometimes, but thankfully, even in the midst of the stress of this move, I'm still enough of a child that I can see the joy in a big pile of wrapping paper.

Sadly

Our food life has fallen a bit by the wayside while we are preparing for this move.

But I did make our favorite vegetable beef soup a couple of days ago and we'll be finishing up the pot today. It is so yummy! And very easy to substitute a couple of bags of frozen mixed vegetables when you realize that you have already packed your big cutting board and only have the tiny one and don't want to deal with chopping veggies with the real chance that you could slice off your finger. All the veggies are approximate, use what you have on hand and as much as you want!

1 lb ground beef
1 onion diced fine
2 cloves garlic
3 white potatoes diced small
4 carrots diced
2 ribs celery
Peas
green beans
beef stock (enough to fill the pot)
2 bay leaves
6 sprigs of fresh thyme
salt and pepper to taste


Thats it. Mix it up, cook it all for a few hours, and eat. It tastes better the second day though. Make sure you remove the bay leaves before eating!

A home

Military life requires some interesting things from you. We have been married almost ten years and lived in seven states, and will hit eight before we have our tenth anniversary. I'm not complaining, it is one of the things I love about military life. Moving, seeing different people all over the country and learning about different regions. I think it also gives me the ability to adapt quickly to any situation and make friends no matter where I am. I'm finally comfortable in my own skin and know who I am. I think the moves have something to do with this. I couldn't create a facade and keep it up like I could when I was younger.

Something else that is required is to plant and grow a strong tree with shallow roots that can be pulled up at a moments notice. When we lived in Oakland I think we had the best tree possible for us. It was strong there, a large wonderful support system that I miss, but we had to pull it up and go to Florida. Luckily when you make a life for yourself someplace part of you is always there and you always have people you love, and that love you, to go home to. We have homes all over.

And Friday we purchased our first home. I see this lovely house being a home, not just a house. It is a corner lot in a quiet neighborhood. It has four bedrooms, and two of them are very large. One will be a school room in a few years. And the school system is wonderful in case homeschooling doesn't work out for us.

There is a large kitchen that has been recently updated. Lots of room for me to do home canning and store my food in a large pantry.

Then the yard. Oh the yard. The front has raised beds for ornamentals. Flowers and blooming bushes. I'll plant mint right by the front stoop. There are two large old maple trees that hover around the corners of the property. A large privacy fence seperating us from the street, but NOT from our neighbors. I can plant berry bushes on the outside of the fences and have something pretty and practical.

In the rear of the house there are two large decks, one with a built in picnic table. Our decks will make it easy to sit outside in the evenings and watch the kids in the yard.

There is already a vegetable garden plotted out by previous owners so the soil should be enriched beyond the typical Oklahoma clay. I can have a large, and hopefully bountiful garden.

Then it slopes down a hill toward a creek! My dream has always been to have a creek on my property, and somehow it has come true.

Amazing.