in pursuit of wild things

We stayed home for Thanksgiving this year. No traveling, no visiting.  My husband got up early to get the smoker going for the turkey and I started cooking. We watched Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and then the dog show afterward. I always liked watching the parade but I have no idea why we watched the dog show. Just because we could I suppose. We talked about putting up the Christmas tree but never did. We talked about it all weekend but the tree and decorations are still in boxes. I did promise the kids we’d get the space cleaned up and get started by next weekend with all the decorating.

I had planned to get some of the cooking done the day before. My plans did not quite work out. The home builders chose the day before Thanksgiving to take care of any problems with the

house that came up over the year. Oh joy. They were a nice couple of guys but I didn’t want to be in their way in the kitchen. Littlest was interested in everything they were doing and kept me busy trying (and mostly failing) to keep him occupied elsewhere. I was anxious most of the day and that bled over to Thanksgiving Day too.

My husband must have noticed that I was feeling anxious since he drew me a nice hot bath, put on some quiet music, lit a candle, turned down the lights, and brought me a glass of wine to enjoy during my nice long soak. He is the best. A nice bath was just what I needed.

I’m not sure why I am wrestling with anxiety. I could feel it last week and didn’t write. Anxiety paralyzes word flow. Eventually it will break and flow out but until then these weekly posts will be difficult to get through.

Tomorrow we are getting back to our routine in school. The last couple of weeks have been really loose. We are going to start Bible Road Trip  tomorrow. Since we are not going to church anywhere right now I figured we should at least study together. We are starting with year three and I will seriously modify the work load this curriculum assigns. Oldest begins pre-algebra this week. I know he is ready but no so sure about myself… December is just full of distractions so I plan to keep the kids to our routine as much as possible. Otherwise the days just fiddle away.

Last week I went to a fun little Christmas decorating class put on by my nephew at the library. He is an award-winning florist and very entertaining. He taught us how to make the big pretty bows and decorate the little Christmas trees. I plan to give the big bows a try on our Christmas tree this year. It might be fun or turn out terrible. Our big project last week was cleaning out closets and toys. That took several days and my husband and I were half crazy by the end of the ordeal. The kids rooms do look better now. I made room in my closet too. Then I hopped onto Amazon and bought stuff for Christmas.

I finished up three knitting projects this week; a sparkly shawl, a coffee cozy and a Santa hat. Boots loves to get in my lap when I’m knitting and bat at the yarn and try to catch my needles. She loves the big bamboo needles the most. I’m still working on a blanket for my mom…hopefully I will get it finished soon.

Sparkles first guitar lesson was tough

pre-Thanksgiving clean out

temperature blanket plans

first batch of my husband’s homemade chex mix of the season

read aloud pile

poetry tea time

checking handprint on the Thanksgiving cloth

the only picture of the feast

homemade pizza and wine after a really long day

coffee cozy for a friend

Middle Boy modeling my first Santa hat