Thanksgiving Break - The Long Version

Thanksgiving is over, and once again I feel like I need a vacation to recover from my vacation. The kids had the entire week off school, and while I'd love to say that we had a fabulous time together, in reality I was grumpy.

I got no writing done. I failed to get much of the housecleaning done that I wanted (there are still cardboard boxes in annoying parts of the house). I didn't get Charlotte's ripped school bag sewn back together. I felt like I yelled at the kids more than played with them (to be fair, they are loud loud loud and don't seem to follow directions. And they whine. A lot).

Mother of the year, I am not.

We did a few fun things. Last Monday we found our local library and signed up for cards (it's a different county than where we lived before). That branch is pretty big, and had several computers and a train table (as well as books), so the three of us spent a happy two hours relaxing and came home with a dozen books (and two movies). That afternoon, we had the local YMCA pool nearly to ourselves during open swim time. Most of the local schools were in session, and I suppose swimming isn't top of the Thanksgiving week activity list for most people.

Tuesday we mostly shopped for our Thanksgiving dinner. Unlike my friend Bethany, who made hers from locally-sourced and home-grown ingredients, ours was pretty commercial. We did buy a hormone-free, fresh turkey from a local small grocery store (the turkey itself was probably not local). The rest came from Target.
The kitchen in our new house has double ovens. I love having two full-sized ovens. Yes, I'm showing off, but I really love love having two full-sized ovens. My husband dressed the turkey and had it roasting at the same time the kids and I were making pies. After the pies were done, we made green bean and sweet potato casseroles. Most years I have to practically make a spreadsheet to schedule oven time to make sure everything gets done. This year, no problems.

We saw The Muppets this weekend. I think I was more excited about it than the kids were. Fabulous movie, btw, especially if you grew up on the Muppet Show, The Muppet Movie, The Great Muppet Caper, The Muppets Take Manhatten, etc.

Let's see, what else...Trystan had a soccer game on Black Friday. I did some after-Thanksgiving shopping, but mainly online (I do not care to fight a crowd or stay up late..there will be more deals coming..there always are).

We picked up more drapery rods and one of the sets hung. Slowly we are whittling down the list of naked windows in our house. I have bought very few actual drapes, just hardware. I had a rather substantial stash of non-neutral fabric panels from the old house that work rather well in the new one (though I might need to buy more sheers to finish out the last few windows--those were neutral enough to leave in the old place).

We started decorating for the holidays. I am disappointed to say that I couldn't find a 9-12 foot pre-lit tree that was sufficiently discounted (we have high ceilings in our living room, and I was hoping for something really tall). Regardless of height, the cats love the Christmas tree. It is 1) a tree to climb 2) covered in toys (all with tails), and 3) has a soft velvet tree skirt to nap on. As long as they don't 1) knock it over 2) chew through the lights or 3) break any irreplaceable ornaments, we will all have a happy holiday season.