Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Full of Grace

  • Thanksgiving with Martha’s family is always a loud, blustery affair.  Traditionally arguments center around why the Cowboys always get to play on Thanksgiving instead of the Jets, Bills, Bears or Giants depending on who’s doing the arguing.  But the biggest argument is about whether stuffing should have cranberries, or not.  Even though the hosts make both kinds to please everyone, the argument still dominates the table.  But this year the adult kids of the hosts decided to make a drinking game out of it.  Every time someone said craisins or cranberries, everyone had to take a drink.  Needless to say, everyone was pretty mellow (or asleep) by the time dessert rolled around.
  • My experiment of growing salad in the basement is going well.  These two flower boxes are providing me with a fresh personal salad everyday.



  • Martha asked me to get an old oak desk out of the basement.  It was too big to get up the stairs so after stripping the salvageable wood and drawers, I took a sledgehammer to it and just wailed away.   What a great anxiety/stress reliever!    I highly recommend it.
  • Recreating Friday movie night when the girls were little.  I know you can’t go back in time but all of us cuddling on the couch, sharing popcorn and watching Frozen came pretty darned close.

  • Beautiful weather for a Black Friday hike in the woods which reminded me of this poem:


i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)


e.e.cummings




15 comments:

  1. I had to do that to get my ex husband's desk out of the basement, very therapeutic!

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    1. I'm thinking about hanging a large punching bag in the basement. Cheaper than therapy : )

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  2. Your movie night sounds awesome. We colored at the kitchen table - which was our throw back. I forgot how much fun coloring is... We also recited lines from the movies they liked (and watched a gazillion times) - Parent Trap, Mrs. Doubtfire...

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    1. My daughter got me a mandala coloring book. I have become addicted. Why do we give up such wonderful childhood pleasures?

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  3. Hilarious (and encouraging) to hear that the young adults found a way to control the older adult conversation through drinking games. The next generation is growing up and taking charge! Someday they will miss the great cranberry debates, though. :)

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    1. I imagine this debate (and now the drinking game) will continue into many more generations, if only for the tradition of it.

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  4. Movie night sounds ab fab. Years ago my mother's youngest sister hosted Thanksgiving for just a few of the family (small apartment) and I am certain, all these years later, drinking and arguing about stuffing/ dressing led to a turkey carcas being tossed about. :-)

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  5. I love that ee cummings poem. I would DEFINITELY be on the "no cranberries" team - yech!

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    1. I don't even eat stuffing, but I enjoy the arguments.

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  6. e.e. cummings is the best. I have his "i carry your heart with me" on a plaque in our bedroom. And everyone knows that there should be no cranberries in stuffing! You put raisins and oysters in there!

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    1. I understand e putting oysters in the stuffing, but oysters on the prairie? I would have thought it would be all about the corn.

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  7. Chiming in late here... having some connectivity issues. Bah!

    The stuffing argument at our house is oysters or not. I also make both. Oysters and water chestnuts... yum! And, yeah, why do the Cowboys always get to play on Turkey Day? Although, there were plenty of games this year.

    Super impressed by your basement lettuce project! Personal salad indeed!
    Family movie night - that sounds like the best of times right there. Unless the hike in the woods is the best of times. Two different bests, I guess!

    And, yes, getting to pound the heck out of something is remarkably therapeutic. Love it!
    xoxoxoxox

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    1. I am becoming fascinated by the regional recipes for stuffing.

      The Cowboys play every Thanksgiving as the universe's gift to me. (you didn't know that???) Of course their team has not been much of a blessing for the last decade or so . . .

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  8. hello! no cranberries in the stuffing; not even homemade stuffing. it's pepperidge farm for me with added celery and onions and sometimes on a whim an egg or two.

    this all sounds nice. cozy. peaceful. and the kids on the couch: priceless.

    happy to hear about happy.

    love
    kj

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    1. Well, you just blew my regional stuffing theory out of the water! (Massachusetts folks should be putting cranberries in their stuffing.) My mom also used pepperidge farm as her base and then added embellishments so your comment just gave me a warm memory.

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