Post-Thanksgiving Post

It is Friday now, and the kids are all down the street playing at the park, so I thought I would come in and check the email and update the old blog. The office is closed today, so it is really, really nice to have my play list playing loudly and the phone NOT ringing....and, too, nice to have small break from the kids without feeling guilty. The park is just not even a block away, so they are free to wander over here, and I will wander over there in a few minutes, and everyone wins.

Just wanted to let you all know that I did end up going to Thanksgiving with Steve and family. It wasn't, actually, as hard to tell Janet as I had anticipating it being, so that was really, really nice. We had actually had a rather bad evening on Wednesday, so in actuality I wasn't entirely sure we would be going anywhere, but Hannah woke up feeling better and we decided if nothing else we would go get pictures taken, and then decide what we felt up to later. So Janet, in case we decided NOT to go anywhere else, brought over turkey and cranberry sauce and gravy before they left (which we will be eating today), and it was just a lovely thought.

The photo session went well; no one was really expecting the kids and I save for Steve, so I was a little unsure of what reception we would get. However, the welcome was genuine, and we were included in the BIG family photo, as well as getting some of our little family. We had some taken of Owen alone (because the other kids had them done at school, and the photographer "bought" them their school packages; he is also the same one who took the pics yesterday, and is Steve's brother in law. Convenient, huh!), as well as with Steve and I and all the kids, and of the kids all together. It felt very good, actually, to be included in such a thing-like I said on Wednesday, it is significant the Steve wanted us there, and it was really sweet to be in that place at that moment.

We opted to go ahead and go eat with them, which was chaotic and crazy and loud like family gatherings are. I think we counted 30+ people, but at least we knew all of them. Hannah did stick pretty close to either me, Steve, or his mom, which was fine (and what she needed, obviously), but the boys all went running around with all the cousins. The food was great, as it always is, and we were home settled in with a movie buy 6:30. In bed by 10:00, too, which is excellent.

I felt very much present in the moment all day yesterday. Hannah will be 16 in a few days, and I felt very strongly that we are never going to have another Thanksgiving just like this, in this place where we are. For good or ill, this is our life, and it was really good for all of us to have that slice of it be so sweet. I am rarely unaware of how blessed I am, even when I get n a mood like I was earlier in the week, but on occasion it just comes up and spills over. I AM blessed; if nothing else, I have these great kids, and these excellent moments, and so much more than I ever thought I would 9 years ago when I was a drunk.

Thank you all, so much, for everything. Mostly for hanging with me and traveling along with me while we see what might happen next. I hope you all had a blessed day (and April, I hope D-Land was the bomb!).