A Week of Thanksgiving

November has come and is nearly gone now. 

The weather has been beautiful this month and I have found myself in quite a routine of being outside, far removed from this computer. Today, surprisingly brisk out, has been spent indoors Christmas shopping online in the company of three kids and some fantastic music in the background.  I told my self that I'd pay bills today, too, but that hasn't happened yet....


Everybody decided to be sick last weekend, so that we could get it out of the way before Thanksgiving Week.  (It's hard to be thankful on the National Day of Thanks if you're sick and unable to enjoy Turkey and Mashed Potatoes.)

Al chose a sinus infection first, Elia, second with the stomach flu & some sort of respiratory illness thrown in for fun.  Then on Saturday night, Eden, Lars & I took after Elia and threw up all night long & into the next morning, leaving our regular church pew free for somebody else to use.  I had three kids in my room from 0530 Sunday until 4:00p in the afternoon, in bed, on the floor and on mattresses on the floor, with piles of pillows, blankets, and buckets.  It was effective.  By 5:00, we all felt better and took a 4 block walk, which wore us all out.  So we came back home and went to bed for the next several hours.

With illness around us and a short school week for Eden & Lars, we've shook up the routine a little bit here and spent more time relaxing and reading stories and less time working on laundry and house cleaning.  I figure I did enough laundry last weekend to get a few days break. 

Wednesday, Eden went to Dave's house to help make pies for Thanksgiving Dinner.  She was very pleased and came home with several tips for me in my next pie making endeavor.  I don't make pies. 

Thursday, I got up early, dressed in my most comfy track pants and put the turkey in the oven with my Alton Brown foil tent and chanting the phrase, "Basting is Wasting".  Then I peeled potatoes for Giada deLaurentiis' Mashed Potatoes and turned on the TV just in time for the parade.  Three hours of a parade with puzzles, cars, games and coloring during commercials was just enough.  The turkey started smelling fantastic and the guest of honor arrived.  Thankfully, in sweats. 

Everyone enjoyed dinner and apple pie with homemade vanilla ice cream. The pumpkin pie had to be relocated to the garbage, much to the disappointment of Allen, who's never gone a Thanksgiving in his life without involving pumpkin pie.  I thought he was going to scrape it out of the trash bin when the promise was made that another pumpkin pie would show up tomorrow for supper.  This one, fully cooked. 

After some serious napping on the couch, some pumpkin chucking contest on TV, wrestling with Samson and more puzzles and games, it was time for a short walk and back home to make sandwiches and read stories before bed.  Couple more friends came for dessert late that afternoon and we chatted well into the evening.  Eden, Lars and Elia love having people over and after a whole day of it, slept well through the night. 

Have spent the rest of the weekend doing much of the same. 

Eating, playing, napping, reading.
Repeat until bedtime. 

Halloween 2012

Halloween is always so much fun around here and, as usual, everybody who came over had a good time slurping soup and sneaking candy from the various bowls and buckets around the house & yard!  We carved pumpkins on Tuesday and set up the decorations, then waited for Wednesday to come.  I kept busy at Lars' school in the morning, complete with a trick or treat parade up town, then to the library for story hour with Elia.  The afternoon was spent puttering in the kitchen with some music on and candles burning, just waiting for the boys & ghouls to show up.

Eden, inspired by a class project about dressing up like a futuristic character for Red Ribbon Week, chose to be a robot.  Lars wanted to be a Pay-loader slash Bridgeport City Worker this year which gave Allen some room for creativity in the garage, along with a few late nights.  Elia didn't want to be anything until the morning of.  I asked her if she wanted to dress up in a costume for Lars' costume parade at school and she said, "YEP!" I tried the ladybug on her before breakfast and she didn't take it off to eat or sleep until bath time last night.  It was so funny, she just wore it around town and around the house all day.  You can do that when you're two. 

Today, I'm cleaning up the mess of the past two days, cutting up & cooking pumpkins for all the pumpkin recipes I look forward to making in November, and pondering where October went.

Happy Fall to you.  

2012-1974=??

Everybody deserves one special day out of every year...and this one belonged to Allen. 

Home fried chips with fresh Salsa, Laura's famous tossed salad, Beef Enchiladas, Beef, bean & rice burritos, Mexican rice from our favorite Mexican, good friends, and the party was on!

After supper, with laughter in the air, Lars and Eden gave Daddy their wrapped gifts.  Lars, a skid steer that he picked out from the store and Eden, Red Twizzlers. 

While the birthday cakes (Irish Creme Chocolate Cheesecake and Chocolate Chip Cheese pie) were being candled in the kitchen, Eden verbalized her first cuss word when she repeated the mantra "Where's the damn cheesecake?" from an unnamed and forgiven friend whom lap she was sharing.  Reportedly, Allen's eyes got as big as saucers and she stopped short of the end of the sentence, as everybody stared at her, gaping.  I'm so thankful I was in the kitchen, where I could scold her without her seeing me laugh. 

Always good company and good fun when birthdays roll around here.

Happy Birthday to you!~

An Unexpected Trip

After talking to Chad on Sunday afternoon, I felt uneasy.  Something just seemed out of place.  Tone of voice?  Lack of luster? No humor? No sarcasm? Something.

By Monday, something wasn't right.  He didn't answer my calls, wouldn't text back. 

I didn't sleep Monday night, but couldn't say why. 

Tuesday morning, no answer again.   No text back.   I laid on the bed and fell asleep soundly for almost two hours. 

Then, at 10:59 a.m. I woke with a start. Something was wrong.  I called his phone again.  And Mom answered. 

"I want to talk to Chad", I calmly screamed into the phone.
"He's not talking to anybody", she said.

Awkward silent beat.

"Wait. He's reaching for the phone. I guess you're the special one", she said.

After a few brief mumbled and pained words, he dropped the phone.  Mom picked it up and started saying something before I cut her off with an abrupt, "I gotta go."

If he's not able to talk to me, I guess I'll just go sit with him then until he can. 

I booked tickets eastbound, then called my sister to meet me in Chicago the next afternoon.

 Then Dad called; "he's headed to ICU with a falling blood pressure"

I'm not going to make it.  Why didn't you go yesterday, Sarah?

Change of plans.  Time to fly.

A few hours later, with the help of SEVERAL family & friends in at least four states, I was on my way to Michigan with Elia to see my brother, quite possibly for the last time.

I text-ed Al to tell him my plan.  He said the Pastor's were praying for Chad at their conference. 

Tuesday night, I slept two hours in the guest room at my cousin's place in Denver, waking at 2:00am to pace the courtyard and wait for the chauffeured ride to the airport at 4:00am.

The plane landed in Detroit Wednesday morning at 11:30a and by 2:00 p.m., I was meeting Dad in the lobby of the hospital.  A few minutes later, I walked in to see some fat faced stranger in the ICU.

From there, it's a bunch of mixed emotion & fear, with a few special moments & humor thrown in for good measure.

Prayer vigil at several area churches that evening.  

As time went by, Chad got better & better and with each passing hour, that dreadful feeling started to pass away.  Things were looking up.  He was stable enough to transfer to the University Hospital. 

Is this the awake and happy stage before they crash and die?  The hospital staff was ready for a code. I heard the nurse tell the transferring Paramedic, "he's a full code so be ready for that." 

Nice.  

And then it happened. No, No, not the code. A prayer was answered in the way we wanted.  He just got better.  At least a little bit.  And then a little bit more.  Pretty soon, he was coming home to recover.  Safer there anyway, away from the hospital germs that got him so sick in the first place.

Joy.  

And Thanksgiving.

We had a mashed potatoes and turkey dinner to celebrate.  With the sickly guest of honor among us. 

Thanks be to God!

And to all the friends and family who offered up themselves and their gifts along the way; those who called with words of comfort, text-ed their availability, Face booked support, brought food, did laundry, cleaned house, packed lunches, bought gift cards, gas cards, stocked the fire, shuttled kids to soccer, got me to Michigan, gave me a bed to sleep in, chauffeured us around, or simply sat in prayer. 

Thank you.

You know who you are.