What I Did On My Thanksgiving Vacation

(Alternately titled "Oh the troubles, we had 'em.")

**Disclaimer!!  This was not a vacation in that I have a job and was chief cook and bottle washer for the fam, but I thought the title was kind've fun and kitchy and reminded me of my childhood, when I had neither job nor bottles to wash.

So I honestly don't even know where to start.  I spent most of the week laughing and saying things like Ohmygoodness this will go great on the blog, or It's all good.  Then a couple of days ago I started with the upchucking and suddenly it wasn't so amusing, and I got a little bit of the cranky. 

It's all fun & games until it's my head in a trash can.  Just sayin.

I'm feeling a little better now and oddly enough have seemed to have forgotten most of the horrifying details.  Kinda like when you have a baby or a kidney stone.  It's like a bad dream that gets fuzzier and fuzzier as time passes by.  God is good to us like that.

However, here is some of what I remember from, what I like to call, The Great Thanksgiving Disaster of 2010.

Minutes - literally like two minutes - after my family arrived from North Carolina I retrieved my granddaughter from the car and stepped in a hole (yup, you heard me) and twisted my ankle, leading me to hobble around like an 84-year-old man for the rest of the week. 

That might have been the high point of the week.  I can't rightly say.  

I'm not sure why I hobbled like an 84-year-old man, but that's what came to me so I'm sticking with it.

(You will be happy and relieved to know that although I was carrying Miss Audrey at the time she did not hit the ground when I did.  I protected that child with my last ounce of strength and she came through the fall unscathed.)

The weekend was crazy busy but relatively healthy, but then...then...Monday morning struck.  The plague hit our home and we still haven't quite recovered.  For the ensuing seven days we've been in varying degrees of misery and uncomfortableness.  I will spare you further details in this regard, but suffice it to say there was much moaning, and groaning, and whining, and complaining.

...and that was just me.

None of us were particularly interested in actually eating Thanksgiving dinner but most were terribly interested in the leftovers, so I dragged my tired, pitiful self to the kitchen to brine that blasted turkey... and subsequently flooded half the kitchen.  I didn't care so much about the kitchen, but my cell phone was in the direct line of water fire and died an instant, ugly death.  This was distressing to me because I love me some Happy Thanksgiving texts from my people, and the ensuing silence was deafening.  Deafening, I say.

In between all that misery and mayhem we did manage to sneak in some baby Owen snuggles, a whole lot of Audrey cuddling, some interesting television viewing, 5-gazillion loads of laundry, two seasons of Blue's Clues, a most excellent pumpkin pie, and a whole lot of Pepsi and Dr. Pepper drinking. 

...and I may or may not have used my cranky voice with Miss Audrey three times; things are a little hazy on such matters.

Happy Tuesday!
Renee

Gathering

We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing;
He chastens and hastens His will to make known;

The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing;

Sing praises to His Name; He forgets not His own.

Beside us to guide us, our God with us joining,
Ordaining, maintaining His kingdom divine;

So from the beginning the fight we were winning;
Thou, Lord, were at our side, all glory be Thine!

We all do extol Thee, Thou Leader triumphant,
And pray that Thou still our Defender will be;

Let Thy congregation escape tribulation;
Thy Name be ever praised! O Lord, make us free!

Happy, Happy Thanksgiving!
Renee

Sweet relief

So I am happy to report that we have survived our current maladies, and I am cautiously optimistic that we may indeed be spunky enough to consume large quantities of a variety of casserole-type dishes tomorrow.  If I can drag myself into the kitchen, that is.  Time will tell, people, time will tell. 

I'll tell ya all about it until your ears are tired - after I sleep for at least 2.5 hours in a row.  Just sayin.

In the meantime, I hope your day holds no tummy onslaughts and is full of  all manner of wonderfulness :)

Happy Wednesday!
Renee

p.s.  Isn't my granddaughter just the sweetest thing ever??