Hosting Thanksgiving and planning for surgery...
I've spent much of the past week in a satiated but busy blur. I decided that with my parents up here, I would host Thanksgiving. I've never done so. I've been a large part of Bluejay's gatherings over the years, but never in my own house. I've never cooked a turkey. My biggest responsibilities were to make deviled eggs and sweet potatoes. This year was decidedly different.
I started cooking Monday and settled into a routine of working, coming home, cooking for two hours, cleaning the kitchen, then going to bed. I've been to physical therapy for my shoulder, driving to work and feeling as though I would burst into tears. I've cooked and cleaned more this week than I think I have ever regularly. I went and saw my surgeon on Wednesday and was officially told I needed surgery. We scheduled it for mid-January, I'm to return with Fidget to figure out my collar, and I'll get a fancy cervical disc fusion that will hold me out of service for 2-4 weeks. I returned home, sad. He kept remarking on my age and theorizes I have a proclivity for bone degeneration since I am comparatively so young and the amount of surgeries my parents have had. I briefly spoke with my mother, then finished my shift, coming home to start the baking/cooking process all over again.
Fidget and I set up a good system; I would cook and bake, and he cleaned the entire house from a very itemized list. My parents, naturally, were 2.5 hours late. But once they got here, we sat down to my epic feast. Turkey, named Oscar del Pavo, was excellent and I can't stop saying how proud of myself I am. I know, realistically, I just cooked a turkey, but cooking a turkey is effing daunting, especially considering some of him was still a bit frozen when we started out Thursday morning.
Note to future Jess: Pull out turkey on SUNDAY, not Monday.
Fidget's best friend also came over, so I made various versions of vegetarian dishes. Big sheet pan of sausage and herb stuffing, little sheet pan of stuffing without sausage. Big container of Brussels sprouts, little container of sprouts without bacon. He brought over tempeh salad and a blackberry pie which is simply banging, and I keep eating.
Just to toot my own horn, I want to document I made the following, all from scratch:· Turkey with herbed butter
· Sausage and herb stuffing, plus some vegetarian
· Sweet potatoes
· Mashed potatoes
· Green bean casserole with fried shallots
· Brussels sprouts, plus some without bacon
· Real giblet gravy
· Cranberry sauce
· Deviled eggs
· Sweet potato tart
· Bacon-wrapped dates
· Pumpkin pie, though the crust was store bought
Honestly, I'm quite amazed with myself. That I was able to cook All the Things, as well as maintain Fridge Jenga because that 13.4 pound turkey took up a LOT of space! But we were able to do it and I didn't sit at all yesterday until it was time to sit for the meal. And somehow, lost four pounds over the course of three days, which I think is the opposite of what's supposed to happen on Thanksgiving, but I digress.
This Thanksgiving was different in a lot of ways. A LOT. It was my first Thanksgiving hosting. My parents were not only in my house, but also now live in Maryland, and this was the first Thanksgiving we'd spent together in 14 years. We weren't with Fidget's family, nor did we hear from them. Pop was gone this year. I had intermittent urges to call Mary K, but couldn't. I had constant, nagging shoulder pain from a slipped disc I didn't know I had a year ago. I was now engaged, going to be married. I had my parents in my house and was hosting dinner; this was a version of Adulting I wasn't quite prepared for.
Once I helped him up and they went home, I changed back into comfier clothes. Fidget washed dishes. I ended up passing out on the couch, my feet still hurting from standing all day.
Today, I took a half day, leisurely sleeping in until 1100. Granted, Socks woke me up at 0830, where I cleaned cat boxes and gave him spray cheese, but I crawled back into a warm bed and covered with cats and sherpas, slept until 1100. It was awesome. My room is still relatively clean, my kitchen is still relatively clean, and though I needed to work in the evening, I didn't need to spring up and do anything immediately.
There's been talk of redoing our office/exercise room, and while I was excited when Mimosa was here to go through planning, I really did not want to move today. Tomorrow, MFNJ is coming over for some friendship and we will gallivant places with lamps and pick up an elliptical, then continue to work on my parents' condo.
I feel as though this week has made excellent traction. I know it won't stay this way, no matter how much I want it to. But it looks great right now and I think it's a good jumping off place for how we want this year to end. We'll start next year with a surgery for me and disability, but hopefully, this house and theirs will be woefully improved than how it was previously. And the chatter in my brain will slow down. And we'll embark on yet another transition with Fidget being done school and me just hanging out in a collar for awhile. There's a piece of me that's bringing up anxiety about not working and maybe having limited mobility. I don't particularly watch TV and tend to toddle consistently throughout my house, so I'm curious what will happen if I can't toddle and just need to sit. I'm hopeful to start an online grief certification partially for this reason, but the idea of not doing too much is a bit overwhelming, ironically.
We've already talked about planning for Christmas and hosting a plain Christmas dinner. Obviously, I'll scale back things significantly. And hopefully our house won't need to be cleaned as badly since we'll only have a month to muck it up! But it's immensely gratifying to be able to host my parents in my own home...
... it's remembering the gratitude which humbles me to take on the next task, no matter the stakes.
I started cooking Monday and settled into a routine of working, coming home, cooking for two hours, cleaning the kitchen, then going to bed. I've been to physical therapy for my shoulder, driving to work and feeling as though I would burst into tears. I've cooked and cleaned more this week than I think I have ever regularly. I went and saw my surgeon on Wednesday and was officially told I needed surgery. We scheduled it for mid-January, I'm to return with Fidget to figure out my collar, and I'll get a fancy cervical disc fusion that will hold me out of service for 2-4 weeks. I returned home, sad. He kept remarking on my age and theorizes I have a proclivity for bone degeneration since I am comparatively so young and the amount of surgeries my parents have had. I briefly spoke with my mother, then finished my shift, coming home to start the baking/cooking process all over again.
Fidget and I set up a good system; I would cook and bake, and he cleaned the entire house from a very itemized list. My parents, naturally, were 2.5 hours late. But once they got here, we sat down to my epic feast. Turkey, named Oscar del Pavo, was excellent and I can't stop saying how proud of myself I am. I know, realistically, I just cooked a turkey, but cooking a turkey is effing daunting, especially considering some of him was still a bit frozen when we started out Thursday morning.
Note to future Jess: Pull out turkey on SUNDAY, not Monday.
Fidget's best friend also came over, so I made various versions of vegetarian dishes. Big sheet pan of sausage and herb stuffing, little sheet pan of stuffing without sausage. Big container of Brussels sprouts, little container of sprouts without bacon. He brought over tempeh salad and a blackberry pie which is simply banging, and I keep eating.
Just to toot my own horn, I want to document I made the following, all from scratch:· Turkey with herbed butter
· Sausage and herb stuffing, plus some vegetarian
· Sweet potatoes
· Mashed potatoes
· Green bean casserole with fried shallots
· Brussels sprouts, plus some without bacon
· Real giblet gravy
· Cranberry sauce
· Deviled eggs
· Sweet potato tart
· Bacon-wrapped dates
· Pumpkin pie, though the crust was store bought
Honestly, I'm quite amazed with myself. That I was able to cook All the Things, as well as maintain Fridge Jenga because that 13.4 pound turkey took up a LOT of space! But we were able to do it and I didn't sit at all yesterday until it was time to sit for the meal. And somehow, lost four pounds over the course of three days, which I think is the opposite of what's supposed to happen on Thanksgiving, but I digress.
This Thanksgiving was different in a lot of ways. A LOT. It was my first Thanksgiving hosting. My parents were not only in my house, but also now live in Maryland, and this was the first Thanksgiving we'd spent together in 14 years. We weren't with Fidget's family, nor did we hear from them. Pop was gone this year. I had intermittent urges to call Mary K, but couldn't. I had constant, nagging shoulder pain from a slipped disc I didn't know I had a year ago. I was now engaged, going to be married. I had my parents in my house and was hosting dinner; this was a version of Adulting I wasn't quite prepared for.
Once I helped him up and they went home, I changed back into comfier clothes. Fidget washed dishes. I ended up passing out on the couch, my feet still hurting from standing all day.
Today, I took a half day, leisurely sleeping in until 1100. Granted, Socks woke me up at 0830, where I cleaned cat boxes and gave him spray cheese, but I crawled back into a warm bed and covered with cats and sherpas, slept until 1100. It was awesome. My room is still relatively clean, my kitchen is still relatively clean, and though I needed to work in the evening, I didn't need to spring up and do anything immediately.
There's been talk of redoing our office/exercise room, and while I was excited when Mimosa was here to go through planning, I really did not want to move today. Tomorrow, MFNJ is coming over for some friendship and we will gallivant places with lamps and pick up an elliptical, then continue to work on my parents' condo.
I feel as though this week has made excellent traction. I know it won't stay this way, no matter how much I want it to. But it looks great right now and I think it's a good jumping off place for how we want this year to end. We'll start next year with a surgery for me and disability, but hopefully, this house and theirs will be woefully improved than how it was previously. And the chatter in my brain will slow down. And we'll embark on yet another transition with Fidget being done school and me just hanging out in a collar for awhile. There's a piece of me that's bringing up anxiety about not working and maybe having limited mobility. I don't particularly watch TV and tend to toddle consistently throughout my house, so I'm curious what will happen if I can't toddle and just need to sit. I'm hopeful to start an online grief certification partially for this reason, but the idea of not doing too much is a bit overwhelming, ironically.
We've already talked about planning for Christmas and hosting a plain Christmas dinner. Obviously, I'll scale back things significantly. And hopefully our house won't need to be cleaned as badly since we'll only have a month to muck it up! But it's immensely gratifying to be able to host my parents in my own home...
... it's remembering the gratitude which humbles me to take on the next task, no matter the stakes.