home for the holidays
We flew to Charlotte on Tuesday night to spend Thanksgiving with my parents, and with Nana and Georgann. Mom wisely banned politics from the house for the duration, which is good because there would have been some Strident Disagreements. (As it was, there were some highly unfortunate comments, but for the most part I have grit my teeth and moved on instead of starting it.) Mom and Dad's new house is charming and lovely, and they have it set up beautifully, although there are still many boxes around and about because Mom is still working out what she's going to keep and how.
On Thanksgiving, we started out with our traditional sticky buns (make a syrup of brown sugar, butter, and cinnamon; pour it over frozen rolls; add butterscotch pudding mix; rise overnight and bake.) Aunt Snooze came down with her husband, so we had quite a full house. We watched the Macy's parade and the football, and we made the traditional spread: oven-roasted turkey with homemade stuffing, candied sweet potatoes, enough mashed potatoes for an army, home-glazed ham, rolls, cranberry sauce, green beans, and our family's traditional Jell-O molded salad, which is basically lime Jell-O with cream cheese and pineapple juice and crushed pineapple in, and is my favorite. We ate until we were quite beyond stuffed, and I whined about making words, but eventually got them anyway.
Yesterday Mom and Nana and Georgann went out for a bit of shopping - not ridiculous-level Black Friday stuff but visiting a small furniture store to look at stuff for the dining room, and picking up a few extra things at the grocery store. Mom made a truly stupendous lasagna for dinner, and we had pie, and watched Dirty Dancing, which I had never seen and I immediately understood how it could be such a classic. I made it to 44,000 words, so I am trucking along apace. I also finished Chapter 3 of Bravely Second, and I've been playing a LOT of phone games. I got Onion Knight in FFRK, and he's level 82, and I'm gonna keep going.
Nana doesn't seem to be doing very well. She'll be 91 next month, and Mom says she's in pain a lot from her back and her leg, and she seems to be tired a lot of the time. She and Georgann squabble a lot (well, they always have), but it seems like almost every time Nana wants to do something Georgann says "no you can't" or "you don't need that" or some variation, and I think Nana's just very tired of it--which is not good, because that goes to giving-up-land, and while I understand (almost all of her siblings--she was third-youngest of thirteen--are gone, and she's been a widow since my mom was 18, and on and on...) I am aggressively not ready to not have my Nana. She's supposed to come up and spend Christmas in Chicago with us next month, which would have the added benefit of her coming with my parents but not with Georgann, and then we could spend some time focused on what she wants, but Mom is saying that she's not sure if that's going to happen, and I'm. I'm really kind of not okay about that. (To be really clear: I do not want her to exhaust herself or hurt herself, especially not on my behalf; I'm Not Okay because I can see how much she's aged in the last two years, and I'm not ready to say goodbye.)
In better news...I am thankful for my family, and for good dinners with family. I am thankful for my friends--fandom and meatspace--and the interests we share and the stories we make together, and the support that we give to each other. I am thankful for my husband, and for his support and love. I am thankful for cats who like to snuggle, and a job I like that provides something I want to see in the world. For warm days in fall, and for hugs, and for the people I love being together for the holidays.
Okay, I have just spent about two hours avoiding writing by reading DW and writing this entry (and I have another one stored up to scream into the void about a particular piece of tech and the way I'm seeing it advertised), but I guess I better buckle down and get my damn 2K done for the day.
I've posted this at http://lassarina.dreamwidth.org/1162999.html and you may comment there or here. On Dreamwidth, this entry has
comments.
On Thanksgiving, we started out with our traditional sticky buns (make a syrup of brown sugar, butter, and cinnamon; pour it over frozen rolls; add butterscotch pudding mix; rise overnight and bake.) Aunt Snooze came down with her husband, so we had quite a full house. We watched the Macy's parade and the football, and we made the traditional spread: oven-roasted turkey with homemade stuffing, candied sweet potatoes, enough mashed potatoes for an army, home-glazed ham, rolls, cranberry sauce, green beans, and our family's traditional Jell-O molded salad, which is basically lime Jell-O with cream cheese and pineapple juice and crushed pineapple in, and is my favorite. We ate until we were quite beyond stuffed, and I whined about making words, but eventually got them anyway.
Yesterday Mom and Nana and Georgann went out for a bit of shopping - not ridiculous-level Black Friday stuff but visiting a small furniture store to look at stuff for the dining room, and picking up a few extra things at the grocery store. Mom made a truly stupendous lasagna for dinner, and we had pie, and watched Dirty Dancing, which I had never seen and I immediately understood how it could be such a classic. I made it to 44,000 words, so I am trucking along apace. I also finished Chapter 3 of Bravely Second, and I've been playing a LOT of phone games. I got Onion Knight in FFRK, and he's level 82, and I'm gonna keep going.
Nana doesn't seem to be doing very well. She'll be 91 next month, and Mom says she's in pain a lot from her back and her leg, and she seems to be tired a lot of the time. She and Georgann squabble a lot (well, they always have), but it seems like almost every time Nana wants to do something Georgann says "no you can't" or "you don't need that" or some variation, and I think Nana's just very tired of it--which is not good, because that goes to giving-up-land, and while I understand (almost all of her siblings--she was third-youngest of thirteen--are gone, and she's been a widow since my mom was 18, and on and on...) I am aggressively not ready to not have my Nana. She's supposed to come up and spend Christmas in Chicago with us next month, which would have the added benefit of her coming with my parents but not with Georgann, and then we could spend some time focused on what she wants, but Mom is saying that she's not sure if that's going to happen, and I'm. I'm really kind of not okay about that. (To be really clear: I do not want her to exhaust herself or hurt herself, especially not on my behalf; I'm Not Okay because I can see how much she's aged in the last two years, and I'm not ready to say goodbye.)
In better news...I am thankful for my family, and for good dinners with family. I am thankful for my friends--fandom and meatspace--and the interests we share and the stories we make together, and the support that we give to each other. I am thankful for my husband, and for his support and love. I am thankful for cats who like to snuggle, and a job I like that provides something I want to see in the world. For warm days in fall, and for hugs, and for the people I love being together for the holidays.
Okay, I have just spent about two hours avoiding writing by reading DW and writing this entry (and I have another one stored up to scream into the void about a particular piece of tech and the way I'm seeing it advertised), but I guess I better buckle down and get my damn 2K done for the day.
I've posted this at http://lassarina.dreamwidth.org/1162999.html and you may comment there or here. On Dreamwidth, this entry has
comments.