I Am Thankful!!

My favorite holiday is Thanksgiving!! Christmas is good. I can take or leave Halloween and the Labor Day, but Thanksgiving is about my 2 favorite things!! Family and Food. I am always a little sad because Thanksgiving seems to get pushed to the side with a little teeny display of paper products somewhere between the behemoth bags of fun size candy bars and the tacky dancing Santas. This is a perfect time for me (and everyone) to think about the things I am grateful for and consider the source of these blessings.

Here is a list of all the things I am grateful for:

Bob Sykes, Rachel, Sarah, Robbie & Kathleen Sykes, Aunty Kate and the Lewis’, the Gordons (even though we miss Aunty Fran something awful). My house, my Huntsville House, Weight Watchers, my health (but not MS – it is no friend of mine); okay – Otto and Daisy, but not their byproducts; my car, washing machine, dishwasher – especially in Huntsville. A good night’s sleep. I don’t get those very often. Good books. Comfy shoes, a good bed. Hot baths. Lotion after the hot baths because my skin gets so dry. United States of America. Election day. Blogs. Emily Jones. Young Women and Mutual (I know, I grumble sometimes, but I still am grateful for it.) Education. The temple, the gospel of Jesus Christ. Prayer, the scriptures.

That my Heavenly Father loves me and all His Children. He is the source of all these blessings. And I am grateful to Him.

A Day in the Life

My Normal, Exciting Saturday.

Today. This is just a rundown of a day in the life of Mom

8:00 am – woke up. I actually got to sleep in this morning.

8:15 am – went to grocery store so we could have stuff for breakfast

9:00 am – made French toast and sausage. I very rarely make breakfast, but Aunty Kate was here and I felt a need to have a Martha Stewart Moment.

10:00 am to 12:45 pm – Cleaned the laundry room with enormous help from Bob Sykes. This man is a cleaning, organizing machine. I am one lucky woman.

1:00 pm – took Aunty Kate to the airport. We will miss her immensely.

1:30 pm - cleaned up the kitchen and planned the grocery list and weeks menus. We are going to have very boring meals.
3:00 pm – took a nap. I need my nap.

6:00 pm – Went to Heidi Hanks wedding reception (I didn’t sleep from 3 to 6. I just don’t remember all the exciting stuff I did)

7:30 pm - Met Bob and the Fitts’ for dinner at Lambs. I haven’t been there since Christmas Eve.

9:00 pm - went to Bob’s office and gave the Fitts’ a tour.

10:00 pm – Went to the grocery store. Had to use the self-checkout, because it was late on Saturday night. I hate the self-checkout. It takes about 20 minutes to do 10 minutes worth of checking out.

11:00 pm – came home from the store, unloaded the groceries, put them away, switched the laundry from the dryer to the basket and from the washer to the dryer.

11:15 pm – found a wet spot in the hallway. Someone was not watching Daisy. While I was starting water to wash the towel I had used to sop up dog pee, I decided to wash the sheets in Sarah’s room since it had been a long time since anyone had slept in there. While I was moving around the bedding trying to get the sheets, I saw a HUGE yellow spot on the bedspread. Guess some dog had done something a long time ago and I had never found out about it. So started washing all the bedding. (Sarah actually slept there last night!!)

11:30 – realized that I still had to empty the dishwasher, load it, feed the dogs, and still put clean sheets on my bed.

Isn’t it great to be me? (ps -- another 3 lbs down!!)

The Amazing Kathleen

For those of you who have not seen the amazingness that is my child, take 2:02 minutes and watch the video from her summer ballet class. She is the beautiful girl in the blue halter leotard. That other girl just keeps getting in the way.

What is on My NetFlix Queue

My own Netflix choices are pretty eclectic, but when you consider the ones my kids have added, the list seems a schizophrenic (not in the accurate DSM-VI definition of mental illness, but in the cheesy horror story split-personality definition -- probably not pc, but I'm just saying. . .)

Movies we have at home:

1. Hetty Wainthrop, disc 2 (BBC Mystery) starring Patricia Routledge (she of "Keeping up Appearances" fame) and Dominic Monahan (Lost, Lord of the Rings -- Merry)

2. La Sylphide -- a ballet. Guess who put this one on the list.

3. Mockingbird Don't Sing -- added by Robbie, about a abused girl who has to learn to communicate.

4. The Muppet Show -- the original 70's version.

The Next 10 on the Queue:

1. Cadfael: The Potter's field (again BBC Mystery)
2. A Good Year -- Russell Crowe's latest critical flop.
3. Jean de Florette -- I have waited forever for this to finally show up.
4. Mississippi Burning
5. Ghosts of Missippi
6. Amistad -- are you seeing a trend here?
7. Millenium Season 2 (disc 3)
8. Millenium Season 3 (disc 4) these are a bonding moment for Robbie and I.
9. Longitude Part 1 -- Masterpiece Theatre
10. Dinner at 8.

I have 276 movies in my queue. I will be 100 years old before I ever get through them all.

Halloweenie

I thought I was a Halloweenie because I just can’t seem to make my Halloween decorations look anything more than an old woman trying to hard to be festive. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I just don’t do "themes". Not parties, not YW programs, etc. I am just too pragmatic for all of that. Alas, probably makes it too boring for my YW.

However, I was taking a picture of my Halloween decorations to show you how lame I am and Presto!! A Ghost!! Ranks right up there with the headless man, doesn’t it?

I also tried to take pictures of Otto, but he just kept running away

Confessional

Please do not feel sorry for me. I am not fishing for sympathy. I know that this will sound pathetic, but it is true.

Like Emily Jones, I also have a confession to make. I never verbalized it until I was talking to Aunty Kate on Saturday night. Here goes: Everyone tells me that if I lose weight, I will feel better. Well, I know that, but secretly, I don’t want to feel better because then I am afraid I will be expected to do more. There, I’ve said it. Now it is no longer a secret wish/desire/inner thought–whatever.

What I really need to do is lose the weight, feel better, and learn to say no!!

I lost 3.6 more pounds at WW this week. Hurray for me!!

The Headless Man

I was listening to NPR’s "All Things Considered" today (only because it comes on before "Prairie Home Companion." And yes, I do listen to that tax-payer funded, left-leaning, radio station with the liberal, progressive agenda. I like it; it’s interesting even if I don’t always agree with them, and I help pay for it. (The grammatical structure of that sentence is challenged. I know.) In keeping with the season, they had asked their readers to send in stories of scariest things that had ever happened to them. This made me think of the scariest time I remember as a child.

When I was a kid (about age 6) in Ogden, Utah, we truly lived on the wrong side of the tracks. We were on west 31st street, down by the grain silos where the train cars were loaded. About a block away, was our church, the 19th Ward of the LDS Mt. Ogden Stake. The building is still there, but it was sold many years ago to another denomination. I would love to go in and see if it is still the same as I remember. There was a huge mural of the Last Supper on the wall behind the pulpit. Mormons don’t put murals in their buildings anymore. We all use the same correlated art work. Right now it is Carl Bloch. I personally sort of like a little iconography in my house of worship. That is one of the many reason I love the Temple. But I digress.

We had a ward Halloween party that my older sister, Fran, and I attended. My mom did not go to church with us very often, and this was no exception. This was back in the day when kids could wander unfettered after dark and we did only live across the street and 2 houses away.
It was a wonderful, fall evening, as I remember. The air was crisp and the leaves were, too. Just outside the cultural hall (gym to the non-Mormons), was a bush. As Fran and I walked home, I saw a shape behind the bush. It was a man; but not just any man. It was a headless man!! His shoulders were broad, his coat was dark, and he had a small light between his fingers as though he and his missing head had needed to go outside for a smoke. In a few seconds, I saw the light nearer the ground. I was sure that cigarette had found its missing home. We ran, screaming, as fast as we could to the safety of our own front porch. Mom just laughed it off, certain that some one had really needed a cigarette, and being a Mormon, had to hide it.

I asked Fran about it a few years ago. Her memory was vivid, also. But not as vivid as mine. Somehow, that shape had shed it cloak, skins and all its tissues and resided in her memory as a smoking skeleton.

Driving by the area recently, I saw that the church is still there. Even the bush is still where I remember it; about the same size. Our house is gone. It is the garage and yard for the Ogden City School District buses.

There was no sign of the missing head.