Chez Smiffy update

I'm a little late with this, but we had a wonderful five-day break over Thanksgiving.

We started with sleeping in on Thursday, then we got up and spent the day cooking -- Jack was, as usual, in charge of the cranberry sauce and the pumpkin pie. He did an excellent job.

It was our first wheat free Thanksgiving, and it went pretty well. Rod has come up with a very good pie crust recipe and then improved on it, so we had three kinds of pie: Jack's traditional pumpkin, Rod's custard pie, and my experimental peanut butter pie.

But aside from the food (which admittedly, is a very important part for me) we also tried to focus more on thankfulness. This has in many ways been a hard year for us, what with health issues and furloughs, but in the end, we are still very, very blessed. We are still reasonably healthy and well on the way to being more so. We may not have the money to spend as freely as we'd like, but we can eat and pay the important bills and we have a warm, secure home. We may be a long while from seeing our beloved older children again, but they are also healthy and seem to be prospering. But most of all -- we have each other, a dream come true for Rod and I and a pretty good deal for Jack -- even if he sometimes doesn't think so.

We started volunteering at a local homeless shelter occasionally a few months ago. This holiday, we have thinking about making more of a commitment. We have so much and it seems right to Rod and I that we share. We have been cooking a meal for the folks at the shelter every few months, but we think we might be ready to step up to a more regular commitment. The question is, what will be the thing we give up to make time. But with a regular commitment, it will be easier to plan.

As you can see, we also got out to get our annual holiday picture made. The mall made it challenging this year by putting most of the decorations overhead. We managed, but I think we'll look for a place to do it next year that we actually want to be. I was astonished at just how uncivil the place has become - -hawkers getting in your face as you walk though -- not unlike braving thieves alley in a fantasy novel. *shudder*

Anyway, it seems odd to post holiday pictures so early -- but I haven't mastered the art of getting the photos I'll need onto the laptop ahead of time yet. ;) Now that my favorite photo editing software is on the laptop, though, it'll be easier. Can't get them just rioght until I load them here.

More soon...