One row of knitting last night.  One.  Then I was bombarded with children wanting to learn to knit and practice their sewing.  Nathan is sewing this very ambitious hand pieced and stitched quilt and I taught the girls to finger knit.  I’m not the right person to teach them to knit with needles.  Sophie really picked it up, and I’ve got her working on a ball of bright red yarn so we can have a long chain to wrap around the tree this year. 

Today I helped the boys clean out their bedroom while John took the girls to the park.  Good grief.  So disgusting.  I turned in my resignation as their maid several months ago, and they haven’t taken up the slack.  I tried SO hard to let it be their problem and not help them, but I cracked a few days after stepping (barefoot) into a completely green, fuzzy sandwich seeping from a ziplock baggie on their floor.  Luckily, the sandwich (possibly PB&J) was on top of a cloth dartboard that had fallen off the wall, so the damage was contained.  I hopped to the kitchen, swearing loudly, and washed the gick from between my toes, and picked today as the day we’d deal with it. 

A day of thankfulness followed by a day of seething resentment!  How very balanced.

On Thanksgiving morning I made a couple of dishes to take over to my mom’s house.  This one, and this one.  I printed the recipes out and magneted them to the vent hood over the stove.  The kids wanted to help me cook, and since I feel like I don’t see them much lately and because we had plenty of time, I let them.  They all pulled up little chairs and the girls got their aprons on.  Nathan saw that one of the dishes needed cinnamon, and he asked if he could smash up a cinnamon stick in my marble mortar and pestle.  I got him all set up, and he ground up a bunch of fresh cinnamon for me.  It smells a hundred times better than the already ground stuff (even the chi-chi organic pricey kind in the pretty jar) and has way more of a firey scent.  This is embarrassing to admit, but the fresh cinnamon smelled just like cinnamon gum just like the way that real concord grapes  smell and taste like purple grape flavored HubbaBubba.  Everyone helped peel and slice the apples and pears, they measured sugar and cranberries and gluten free pancake mix.  It was nearly fun.  There was too much bickering over who got to measure and pour and chop what for it to be called fun.  Close though.  Give me a few days to gloss it over, and we’ll have had a fabulous time! 

Now I’m slightly less fabulous, because I have a rotten cold.  I haven’t had one in a long time, so I guess I’m due.  It’s been maybe almost a year.  A record, anyway.  I’m at that obnoxious part with the fever and the stingy throat and lips and drippy nose.  For supper I had mango, and tangerine juice with berry flavored emergenC.  Then, hot apple cider.  Now I’m going to grab some tylenol and heat up some sake.  Eventually I’ll feel better.  Or not care.   At this point, I’m open to either.

Oh!  How could I almost forget?  I hurt myself the other night laughing at this with Jenny.   It’s one of the funniest things on the internet.  I promise you won’t be sorry.