Together for a short while

My thanksgiving flag.

Everyone was together yesterday. My little family includes my Mom, Jonah, his wife Amber, Alecia, her husband Josh and their 2 girls, Addisun age 2-1/2 and Jorden age 11. We had vegetable tray with ranch dressing, chips with salsa (my Mom's friend brought it to her from Ft. Worth, Tx), Stover's lasagna, garlic bread, brownies with vanilla ice-cream and sweet iced tea.  Everybody was hungry which I like, and ready to eat. The time seems to go so fast. Eat, talk, hug goodbye.  We did exchange names for Christmas gifts. We started doing this last year. We put a $50.00 limit which I think may still be too much. In fact we forgot to say the money amount yesterday.  Since we were getting together for the Thanksgiving holiday I kept thinking it was Thursday. I did get a turkey breast and pumpkin pie to cook for Thanksgiving. My favorite food for TG is white meat of turkey, cornbread dressing, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. When I cook for myself and Mom, that is all I fix.  Yum. 

Jorden spent the night and we are going on a little road trip for a couple of days. I love spending time with her. She is growing up so fast and I know these little trips won't last forever. She will have her own family one day which I look forward to being a part of.

Happy Monday.

All done with the den

Finished painting. Cleaned all the books out that were unnecessary and needed another home. Did I mention all the tile I had lined up against the wall that I got for free. I have been holding on to this but again cannot use because it is such a big deal to lay it down. Preparation for this is too difficult.  Oh well. I have put it on the deck and may list it on craigslist for free. Hopefully it will be gone before too long.  Sometimes the projects you want to do are not always workable. I find it very hard to find a "handyman". My new front door has been behind my couch in the living room wanting to be put up for probably 2 mo. I guess I will have to get "Home Depot" to do it. I thought I could find a HM but to no avail. Apparently there is work but where are the workers.

How do we collect so much stuff.  I still need to get a handle on it. Free or cheap is not the reason to collect stuff you are not using. If you cannot use it right away -- then don't bring it home.  Right?

All in all the den looks so much better. 


Books before the purge.

Working on moving the bookcases. Condensed down to two.

The tile mess.

Tile on the deck waiting for a home.

The den all cleaned up. Not beautiful but functional.

Now to work on the kitchen, and living room, expecting family over tomorrow for Thanksgiving lunch (lasagna I think still pondering the menu, not turkey). Doing it early makes sure we are all together close to the holiday. As our families grow our time together gets less and less. I love my little family and want them to have their own traditions and not feel pressured to chop up their holidays.