a team effort

 

Not these two. They were pretty much no help, just sat there and smirked.

I have some truly goofy Thanksgiving decorations, but I like them.

 Here's Maria arranging the flowers.

 After she got done, she announced they looked like shit.

What? Do not tell me $40 worth of fresh cut flowers look like shit.

She sighed, just not satisfied with the arrangements. (She's kind of a perfectionist.) They look fine, festive, beautiful.

We are ready.   Everybody's bringing side dishes, and the turkey is ready to go into the oven at 5 am.

 Today we dusted and vacuumed and put away random clutter.  One item on the to-do list was to clear off this table.  

Usually it's full of clean clothes folded in stacks, and papers of every kind.

 This corner is where papers normally go when I move them from the table.  So this was a pretty major heap too.  It's better now.   A garbage bag was involved.

Same with this spot.  How many Target receipts does a person need?

 My car is being worked on this week, fixing the bumper, so all the stuff normally stored in the trunk was being stored in the living room.   That would include bags of old clothes to donate and also a huge laundry basket of pool toys.  Well, they've been relocated.

Clearing off the buffet was another item on the to-do list.  Ta-da!

 We even went nuts and replaced all the burned out light bulbs.  Why do they all burn out at once in the fall?

Tim and Julia are sleeping over at John and Dannell's tonight.  Dannell suggested the sleepover and I told her this:  "This is the same problem we had with sleepovers in the summer.  The kids are on totally different clocks."    Their kids sleep from 7pm until 6 am.   Tim and Julia sleep from about midnight until 11 am.

She said to ask them.  They don't have to go to bed early, but they sure won't be able to sleep half the day.

They considered the situation for a couple minutes, Tim had his hands shoved down in his pockets and walked around a little, and Julia was kicking around on my bed.  After a little discussion they said it'd be fine.  They could go to bed at 10 if they had to, and they knew the kids would be loud in the morning.

Dannell came here late in the morning to pick them up, and I was afraid she's just grab them and get back on the road, but she didn't.  They all came in and were in my arms, silky hair against my cheek, and ran off with Tim and their video games.  Dannell, Maria, m.c., and I had a half hour together, which is rare.

So tomorrow we'll hear how this optomistic mismatched sleepover went.  (I do hope it went well.)

And we're going eat turkey and pie, and be grateful because we really are:  in so many ways, for so many things, tangible things, and also things not so much so.

  love always, Val