Thanksgiving eve dinner

As best I can remember:
Thirty pounds of potatoes
Ten pounds of sweet potatoes
Twelve pounds of corn
Five dozen rolls baked from scratch
Four batches of cornbread, made into dressing
One large ham
Three turkey breasts and one whole turkey
Eight pumpkin pies
A quadruple batch of apple cake
Somewhere around a gallon of gravy
homemade corn tortillas
and Luis's hot sauce!

This was Wednesday; yesterday I only sliced some venison and fried it with potatoes, onions & apples.....no one complained, either. Perhaps they didn't dare!

If anyone

is looking for me, I'm without a computer (other than a few minutes here and there on borrowed time), probably til early next week.
I've been checking for messages on FB and if I have time, Etsy, but FB is the best way to reach me.

I laughed, sort of...

Adapting in place had a very pointed post about how we regard those we view to be on public assistance...I have to admit it hit a little closer to home than I would have liked.

Lightening the load

When we moved here from Anchorage I had a fairly large book collection---somewhere around 1000 pounds, much to my husbands dismay. I did weed out a few before we left, but I kept the bulk of them and we packed them up and loaded them in the trailer.
I've sold a few dozen on Amazon in the year since, but the bookshelves are still overflowing.

Life has changed for me, a lot, since I first decided I wanted to be a textile artist/costumer, and frankly, I wonder now what I was thinking then. These books have always been a part of me, something I would never part with. A couple of days ago it occurred to me that if I got rid of some of them I wouldn't have to carry them with me if we moved again. It was a strange thought and oddly attractive. I have four boxes ready to take to friends tomorrow, and I feel lighter already.

48

Yesterday was my 48th birthday and Punkin made me a wonderful card; it featured a cake with 48 carefully drawn candles! I am very blessed!

Today was the funeral. It was very well done and very moving---Punkin had a really hard time, though. We're not doing schoolwork today, she can't concentrate.

We made the annual trip to Sam's yesterday for flour and things of that nature. After we were done, and ready to head home, the troops were hungry. Rather than wait the hour to get home, we went to a buffet style restaurant that was on the way out of town. Thirty dollars later, we realized that the amount we had spent on one meal would have purchased somewhere around twenty pounds each of beans and rice, enough for about three months, the way we eat. For that we got canned corn, frozen chicken and a variety of similar items, equally pregurgitated and extruded.
Time to start a pot of black beans soaking!

Empty

is how I feel, no great extremes, just empty. Monday morning brought the news that Cindi was gone, and I was dreading the question from Punkin, "how is Miss Cindi doing?" At ten she's old enough for this, people don't just vanish, but the look on her face tore at my heart.
If only we saw in the Spirit more clearly, this sorrow would not be so great---some people did see and feel her entrance to heaven. Her husband saw the light as she went, Pastor felt it as a wave of brilliance that made him sweat and Irene saw it the night before as we knelt beside her bed.
Then Monday night we heard that the doctors could not find a heart beat for Nicole's baby and we wept again.