Too Much Celebrating?

Reason to Remember – Collage, 5×7″

 

We had a wonderful, family-filled Thanksgiving holiday, with one son and his family here for a week, plus my husband’s sister here for 3 days at the end of that week. It was the first time she had seen our son for maybe 10 years, and the first time for her to meet his wife and two little ones.

Then on Thanksgiving Day my sister and two of her daughters came, and Jim’s niece and her boyfriend as well. We had a dozen people in our little house that day. The real blessing was that the warm weather allowed me to set up an extra two tables out on the screened porch.

I made all of the side dishes, including a pumpkin and a pecan pie. There was turkey and all the trimmings, my sister-in-law’s outrageously rich brownies, my sister’s special homemade rolls, wine, beer, and Champagne and more Champagne.

My 3-year-old granddaughter did art on two different days, and wanted to do art every single day! I wished I had had time to accommodate her. I’m sad that in the confusion I didn’t scan or photograph any of her pictures, but was thrilled to show her my toy — my Gelli plate. She did several amazing prints with it and was so proud of her art.

Another fun thing I did with her was take her out back to my compost pile so she could help me break up the Halloween pumpkin that had been sitting out on my front porch all this time. The weather got a little warm, and it had gotten a very big soft spot on the bottom, but I knew there was still some good pumpkin left. So she watched me smash it on the ground right next to the compost pile, where I could easily scoop the bad parts right into the mix and rescue some nice huge chunks of the good part for making pies. Since she had participated in the whole process, she couldn’t wait to try the pumpkin pie.

It was a wonderful time, but at the very end, Jim and I managed to get a nasty cold which turned into bronchitis. It’s been a very long time since I’ve even had a cold at all, and this stuff just really drags a person down. Not bad enough to go to bed, but bad enough to be very, very annoying and sleep depriving! I’ve sat and stared at the computer screen for several days now, just not feeling quite inspired enough to write. But as of yesterday it was as if I walked out the other side of a fog. Things are looking up!

The above collage is still part of the “Collage to Go” project I was working on before the holiday. I have several more of those ready to scan. This one just became sort of a crazy quilt, and was fun to do.