November 2024 – Sweat & Sparkle

Every weekend, I sit down with my planner and map out the upcoming week. Last night, I scribbled away, noting all the events, listing all my to-do activities. One thing is for sure: this is going to be a busy week!

I started baking over the weekend, not for Thanksgiving, just because I was excited and wanted to make something. My co-workers are happy for the sweets I brought them today.

I have my recipes printed for the Thanksgiving desserts, since I can’t stand trying to follow a recipe on a phone or tablet. Give me good, old-fashioned paper that gets flour and sugar scattered across the page, something I can brush off, file away, and pull out again next year like an old friend.

Last year at this time, I was hiking a mountain in North Carolina to stand triumphantly, huffing and puffing, at the top of a waterfall with my husband. I was still battling bronchitis at the time, so I consider it an extra special victory that I made it to the top with a pulse. We’re not talking neat, packed-down, well-traveled paths here. We’re talking steep, grab-a-rock-and-haul-yourself-up kind of hiking.

No mountain trails or waterfalls this year, but I am still excited. This week is going to fly by, with so much to do and so much to prepare. Next year, when I look back at this Thanksgiving, I wonder: what will I remember, with a smile, and possibly write about?

Remembering

This quote made me stop today and think about all the Thanksgivings I have celebrated already, leading up to this year.

I remember the house smelling delicious as my mom cooked when I was little, and how she would call me conspiratorially into the kitchen as soon as the turkey came out of the oven so she could slice off a thin piece of that heavenly, crispy skin for me. I don’t think anything has ever tasted so good as that first bite, my mom smiling as I enjoyed it and let her know how good it was.

I remember my first Thanksgiving away from home, my first year of college, when a young lady across the hall in my dorm begged me to help her make the holiday feast for a nearby home for adults with disabilities. (She was a special education major, and I think she volunteered in class but ended up the only one actually doing it.) I told her I had never cooked a Thanksgiving meal before, and neither had she, so we figured it out together, bright and early that Thanksgiving morning. I swear we checked that poor turkey every 15 minutes for hours, worried we were going to burn it to a crisp. The house staff invited us to stay to eat the meal with them, and it was a pleasant surprise that everything was not only edible, but pretty damn good.

I remember one of my first Thanksgivings with my husband and the kids. My mom came to visit, and she pretended to pray loudly about my husband’s driving when we picked her up from the airport. I laughed as my husband and my mom picked on each other the whole ride home. My husband even pulled into the driveway of an abandoned, crumbling house as a prank, pretending that was our house, and my mom had a fit. He burst out laughing at her reaction. We still joke about it when we occasionally drive by that old, abandoned house that somehow, miraculously, is still standing.

After my mom couldn’t get around easily anymore, I remember so many airport layovers, standing in line for rental cars, excited to see my brothers at her house for Thanksgiving. My brothers and I scattered after graduation, and sometimes it was years in between those visits with them. (Looking back, it was too many years. Way too many.)

Two years ago, I had already reserved a car and had my trip planned to head to my mom’s again for Thanksgiving, this time with my husband, and she was excited that both of us were coming. She was making a list of things she needed help with around the house, and she kept double-checking with me, making sure we were definitely coming. I told her yes, it’s all booked. She died two months before Thanksgiving, and I will always feel like I missed out on just one more Thanksgiving there, one more visit, one more hug, one more laugh while she and my husband picked on each other. With my brothers there, it would have been even louder, with even more joking and laughing. It hurts to have missed out on it.

Last year, I met up with all three of my brothers in the mountains for Thanksgiving, with my husband, and my niece and nephew were there as well. I loved every minute of it. Losing my mom makes me want to grasp onto my brothers and maybe make up for some of the time we have lost, being so far away from each other. I have pictures from that trip all over my desk at work. It meant a lot to me. I like to think our mom was able to be there with us in some way, and it would make her happy to know we spent that Thanksgiving together.

And this year? I printed a few recipes today for different desserts I want to make. After spending so many Thanksgivings with my mom, I struggle a bit with this holiday. It’s still one of my favorite holidays, but it’s bittersweet now. I am still trying to figure out new traditions and new ways to celebrate.

I am grateful for each Thanksgiving of my past, and I am grateful for where I am today. I am thankful to spend this holiday with my husband, in the home that we love. I don’t take any of our days together for granted. For everything that led me to where I am now…for every twist and turn that placed him and me together…I am exceptionally grateful.

Not for the Faint of Heart

Kids Again

When the kids were little, my husband and I took them to the state fair every fall. I have so many pictures and memories of the lights, the sounds, the smells, of standing in line with excited and impatient little ones, of waving to tiny blonde heads as they spun and flipped and turned on rides, searching to see if we were watching.

Last weekend, we took the kids to the fair again. All four kids are adults now, so we walk right past the kiddie rides and the fun house. But I can’t help but feel a pang of nostalgia as we do, because I remember stopping at each one, waiting with my husband, holding the kids’ hard-won toys or drink cups and other prizes, juggling everything to find a free hand to take pictures of them on those rides or skipping through the fun house. Was it really that long ago? Doesn’t seem like it.

Last night was a value night at the fair, practically free to get in and to ride, so my husband and I went back, just the two of us. We strolled through the displays from 4-H, the marketplace, the sewing and photography contests, things the kids rush past on their way to cotton candy, deep-fried goodness, and rides.

We sat down to split a funnel cake, and I found myself saying, “Want to buy a few ride tickets?”

My husband looked surprised. I get motion sickness pretty quickly, so it’s unusual for me to suggest hopping on the rides. Blame it on sentimentality, remembering the fair when the kids were little, or running around the fair with my brothers much longer ago, fearlessly leaping onto anything that spun or whirled or turned upside down.

We bought some tickets, then headed for the rides like we were doing something so wild and crazy. We shrieked, laughed, ran into each other, and climbed out of ride cars swearing we were never doing that again, only to get into another line and do it again anyway.

I took a photo with him while we waited for one of the rides to start. His hat was backwards, my hair was messed up, our faces were shiny from the humid southern night. It was not a glamorous photo by any means. But in that photo, we are both smiling and laughing, and we are infectiously happy, waiting for that ride to swing us around and crash us into each other, like we were kids ourselves again.

One ride spun us in so many dizzying, rapid-fire circles that I could barely get out of my seat when it was over, and I held onto my husband’s arm as we struggled for steady ground again. We had to sit down for a bit, both of us moaning that we were going to throw up.

So was it a bad idea after all? Not even a little bit. The fair had some of my favorite rides from when I was little. It was a thrill to get onto those same rides with my husband, to laugh and scream and hold onto each other and forget everything in the whole world except that moment, just us. I can’t handle the rides quite like I did when I was young and indestructible, but feeling seasick was worth it anyway. We had fun.

We got to bed much too late last night, and it was agonizing to get up for work this morning. We held onto each other until the last possible minute, hitting snooze again and again.

I find myself still thinking about the rides last night, and how maybe next year we should get the arm band for unlimited rides, and how I very much enjoyed turning back the clock and being silly kids again with him for the night. We should–and will–do it more often!