13 Mixed Feelings, a Thanksgiving List

I’m thankful. Really, I am. But you know, everything seems to come with a grain of salt.

1. It’s pretty outside. More on that in a bit.

2. I finished writing the rough draft of Crazy Love. Yay! It’s a little short. Well, it depends on how you look at it. It’s 7,109 words short for NaNo, but it’s just about right for Wild Rose Press. It’ll grow as I revise, which means a quick shifting of gears for me, but that’s doable. That’s right, my rough drafts grow in revision, probably because they tend to be heavy on the dialogue and lack details.

3. Some of you all have stuck with me this month when my blogging sucked. I broke my well-over-1,000-consecutive-posts run, having skipped both Saturday and Sunday. I’m bailing on Friday, too. That’s right, I’m totally skipping both Fiction Friday 55 and Suzie’s House in favor of hanging out with my family. Saturday I’ll post what I’d planned to do last Saturday but didn’t get around to. Hopefully I’ll be up to speed by Sunday. All month long I’ve been reduced to vising the blogs of only those who have commented on mine when they comment. The results have not been pretty.

4. My carpel tunnel isn’t bothering me nearly as much this year as it did last year. I’ve discovered a secret. Besides wearing my wrist brace consistently and making sure my keyboard is lined up just right, I need to relax. The more lightly I type, the better. Strangely, it turns out that typing gently also lets me type faster.

5. The turkey thawed in time this year. I bought it on Saturday. This was quite the adventure. The store had advertisements in their fliers and on their web site for 49 cent per pound birds. Problem was finding them in the store. They had about twenty different verities of turkey, most of them in the $1.50 per pound range. At one point I even walked out of the store intending to head to a different one with the same special, but decided to give it one more go. This time I flagged down an employee. The birds for the special were in a bin that was wedged between others, unlabeled in any way, and the labels on the birds themselves were close, but not an exact match to the flier.

6. I’ve made great progress on my latest quilt. It isn’t quite as far along as I’d hoped, but it’s still in great shape.

7. I have family coming to visit. They are coming just short of 500 miles to hang out with us through the long weekend. They will be bringing the dinner rolls and pecan pie. I’ll be cooking everything else because we aren’t sure they’ll get here in time because:

8. It snowed. A lot. They are calling it a blizzard. They closed a 200 mile section of the interstate because of it. It’s pretty, but it’s bitter cold. Last night when I was out driving (no, I’m not insane, why do you ask?) I watched the store signs that give you things like the latest price of milk and time of day display 7 degrees, then 5 degrees, then 2 degrees over the course of half an hour. Brrrrrr.

9. My furnace is working. It wasn’t in September. It’s this 30 year old clunker of a beast that barely chugged it’s way through a mild winter last year. I had to call in a repairman in September to fix it. $170. They did a quick tune up while they were at it and gave me forms for a rebate from the local power company. Got $75 back! I am so very glad I don’t have to compete with everyone else in town who is having furnace problems. The repair vans are out in force.

10. I read Trevor’s Song by Susan Helene Gottfried. I don’t generally like tearjerkers, but this one had me alternating between laughing and crying and the ending was great, so I forgive her. Thumbs up on this one. I’m going to teaser the heck out of it ind December.

11. The Girl says she’s thankful that I am such an understanding mother. I’m not sure why she’s trying to butter me up. Might have something to do with the grades I haven’t seen yet.

12. The Boy says he’s thankful he doesn’t have a monkey. Long story.

13. He’s also thankful we have a lot of houseplants. I have no idea why, and he couldn’t clarify when I asked.

Edited 11/25/10 2:39pm to add photo and correct order.