What's Cookin'?

So tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I couldn't care less.

I give thanks to God for His many blessings EVERYDAY of the year. It's the very first thing I do EVERY morning, and the very last thing I do EVERY night. And throughout the day there are many more thanks and praises sprinkled in. So for me, Thanksgiving is "just another day."

What tomorrow means to me, more than anything, is a much needed day off...followed by ANOTHER much needed day off. This is the 4 day weekend that I look forward to every year. Vacation days are so few and far between for me (and it seems that they accumulate like molasses), so when these 4 days come around I am absolutely ELATED.

I won't be cooking, but I have plenty of salmon and veggies to keep me perfectly happy if that's what I end up eating tomorrow.

I dunno.

Maybe I don't care much about Thanksgiving because my Mom is no longer here. But even when she was, we didn't do anything big or fancy. She and my dad had stopped cooking "traditional" Thanksgiving dinner YEARS ago. When I think about it...I did too.

I made a turkey and all the fixin's last year, and the turkey was terrible. Tough. Tasteless. Terrible. There was no LOVE in it at all. We had just had my Mom's homegoing service a couple days earlier and my mind was really not in the right place to prepare a big family dinner.

I picked up some things this evening to take to one of the homes that I've been invited to, and I might not even eat when I get there. I'm just not feeling Thanksgiving-ish AT ALL.

My kids were gonna by a bunch of food and have me cook it so that we could have Thanksgiving here at home, but I quickly vetoed that. I don't want to COOK, and I don't want to EAT. I just want to BE. As I write those words I realize that it's probably selfish of me to NOT cook. But it's not like they're not going to have Thanksgiving dinner...they're just not going to have it here.

Who knows. I might just find myself at the beach again. I'm guaranteed to have the place to myself again. There's so much I need to talk with the Lord about, and although I know I can talk to Him anywhere, the beach always makes our time together so very special. We'll see.

So anywhoo...that'll be my day tomorrow. I'm sure that I will attend Thanksgiving service at my church, but aside from that, the rest of the day is pretty much up in the air.

Let the DIALOGUE begin: Are you COOKING Thanksgiving dinner, or will you be dining with others at their homes?

Talk to me!

Til next time...

Not That Hungry

Tonight is one of those nights where I'm not really quite sure what to write about so I've turned to my handy little book that was given to me a couple birthdays ago called, "642 Things To Write About". I flipped through the pages and nothing jumped out at me. So I went to the first page and picked the first topic I saw. It was this:

The worst Thanksgiving dish you ever had

So here goes.

I don't remember the EXACT year, I just know that it was between 20-25 years ago.

My grandmother had passed away and my grandfather was seeing this new "woman" who he had decided to marry, so he decided to have the family over for Thanksgiving dinner...prepared by "her".

What I didn't know at the time was that everyone else in the family had already met her. I, somehow, was the only one who hadn't yet.

Well...I met her...and didn't like her. Twenty some odd years later, my dislike for her was completely warranted as she turned out to be a real witch...with a capital B.

Anyhoo...I digress...

It was time for dinner and we all gathered 'round the table and start dishing food onto our plates. I got some turkey and went to pour what I *thought* was gravy. Well...the only thing gravy-ish about it was the fact that it was in a gravy bowl, tureen...whatever that thing is called. But what was swimming around in the bowl was NOT gravy...it was GREASE. Straight GREASE.

I decided to pass on that and instead, just ate my dry turkey DRY.

I'm sure that there was more to the meal that wasn't very palatable but at this moment all that sticks with me is that GREASE.

That was the LAST meal of hers that I've ever eaten, and I think that if I were starving and she offered me food today, I'd just have to go on home to glory. She's a SNAKE and I wouldn't want anything from her...EVER. But again...that's another story for a different day.

Let the DIALOUGUE begin: What's the worst Thanksgiving dish you ever had?

Talk to me!

Til next time...

The First of The "Firsts"

So today is Thanksgiving and I can say that I've made it through.

I wasn't sure how things were gonna go, but they went, and I'm ok.

For those who don't know...my Mom passed away 18 DAYS AGO, so this was my first Thanksgiving without her.

Everyone who's lost a close loved-one has told me that the "Year of Firsts" will be difficult.

For me they will be in this order:
Thanksgiving
Mom's Birthday
Christmas
Easter
Mother's Day
My Birthday

One down, five to go.

For the most part, pretty much everything felt the same today. We'd stopped gathering as a big family years ago, so I'd usually stop by in the evening for a bit. Wouldn't even eat dinner because I would've already eaten earlier. The visit was merely to stop by and hang out. That's what I did today. Primarily to check on my Dad & brothers to see how they were holding up. Everything was pretty much as it had always been. The only differences were that my Mom didn't come out of her room as she used to do when I'd arrive, and her physical presence was now in the form of ashes in a box, still packaged in a plastic bag with the mortuary's name on it.

That was a bit difficult to process. Knowing that all of my Mom in the PHYSICAL sense now fit into a box sitting on the coffee table. It's kind of ironic when I think about it. In life, my mother NEVER fit into a box...meaning society's box. She always beat to her own drum and was one of the most unique people I knew. Now...she fits into a box about 2 feet by 3 feet, if even that big.

Thankfully, I know that her spirit is no where near that box. Her spirit is eternally in Heaven with our Lord Jesus. And in that I find complete peace and comfort.

What will we do with her ashes? Who knows.

I think my Dad wants to put them in a nice urn. I'd love to sail out to sea and scatter them. Perhaps I'm being selfish in my suggestion because if the ashes were MINE, I'd most definitely want to be sprinkled in my favorite place...the ocean.

He needs time though and that's understandable. He feels the need to hold on to the ashes as a means of holding on to her. I get that. We all process death differently, so he's free to do what he pleases with her ashes if they bring him comfort.

So folks...there you have it.

Let the DIALOGUE begin: Have you had a loved one cremated, and if so, what did you do with the ashes?

Talk to me!

Til next time...