It's Always Thanksgiving, There Just Isn't Always Pie

At the Ten Things of Thankful blog hop, we know that Thanksgiving isn't the only time to count your thankfuls. We do it weekly, ten at a time, because being thankful should be a year 'round activity. Here are mine for this week:

We spent last weekend at the lake house with my dad and my daughter and her cat. It was a pleasant, relaxing time.

Two day work week, baby!

I got cookies, pies, caramel popcorn, and Chex mix baked and cranberry salad made before we headed to Kansas City for a family Thanksgiving at my brother and sister in law's home, and I didn't forget any of it on our kitchen counter.

I'm not sure why I made this assumption, but I assumed my niece, who lives in South Carolina, wasn't going to be able to come for Thanksgiving. I was delighted when she came outside to greet us! 

My niece Amy and daughter, playing with Calvin.

After a delicious Thanksgiving meal (that was served at precisely 2:00 as per my brother's spreadsheet), my husband, daughter, and I attended the lighting ceremony at the Country Club Plaza again. It was warmer this year than it was last year, which makes this a double thankful!

Plaza Light Ceremony

My brother got the idea for a family field trip on Friday morning. The only good sports were my brother, niece, husband, and me, but it was WORTH IT. He took us to Moon Marble Company in Bonner Springs, Kansas, a store with a mixture of traditional toys, art glass, and marbles, It gets better. They MAKE MARBLES there. With melted glass and a flame and other magical things, and we were lucky enough to be there when Bruce Breslow, the owner, did his first marble making demonstration since Covid. Fascinating process, plus Breslow is not only a master marble maker but a master entertainer as well. I highly recommend the place if you happen to be in the Kansas City area. 

Bruce Breslow making a marble

People come and go from our lives all the time, but special ones leave a hole in your heart when they go. Back when my kids were preschoolers, I had a friend that I met at an organization for stay at home moms. Tiffany and I became close friends during those years, and when her husband was transferred to another state, I was devastated. They moved several times over the next few years, ending up in Kansas City, then good ol' Facebook became a thing and we were able to keep in better contact. In the meantime, our kids grew to be adults and Tiffany (no longer with the husband and a boss single mom who also worked full time AND got her doctorate) decided to make a big move to Florida two years ago. Once again thanks to social media (Be Real this time), we found out we were both in Kansas City for the holiday, and we spent several hours Saturday evening talking and laughing and catching up. It did my soul good.

Me and Tiffany, Boulevard Brewing Company

I've gained a few pounds this fall, which I am NOT thankful for, but it means that we have plenty to eat.

I talk about attending church at Community Christian Church when we are in Kansas City and how much I love it. I only get to attend in person once every couple of months, but I religiously (no pun intended) attend on-line church when I'm not able to be there. After 15 months of attending either in person or on-line, I received an email from the associate pastor asking if we would like to join the church. Yes, please!  Today, we were welcomed to membership in the church, and I feel so very blessed to be official members of the church family. Thank you, Rev. Ryan, for making us feel so welcome since the first day we walked in the door!

After a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday, my husband and I are back home, where we were greeted by three very cranky cats who did not think it was very Thanksgiving of us to leave them for five days with nothing but dry cat food. They have now been compensated with canned food and all is right in their world.

I hope you had a wonderful holiday and that you remember that Thanksgiving is with us every day of the year, just not always accompanied by turkey and pie.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Quick And Easy (That's What She Said)

Am I phoning in this week's Ten Things of Thankful post? Yes. Is this terribly lazy of me? Also yes. But does it prove that a TToT post can be quick and easy? Absolutely! 

Here are my thankfuls:

1. (Barely) surviving my first five day work week in three weeks.

2.  A warm school building.

3. The smell of pumpkin pie in the oven.

4. Good hair days.

5. My Shark vacuum cleaner. It's awesome at picking up pet hair!

6. The best invention since sliced bread: the heated mattress pad.

7. Tapioca pudding.

8. Etsy shops.

9. Kitty snuggles after being gone all weekend.

10. Anticipation for my favorite holiday of the year: Thanksgiving!

Time to snuggle under the covers that are ALREADY WARMED AND READY THANKS TO MY HEATED MATTRESS PAD. Make notes this week on what YOU are thankful for and link up with us Thanksgiving weekend or any weekend!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

CHIEFS!

My Ten Things of Thankful for this week comes from a little adventure that I waited a lifetime for:

1. I had a three day work week this week, because...

2. ...my husband and I took a couple of days off work to go to Kansas City and spend the weekend (plus 2 days) with our daughter.

3. We ate well, as usual, including my favorite Minsky's Pizza, which we ordered online for carryout and where my daughter and I, sitting in her car in front of the restaurant, got the bejesus scared out of us when a man knocked on the passenger window next to me on two separate occasions. He did this because we had pulled into a space clearly marked "curbside pickup," although neither of us noticed the big sign in front of the car until after the first time he tapped on my window and we screamed and he probably peed his pants a little. Instant replay when he brought the pizzas to the car and once again tapped on my window. I know he was thankful he didn't have to come back to the car a third time, and we were thankful he wasn't a random rapist or murderer.

4. The most exciting part of the weekend, the reason we went to Kansas City that particular weekend for something we had been planning since August, was that we had tickets to see the Chiefs pay at Arrowhead Stadium! It was a night game, not starting until nearly 7:30, which is why we took off work on Monday. (If we had tried to drive back home after the game, it would have been 3 a.m. before we arrived.) SO thankful we were both able to take the time off from work!

5. We picked this game in particular because the Chiefs were playing the Tennessee Titans, and a college friend of my daughter's was a first round draft pick for the Titans. Sadly, he was on the injured reserve list (and had been for a month), but that way, 100% of our loyalty was to the Chiefs.

6. I grew up in Kansas City, but I had never been to a Chiefs game before. I was a kid when they won the 1970 Super Bowl, and it was pretty much impossible to get tickets then unless you were a season pass holder, which my family couldn't afford. Then I moved away to attend college (and points beyond), and my parents moved, and even after my husband and I returned to Missouri, we couldn't afford tickets. Then we made it happen, sitting in the cheap seats high in the sky, but I was FINALLY THERE!

7. We got to the stadium before 4 pm and had quite a lot of time to kill before the game started. We didn't tailgate (next time!), so we wandered around among the hardcore tailgaters and to an event in front of the stadium with music and food and way too many people, BUT I got my picture taken with KC Wolf, the Chiefs mascot, so my day was absolutely made!

8. It got cold, but not too cold. 

9. Okay, it got too cold during the 4th quarter, but when the game ended with a tie and went into overtime, the adrenaline rush made the ol' blood flow and I felt a wee little bit warmer!

10. They WON!

Did it take an hour and a half to get out of the parking lot and drive the six miles back to Emma's apartment? Yes. Did I spend a stupid amount of money on hot dogs? Yes. Did the four guys in front of me spend the entire game on their feet, loudly giving advice to the refs, the player, and the coaches? Yesssss. Was it all worth it? YES!

If you have a spare 20 minutes, watch this video about prepping for game day at Arrowhead, including some fun footage of Dan Meers, a/k/a KC Wolf, who has been the Chiefs mascot for 30 years.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Had A Little Owie

Hoo boy, I had quite a week! It started out with Halloween, my least favorite holiday, and wild little preschoolers on sugar and adrenaline highs, and it ended with an emergency department visit. For the record, no relationship between the littles and the emergency, but Imma take that little visit and drag it out to give me my Ten Things of Thankful this week:

Just an hour or so before the fiasco began....

1. Thursday evening found me making an apple crisp for my co-worker's birthday celebration that was being held the next day at school. I overbought apples, so after I completed the apple crisp for Manda, I began making a second batch just for ourselves.

2. The apples were peeled, quartered, and cored, and the next step was cutting them into smaller pieces. I had cut maybe a quarter of them when my left index finger grazed the edge of the knife blade. Just a little scratch.

The guillotine 

3. Wrong. Blood began pouring out of a cut in my finger that started at the edge of my fingernail and ran around the side of my finger on a diagonal. I stuck it under the faucet and ran cold water over it and made a stab (no pun intended) at assessing the depth of the cut. Eight paper towels later, I assessed that it was deep enough that I wasn't going to be able to get the bleeding to stop, so I went upstairs and very calmly told my husband I should probably go to an urgent care. 

My husband jumped up from his chair and went directly into panic mode. I directed him to find out what urgent care facility was still open (it was 7 pm) as I availed myself of the facilities before we left (I always have to pee in emergency situations like filleted fingers, tornado warnings, and earthquakes), using only one hand while continuing to keep several paper towels held tightly over the cut.

4. After driving across town like he was Mario Andretti (and with both of us angry because I kept telling him to slow down before we BOTH needed an emergency room visit), we got to an urgent care that was open until 8 pm. (For readers who are in the US, urgent care facilities treat minor injuries and illnesses and keep you from having to go to the actual Emergency Room at a hospital, where people are REALLY sick or injured).

My paper towel pressure bandage

5. I waited only about 5 minutes before being taken back to an exam room.

6. It was the very, very end of their day, but every one of the personnel I dealt with were very kind and helpful, even though I know they had to be tired and just wanted to go home.

7. The doctor determined I could be glued together rather than stitched, but I would need a tetanus shot if mine wasn't up-to-date (it wasn't). Funny thing, I got my Covid booster and flu shot a few weeks ago, and I WOULD have gotten my tetanus booster at the same time, but the pharmacist said I shouldn't get all three done in the same arm at the same time (I was instructed always to get shots, blood draws, etc., in the right arm because my breast cancer was on my left side). I opted to get the flu shot and Covid booster together, saying "I'm much more likely to get the flu than I am tetanus..."  

8. Bleeding still refused to stop, so the doctor put a tourniquet on my finger. I said it looked like a castrating ring, and the doctor laughed and assured me he would not castrate me. The tourniquet/castrating ring worked, and I was successfully glued back together (take THAT, Humpty Dumpty!).

You say tourniquet, I say castrating ring

9. I sat around for a bit, waiting for the glue to dry. The nurse came in and gave me the tetanus booster (which did not hurt, because she uses a smaller needle when she gives one). She then rolled my castrating ring, I mean, tourniquet down further and snipped it off, but what was left behind was a very neat but bloody cut around my finger where the ring had been. "Oh, no!" she exclaimed, "We really DID almost castrate you!" It didn't hurt at all, though. I was sent home with a splint on my finger to protect the cut and prevent me from bending my finger and breaking the wound open. 

Cut from tourniquet

My littles at school the next day were very intrigued with my splint and that I had an owie, and then each and every one of them proceeded to show me every tiny owie THEY had, real and imagined. It was a great bonding time.

Sporting my splint

10. Yesterday, I took the splint off and saw that the cut from the tourniquet had healed over and it looked like the scab from it was lifting off already. Hmmm. I started picking at it, and it all came off in one piece. Hmmm again. It turns out it wasn't a cut or a scab at all; it was blood from the original cut that formed a neat little line along the edge of the glue line. No wonder it didn't hurt!

Wrapped my finger in a shower cap and
secured it with a hair tie so I could shower

The glue is starting to wear off now, three days post-near severing (not really) of my finger. Still a little tender, but I can now type with two hands and tie my shoes, so all is now well! 

It's not too late to join the hop! Link up!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter