Thanksgiving

I was pretty proud of myself.  This Thanksgiving is the first since Amanda died that I did not cry.  I did tear up once, but I did not cry.  I cooked. We ate.  I kept a candle lit for her all day.  Michael went to Sara's parents' in Wilmington and they fixed a fully vegetarian Thanksgiving spread.  He said he envied our meat LOL but that everything turned out great!

For the first time in my life, I made cornbread stuffing from scratch (okay, minus the box mix I used for the actual cornbread).  It was excellent!!!  I usually skip the stuffing any time it's served, but I was really curious.  I had found the recipe on Pinterest and it sounded easy enough.  I added dried cranberries to it, lessened the amount of onion for Tim's sake, increased the celery.  It was so flipping good!  Since I'd used Jiffy brand cornbread mix, it had a sweetness to it that Dad didn't care for, but Tim said it was the best stuffing he'd ever had. Woot!  I know it was the best I'd ever had.  I sent over some of everything to Jack and Sheila.  Tim said Jack was excited because I'd made "pink stuff."  Tony even texted me the day before for the recipe for pink stuff.  That was Grandma Cox's thing she used to make so I've continued the tradition.

We received our things back from Pickles & Pottery.  They turned out so good!  Tim's was the Holy family and mine was an angel holding a heart that I put Amanda's initials in.  That got me in the mood to decorate and for the first time since Amanda died that I actually wanted to engage in all aspects of Christmas.  Thanksgiving day I had Tim put the tree together (not decorated, just up) while I cooked.  After lunch (and a nap) we decorated the tree and I did the house inside.  When I'd been cleaning out Dad's broken storage shed, I'd run across some ornaments/wreath that were keepers so yesterday Tim and I went out to the good shed and brought those out.  We decorated the outside of the house for the first time since living here.  It's cute.  The other night we went to Elements and painted a cute Christmas tree in a blizzard.  Those are hanging as well as the other Christmas pictures we've painted there.  I did get a little weepy when we were decorating the tree.  Sometimes it's just so hard thinking about her not being here, about our family not being all together.  I feel like whether we go home for holidays or stay here, I'm always letting someone down and I hate that.  Anyway, that is all :-)