Gratitude

Bartel Thanksgiving

We filled the dining room and the smallest people overflowed to a table in the spare bedroom. There were three kinds of soup, a Mexican shepherd's pie, zwiebach and jam, two kinds of pie, and lemon cake.

Even better was good conversation, games, dogs playing in the back yard, remembering Mom and Dad. There was just a moment when I was setting up the tables when I caught myself thinking Mom would be with us. My niece and I talked about how slippery time is...that it seems like it can't be four years since Dad died, and it also seems like it's been longer than three months since Mom died.

Fritz loves my sister's family dog, Ollie, a golden-doodle puppy who is already bigger than Fritz. Fritz hasn't shown a lot of interest in playing with other dogs, so I was suprised at how much he seeks out Ollie.

At one point my daughter said, "I love that my mom can tell her brothers about a podcast about patriarchy and they are interested!" (May not the exact quote, but I think I got the meaning right) I love that too!

Divided up some of the leftovers and enjoyed some today for lunch.

Other things in no particular order

*It was a cold but beautiful afternoon and I got a walk with Fritz just at sunset. My phone doesn't do a great job with sunsets---always too dark or too bright---so I'm putting in pics of me and Fritz instead.

 

*During the walk, just a bit past the place where I took those pictures, I heard rustling in those milo stalks. I thought it could be wind or a small animal, but wind was unlikely because it was so very still. The rustling got louder and I paused to watch. There were two animals. They were larger than coyotes, with thick fur that was more black and gray, and much less brown than coyotes. They could have been someone's dogs? but I haven't seen any of that type in the neighborhood. Also, dogs who live with people usually would have come to greet Fritz, and these clearly wanted to move away from us. They looked similar to those fluffy sled dogs, like maybe Malamutes. I wondered about wolves, but that seems unlikely.

*In the stillness it was easy to hear the geese coming from a long way off as they made their way to their night stopping places.

*We had nothing on the schedule today except church this morning, so a long cozy nap was perfect.

*Homemade oatmeal bread in a grilled ham and cheese sandwich for supper.

*Children's feature this morning was on a Thanksgiving theme and was well done by my niece, with the help of the youth group, and a video from Kid President about being thankful. 

Enjoy!