The Four Days of Thanksgiving.

We never do get to celebrate a whole 12 days of Christmas, but at least we got 4 days of Thanksgiving - and man was it fabulous! This Thanksgiving things we did not do: Drive to Florida, arriving at 3am to wake up at 8am, go to three Thanksgivings, get hardly any sleep, hardly get to see anyone, arrive back home at 1am to go to work the next day at 8am - only to turn around in three weeks and do it again. So this year we decided to stay home, catch up on sleep, projects, housework, and just plain relaxing. Mission accomplished! So the four days of Thankgsgiving:

Day One-Half: Thanksgiving officially starts Wednesday night. We had a friend visiting from Boston so we all got a big group together at Blueberry Hill (big hang out in STL) to catch up with her and hang out. Fantastic time and we had a great time seeing everyone. We miss this gathering every year because we're always driving, so it was nice to participate for once.

Day One: THANKSGIVING! We had a very "non-traditional" Thanksgiving. We were going to go to friends but neither of us was feeling great - general malise/winter cold and didn't want to get anyone else sick. It was also insanely cold outside - it even snowed a bit (the first snow of the season), though not enough to stick on the ground - "flurries."So we stayed home and started our big project - going through our crap. We took everything off the shelves, out of drawers and off of counters in the Boy Room and went through it all -unless we had a regular use for it or we loved it, it was tossed, donated, or put in a pile to sell (Ebay, etc.). It might sound boring, stupid or a complete waste of Thanksgiving but it was great for both of us and we both felt "lighter" afterwards. We also got to watch the Green Bay game - another win (Cody's a big Green Bay fan, being born in Wisconsin and all).Then we baked ourselves a ham, heated up some canned green beans and corn and had ourselves a nice Thanksgiving dinner. :) I even brought out the good glasses and the tablecloth for the occassion.

Day Two: Friday. We actually had planned on possibly doing a bit of shopping for some very targeted items - mainly Cody a good winter coat - but then we didn't get up until noon and it was still insanely cold so we decided against that. We actually went to Target to get some regular shopping done and then went to Goodwill. Cody loves his Goodwill. Then we came home and - drum roll please - painted our bathroom. This project has been on my "to do" list for over two years now. It's a small bathroom so it didn't take too long and we used some left-over paint that I thought was going to be too dark, but I LOVE it. More then anything I love that it's done (mostly - I still have to paint the door and the trim). Then we went up to Lowe's, bought a new light and sat on the floor and smiled at our wonderful work. It was so great to get a major project done!

Day Three: Saturday. I wanted to get our Christmas tree but Cody said that we had to get the house cleaned before we brought that big project in. So he worked on his homework and I cleaned, cleaned, cleaned - again more wonderful. Then of course it was football, football, football. We went to Ozzie's as usual to watch the Gator game but because the Tennessee v. Kentucky game went into three overtimes, we missed most of the first half. Boo!! But the game was good - Tebow was a god as usual. He made his case quite clearly for the Heisman - if he doesn't get it the whole reason will be that he's a sophmore. I think everyone agrees he's the greatest player in college football right now. Then we watch the first half of the Missouri v. Kansas game before moving on to a friend's Christmas party to watch the second half. We honestly thought this was going to be a good game - it sucked. Kansas was supposed to be this great team - I think Notre Dame could have beat them. They have NO offense and even less defense. Their offence missed two relatively short field goals and then threw an interception in the endzone - they seriously suck. But it's good for this state because now Missouri is #1 - but they still have to get past Oklahoma who already beat them this year. If Missouri and West Virigina both lose it could be Ohio State v. Georiga in the Championship Game so we'd have a SEC team in the game that didn't even win the SEC - strange. Enough football babble.

Day Four: Today. Today started out great - slept until noon, worked around the house and then ran some errands and got our Christmas tree - yippee! What a fun day. And then all hell broke lose. Our toilet has been running lately and we couldn't get it to stop so we bought a new floaty thing to fix it. I've replaced floaty things a number of times so I thought "no problem!" Wrong - big problem. Getting the old one out was a beast - water everyone (in my newly painted bathroom). Then we got the new one in and it leaked - so we messed with it and finally stopped that leak - but now another nut/screw leaked. Seven hours later, the damn thing still won't leak. Oh yeah, and the cut off valve won't work so we have to cut the water to the entire house - all because we wanted to replace a very easy floaty thingy. So tomorrow we take it all apart, go to Home Depot get all new tubing and a new nut/screw thing (we think it's stripped) and go at it again. This should have seriously been a 10 minute project at most, now there is water everyone, we wasted seven hours (we breaked for dinner in there), the thing still doesn't work and we have no water to the entire house (we turned it on for showers and then off again). What a crummy ending to a fabulous weekend!

So now it's bed time and back to work tomorrow. I SO want to call in sick but you know that no one would believe you if you called in sick on the Monday after Thanksgiving - they would assume you're still on vacation. Plus I try really hard to not ever call in sick - except if I have an insane migrane and am throwing up like crazy - wonderful, huh? But since they're insane about missing more then 10 minutes from work, I go in even sick most of the time (which is the total wrong thing to do) - but that's a whole 'nother post. :)

Hope everyone had a fabulous Thanksgiving!