Thanksgiving

 It was, in general, a somewhat bittersweet Thanksgiving. It seems each year there are more empty seats at the table. We miss our grandparents. We’re thankful for Penelope, who has been bringing joy into our world for the past 17 months. Our grandparents would have loved Penny. Would each have absolutely been wrapped around her finger. 

But it was a good day. I made a giant turkey, in the oven this time. Dinner turned out great. My mamaws would both have been proud. Penny laughed a lot and played outside.  The weather was nice. Another day to celebrate. I hope everyone had a wonderful day.

Snow Days

Tomorrow will be our sixth snow day of the year. Three of them were this week! Snow days when I was a a kid meant a reprieve from school. They meant sledding, snowball fights, hot cocoa, reading books beside the wood stove, carrying in wood for the fire, big steaming bowls of chili, refreshing hot showers after playing in the cold snowy hills, the smell of wood smoke mingling with the good hot food that mom made in the kitchen. I miss those smells. I miss the way the light from the sliding door reflected golden on the snow after dark. It was a delicate time, a together time. A time when it felt like we were the only ones on earth, nestled in our holler between the hills and away from the rest of the world. It felt like those frozen wintry days would last forever. It felt like they flew by. They are precious memories to me. 

These past few snowy days have been a wonderful chance to make new memories with Ashleigh and Penny. They’re precious, too. And they have simultaneously felt like they’d last forever, and they have flown by.