Happy Thanksgiving!

Don't you love it when the pies are done and everything is under control and suddenly, the night before Thanksgiving, you remember that the turkey is still in the freezer? We tried to brine it overnight, but apparently our refrigerator is just a tad on the cold side. When we took it out of the pot this morning, it had an inch or two of ice around it. Sooo...it looks like you CAN roast a turkey straight from frozen--it just takes about six hours. That's okay. Who wants to eat at noon, anyway? :) And it gives us time to um...cook all of the rest of it, right?

Things I'm thankful for:

1. My husband, for his mad fixing skillz, for his mighty medievalist powers, and for his support of the whole mythical writing career.
2. My kids, who are so fun to travel with (if they weren't, our life would be much more miserable!). Also, they are not tied into one and only one rigid eating schedule (particularly useful today!)
3. A job (even if it's not permanent), a warm house, a shower that's NOT made of wood, buried power cables that frozen trees can't fall on, and the cheap piano we picked up
4. Books! YOUR books! :) And the fact that I can read at all.
5. The internet and the fact that I can make friends on it who last through move after move
6. All the people who have shared their writing expertise and wisdom, most often quite spontaneously. Thank you.

And a lot of other things as well! I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

(no subject)

When I say I'm grateful for books and reading, I also mean I'm glad for the people who made that possible for me. My family may have lived in the middle of nowhere--but they brought their books with them!



My grandma (born 1902) went to college (the same one I did!) and was highly educated. She lived in Idaho and I lived in NJ when I was small, so we couldn't come to visit often, but even before we could read, she used to send my sister and I illustrated "letters"--pictures of my grandpa with the cows and stuff like that. They had a huge bookshelf in the living room and sent me home with one of her own off the shelf for keeps once. And she never minded me banging on her piano. (I wanted to play. We didn't have one.) She died when I was nine, but when I read about her, it's eerie how many things we have in common. (Even a lot of our college experiences were similar!)



Here's her dad. He was a shepherd in Utah and he and his two brothers used to take turns wearing the one suit they had between them when they had to do business. (When he got married, his wife, who was a professional, made him his own suit.) Shepherding might not take a lot of education, but he brought books and read the whole time he was up there. He also played the violin well enough for dances and was in the choir. He died one morning when the choir stood up to sing. He passed his music to the guy next to him, said, "I don't feel so good," and keeled over dead in a heart attack. I always think of him whenever I'm involved in a music performance, for some reason...



This is my grandma's next-closest brother. I LOVE this picture! This is what my family is all about. Fireplace going, kid with a book, overflowing bookshelves in the background. HEAVEN. :)