Grateful

Lots of things have been going on, none of them particularly exciting (well, to anyone but me).
Saturday night the band I am in did a gig at a fundraiser for a 13 year old friend of my daughter, who has lymphoma. The party was great, the crowd loved our music and danced like crazy, and over $12,000 was raised for the family. Awesome.

Sunday I worked at church, it was my first time back since the issue with the former member of the handbell choir. It was awkward, tense, and logistically difficult, because we are now down 3 players. But the choir persevered, muddled through, and we are on for next week and Christmas Eve service.

This has made me realize how glad I am that I am almost finished with the job. I had felt ambivalent about leaving, but this last example, as well as a few other minor annoying things that have happened, just reinforces to me that I have made the right decision. These next 4 weeks will be hard, I am sure, but for different reasons than I had initially thought. I have so much to do with the job before I am finished, and my real desire is just to get the hell out of there. I have to be sure that no one senses that I am biding my time...which shouldn't be too hard, considering I have all of the Advent music to deal with, a Christmas Cantata on the 13th, plus the Christmas Eve service.

Today I pack up and head to my cousins house, about 1 1/2 hours away, where I will help prepare the Thanksgiving Feast. This is a tradition that started when my aunt died 10 years ago...i had a very special relationship with my uncle, and after auntie died I offered to come help him prepare the meal. He took me up on it, and I did that several times with him. it was incredibly meaningful and I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to do this with him. He died 4 years ago next week, and I have been helping his son's wife do the same (they have moved into the house). It is nice, I get a break from the kids (though my eldest is coming with me this year), we'll have an easy dinner tonight and then get up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to get cooking.

Speaking of which, yesterday, after working 9 hours, I got home, made supper, went to a rehearsal for choir, went grocery shopping, came home and: 1) made potato leek soup to take today 2) made a blueberry pie for tomorrow 3) made borscht and 4) organized the winter share of vegetables I picked up on Monday (50 lbs!). I was in bed by 2 a.m. I felt like superwoman!

So I am off to work a bit more, then heading to the family homestead for a lovely few days. I have lots to write about, but have to organize my thoughts a bit more before hand...

Happy Thanksgiving!
P