Practicing Thankfulness

Yesterday we celebrated "2nd Thanksgiving".  The only problem with going to someone else's house on Thanksgiving is you don't get all the left-overs!  So we do it all again on Friday.  I made enough sweet potato casserole (15 cups of mashed sweet potatoes!) and cran-apple-pear sauce on Wednesday, but even though I made 15 pounds of mashed potatoes, there weren't enough left-over from Thursday to have Friday.  So I made 10 more pounds of mashed potatoes, dressing, gravy, asparagus, and a 24 pound turkey!  Once again I used a rub on it Thursday night, then roasted it at a low temperature all day Friday. It was soooo good.  Next year I'm going to try "spatchcocking" the bird.  That should help even a big one cook more quickly.

The only flaw in the day was discovering that our poor dishwasher is no longer pumping water up onto the dishes.  Water still goes in and out, but it just sloshes around the bottom, so nothing actually gets clean.  We googled for help, but nothing worked.  SO it looks like once again it is time for a new dishwasher.  We are really, really hard on dishwashers, it seems.  Bob and I went to Lowe today to attempt to get one, along with everyone else in Northern VA, it seems.  They are out of most dishwashers, and can get one to us in 2-3 weeks!  Whee!  I forsee lots of paper plates in our future.  First world problems, I know, I know.  I am definitely trying to be thankful and not getting frustrated with my little problems.

Sometimes the little problems just stack up in a way that is kind of paralyzing, though.  We got our Honda minivan inspected last Sunday, and it failed royally.  It needs at least $2000 of work on it--a 2000 Odyssey with 199,900 miles on it.  It seems like pouring that much money into it would be pouring money down a drain, but then, we don't know what we should do instead.  With Nathan driving to community college classes 3 times a week, we really do need a 3rd car, but looking for one seems so overwhelming with such limited time.  We don't usually move on things like this very quickly . . .

We're also trying to figure out cell phone plans.  Currently we have Verizon, with 1 smartphone (my iphone, which I love) and 3 dumb phones.  We're done with our 2 year contract, so we could go with another carrier, but my phone won't work then.  What we know for sure is that Verizon is the most expensive for multiple smart phones!  So should we all switch to Sprint, buying each of us a new (but not all that expensive with another 2 year contract) phone?  Or buy phones for Nathan and Luke to use with Straight Talk or something like that--but do the monthly savings add up to more than the cost of the phones?  There's so much information out there--it's paralyzing!  I want to just bury my head in the sand and not make any decisions.  Could I please go back to the 1800's?

But I am thankful we have options.  I'm thankful for all these fun kids.  I'm so thankful we don't have to worry about basic necessities.  I'm thankful for all our family and friends who are so supportive and loving.  I'm thankful for sweet little baby girls, with sweet little smiles, and for bigger girls to take cute pictures!

Verity is thankful for a thumb that is magically attached to the end of her arm so it is there when she needs it.  Happy baby!