Give Thanks, Stitches, Thanksgiving

We didn't do much this past week. James played DnD with his cousins online. I started reading the newest book by Brandon Sanderson. It will take me till next week since I only read about 100 pages a day and it has 1200. I love his books because he's a great worldbuilder. I definitely can't keep all the details straight since they are so long, so I use the Internet sometimes to explain or help me remember stuff.

After listening to a message from Pres. Nelson last week, we've been doing his challenge to make social media a place of gratitude. I really appreciate how much it's changed for the better. I am definitely grateful for a lot of things and have had a hard time narrowing it down to only 7 days. I guess that's the point, though.

Poor Lewis got hit in the face by one of our big barrels outside, so he's currently at the urgent care getting stitched up. I will admit, I could never be a nurse. I really don't like dealing with body fluids. There was a LOT of blood to clean up, and I had to have him lie down so it would stop running down his face. I have no doubt that it was painful, but it made it a lot worse when he cried because the blood would get into his eyes. Yuck. Hopefully, his blankie and daddy will give enough comfort so he's not too nervous about the stitches. It threw a wrench in our afternoon plans. I was going to read, and James had just left to to hunt for fossils/shoot with a friend. I'm so glad he had cell service still.

I made 2 pies so far, a key lime and a pecan. For Thanksgiving Day, we'll also have turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, rolls, and green beans, plus whipped cream for the pies. I am making everything from scratch, which is why we're not having anything else. Not enough people eat leftover stuffing and the green bean casserole isn't as good the 2nd day. Though we will be at home, I'm grateful that we can do our own thing with the leftovers. We'll have turkey pot pie on Friday and more rolls and turkey soup on Saturday. Those were my family's traditions with leftovers. I just don't like sandwiches as much.

Though the pandemic has gotten SUPER old, I'm glad to spend the holidays with my family, and that I have one. Coming up with our own traditions (while keeping some of the old) is super fun. I wish I knew what was happening for Christmas, but I'm going to take it one holiday at a time.

To anyone reading this, I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving and stay safe and healthy.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

I am really happy to hear the good news about vaccines this week. 2 that are 95% effective? Sign me up! James will probably get his before the rest of us since he teaches high school, but you can bet I'm going to get one as soon as it's available to the general public. I'm not high on the list since I don't leave the house very much.

I'm excited about Thanksgiving coming up. I already have plans for a yummy meal and leftovers on the days after. The turkey is thawing in the fridge a few days early so it will actually be ready in time.

My main project this week has been wrapping some Christmas presents and making some decorations out of old Catan pieces. We had an old game with lots of missing pieces, so we used some of them with our new game to create a 6-person expansion. I painted a whole bunch of roads, settlements, and cities green and purple. I think the purple's lucky because I actually won when I played with them.

TV is keeping us all sane right now. We really love watching the Mandalorian every Friday. I just finished the 4th season of the Crown, and I'm doing a Harry Potter movie marathon with the boys every Saturday. I'm still enjoying making candy as well. I just need to go get my groceries so I have the ingredients to make more.

This year isn't what anyone expected. We might not even get to travel for Christmas, but I have plans for some fun things if we don't. I'm really grateful that we got to see people when we did. The numbers are terrible here right now and going up quickly. We've now been protected from getting Covid at least 4 times because of wearing masks, and I'm so grateful. My careful sacrifices have paid off, even though I feel like I'm losing my mind. I'm glad that the holidays give me something to look forward to. Hopefully, we'll be able to do lots of service between now and the end of the year. I may not be able to socialize, but I can cook, and that makes most people happy. :)

Too Much Covid

I'm having a hard time remembering what we did this past week. There isn't anything written on the calendar. I've done a few small projects and made a few types of candy: fudge, caramels, and Tootsie Rolls. The small projects included a shelf and coat hooks in the cabin, plus a little sewing.

I've still been pretty worried about Covid. One of James's close co-workers is in quarantine because his wife got it. Another friend's kids' babysitter got it. Our stake president just got over it, as did our old bishop who lives just down the street. I'd be stupid not to be worried. Our governor asked us to not mix households for 2 weeks, which won't be hard. We'd been considering having kids not play with friends because of the rising numbers. Maybe things are slowing down a bit now, but it's hard to tell. I really hope we've reached our "fall peak". I still hope that school shuts down before Christmas. I'd like for at least a few weeks off so we can quarantine before visiting Rexburg at Christmas.

We got some real snow on Saturday. The kids had so much fun playing in it. I'm glad that 4/5 of them can dress themselves warmly enough to go outside. Samantha might get it by next year, I hope. She currently refuses to wear a coat or snow pants.

James and I got Chinese food and watched Knives Out last night. We really enjoyed both!

Projects and Failures, Halloween, Election

One of my best projects so far was closing off the area behind our storage shed. Before, we were using pallets leaning sideways, but they were annoying to move, and the little kids could still escape pretty easily. I put hinges on half of a pallet and attached it securely into the corner of the shed (into the studs, too). It closes snugly against the house so little kids can't open it, but the older ones can. I'm really happy with how it turned out. I also made a box from some leftover squares of OSB for outdoor toys. It's heavy enough that it can't be moved and destroyed like the plastic one was. I also set up a few pallets as a bike rack of sorts (no real work required, but it keeps the bikes from falling over.) I tried making a cube organizer into something better, but I was working with too many subpar materials to actually make any improvement. I messed it up enough that it's going in the garbage. 

The kids and I really cleaned up the woodpile last Friday. All that remains are a few scraps that will probably get used in the spring. There isn't enough to make more than 2-3 small projects that I don't have ideas for yet. :) Today, I'm adding knobs to Samantha's dresser, building a shelf in my room, and installing a hook to hang up James's headphones near the computer. Our good weather is ending (at least temporarily) this weekend, so I'm glad to have the outdoor stuff pretty much done. It's been a lot of fun to learn a little bit of woodworking, especially since I have nothing to lose by using scraps.

Halloween was really fun. We had the Boyles over to catapult candy in the morning. I ran some errands after lunch and got home in time to make dinner. We just set out a bowl of candy for neighbors while we enjoyed the first Harry Potter movie. Some kids were showing up at 4 P.M., which I think was pretty rude of them. We had to put up a sign to come back at 6 (which is the real time to get started) so we'd have a chance to eat dinner. Not many came, but that's typical.

I want the election results to be final, as I'm sure everyone does. It's causing me quite a bit of stress right now since it's taking longer than I thought it would. I think I'll minimize social media for a while, though, because the political climate is really awful sometimes. My kids have even come home asking me questions about if Democrats are actually evil and want to kill all the babies. I'll never make political statements on social media, but I'll say here that I think the whole system is somewhat corrupt and needs change. Also, I've never voted for the same party twice in a presidential election. There is good and evil in every political party.