Thanksgiving!

This year....I'm thankful for THANKSGIVING! Why?

Well, for the first time in 3 years, it was just our family.

Our own personal economy tanked before the real economy about 3 years ago, so we lived with the in-laws for a while. It was a wonderful thing for us and I couldn't be more grateful to my husbands family. We did end up staying longer than we had hoped and I'm sure they weren't sad to see us go - no house is big enough for two households. But it afforded us the ability to make a career change and though we are far from financially prosperous, we are spiritually prosperous and financially stabilizing in our own cozy yet spacious rental home, just down the street. Which is in and of itself another blessing, but I'll share that story at another time.

My joy started with the dining room table. DramaDad in all of his thrifty goodness, found us an amazing table for $12 at the local goodwill. It's HUGE! It fits perfectly in our dining room and for the first time in my life, I have a formal dining room. Way cool.

Now, we've had the table for a while, and he even re-finished it some time ago. Our landlords left some rather shabby iron furniture on the patio, but we brought them in and the 4 chairs have been sitting around the table, also for some time. DramaDad also picked up 2 more chairs at another thrift store for the ends.

But the 4 iron chairs needed completely new seats - wood, cushioning and fabric. We found some fabric about 2 weeks ago and I told him I wanted my dining room ready to go by Thanksgiving. And my man DELIVERED! It looks beautiful in there...I'll be posting about the room on his blog later this weekend.

So...Thanksgiving day...I didn't want to have 2 Turkey dinners in a row (we were planning on attending dinner at his parents house that evening) so I decided on my favorite dish...CHIMICHANGAS!!! Kind of a family tradition from my side of the family. Not for Thanksgiving, just for special occasions.

They are a bit of an involved process. I put a rather large pork roast in the crockpot the night before and let it slow cook all night long. In the morning, I shredded the meat and made the "meat mix" which is basically salsa, onions, green chile's and some seasonings with the meat. But the flavor combinations are AMAZING! And, I have like 5 more bags of it in my freezer for future meals. GOOD DEAL!

I also whipped up some cheese enchiladas, another of my favorites and some mexican rice.

Sitting at the dinner table with my WHOLE family - my 4 beautiful kiddos and my rather hot honey, eating my favorite meal -well, it was just perfect!

(You should know that the table in my kitchen nook only seats 4, so family meals until this point have not really ever happened, which is sad.)

After dinner, I took a little breather because I had been in the kitchen all day, and looked through the black friday ads. I had ferreted away a little money for some deals that weekend. Unfortunately, some of it had disappeared over the weeks, but at least I had something!

BuddyBoy quickly found a pen and started excitedly circling everything in the ads that he wanted. It was rather endearing, but we had to have the discussion that Santa will bring you a few things on that list, but not everything. He seemed ok with that.

Then I stepped back in the kitchen to prepare the sweet potatoes and the veggie plate. In honor of BuddyBoy, the veggie plate consisted of yellow, red and orange bell peppers, carrots and celery. I also brought black olives and pickles. See, BuddyBoy LOVES LOVES LOVES bell peppers. He eats them like candy. Really, he would if you let him. If you tell him to pick out a treat at the store, he goes right past the candy to the peppers or apples. I don't know why, he certainly didn't get that from me.

I finished perusing the ads and we headed over and had a lovely dinner with the family. We really do have a great time when we get together, laughing and telling stories.

Back home, I got ready to head out to the Black Friday events! Luckily, Toys R Us was opening at 10pm and Walmart was starting their sale at 12:01 am. As I was getting ready, my sister in law called to tell me that the line for Toys R Us was going out to the street. Great. Oh well, mama needs some Bargains!

So...I head over to Toys R Us. Park. Far away. Start to follow the line back...and I see it stretches...to the FREEWAY! Which is somewhat close to the store if you're in a car, but I was like...NO WAY!

Well, it's early and Walmarts already open, so I head over there. Where I guess they decided not to wait until 12:01...I had my cart full by 11:20, when lines were starting to form at the checkout. So, I got in line. Good thing, too. They couldn't ring anyone up until midnight because the prices weren't in the computer until then.

Fortunately I was surrounded by really nice people...and ended up giving out a bunch of business cards! Yay me.

By the time they could start checking us out, the lines were to the back of the store. I was like 6th in line. Again, yay me! I was out of there by 12:20.

And decided to head over to Toys R Us. When I got an email. Saying I had a PayPal payment.  I was SOOOO confused! Until I scrolled on my little phone screen to see that someone had purchased a Katy Perry California Girls costume! I had plenty of stuff leftover from the first one I made, so I listed it on Etsy on a whim!!! Which meant I had a WHOLE bunch more money than I did a few moments before!!!! I have rarely felt so blessed. :)

Remember?

So, the kids are getting a few more things than I had planned. And I get to do another candyland costume, which was really fun and I even found some better stuff to put on it.

I went home, went to sleep, got up around 11am and went back out - to Target, Hobby Lobby, Kohl's and JoAnn.

But then my hubs called to tell me our computer moniter, which has been acting weird, bit the dust. :(

So, we grabbed the kids, hit up Cane's for some Chicken - YUM! And headed to Best Buy. Where they happened to have some computer monitor doorbusters left. If we had to replace it, at least it had to be on black Friday.

Thanksgiving dinner around my own dining room table, shopping in the middle of the night at black Friday sales...it's all so normal!! I like it. :)

Now, a sampling of things I'm grateful for, in no particular order:

DramaDad and the DivaMommy players: Mowgli, PrincessPrettyP, BuddyBoy and Lollies. They bring me joy. Plain and simple.

The opportunities to perform a lot this year and 2 shows in the next 2 weeks!! YAY!

My Sister, Liona, and her family. I LOVE THEM!!! And I love that we have kids the same age...cousins who LOVE to play together. It makes my heart warm. (I have no cousins my age and have never lived near family and it's one thing I always wanted)

Our amazing landlords and our old but beautiful home. I love it here.

Even though I hate it because it's falling apart, my car still gets us around unfailingly. Oh great, now it's going to breakdown because I said something. :(

Sleep, which I should be doing but I'm blogging.

Air Conditioning and Heating

Amazing friends who are like family

Self Discovery

My blog readers. Both of you. I love you very much!