Leaves and Sweaters

I'm back after a very busy and somewhat sad week.  This week we survived the first anniversary of my dad's passing.  It's hard not to reflect on that time, and I spent a great deal of time remembering what those weeks were like.  I won't allow myself to dwell on it, but it definitely brings a person down.  This is my favorite time of the year (aside from Christmas), so it's unfortunate that we have that sad memory right now, but I'm doing my best to turn it into a time to reflect on the good times we had with my dad.  His sense of humor, his cheesy taste in music.  And to try to help my mom when she feels lonely.

We made it through, and now it's time to really focus on the good things fall brings.  Not only is it GORGEOUS weather lately, the leaves are changing.  The air is chilly in the morning and in the evening, and warm in the middle of the day.  The sun is setting earlier.  The air is drier, crisper, easier to breathe.  It smells like sweet dried leaves outside.  I so love it.

In this house, we are excited for so many reasons.  We have some important birthdays coming up!  A is turning 11 in a little over a week.  J turns 10 in early November.  Each of them end up celebrating their birthdays three times, lucky little dudes.  They get two big family parties and then we do one for their school friends.  We have a big costume/birthday party for one of my sweet nephews.  Halloween.  The big Thanksgiving Extravaganza is coming up.  See??  So very much to be happy about and be thankful for.

Life is funny.  I was just about to start writing about something very silly, and in the background I'm seeing the images on my TV of an American Flag burning somewhere in the Middle East.  It's also politics season, and it's a political ad.  Somebody thinks somebody else is to blame for all the ills in the world, and is sure they know somebody who will fix it all, and if you vote for them everything will be perfect, and if you don't, well, the world's going to hell.  I can hardly take it.  Every four years they do their best to ruin my fall high.  Ugh.  No wonder I turn to Desperate Housewives on Netflix for my background company.

Anyway, before that rude politician killed my buzz, I was thinking about something that has all kinds of fun potential this Thanksgiving.  We do a ginormous shindig with my family every year.  It's a big bunch of us, and traditions grow and shift every year.  This year it has been suggested by one of my lovely cousins that we should do an ugly sweater night.  I'm assuming she means ugly holiday sweater, and I COULD NOT BE MORE EXCITED!  I will finally be able to wear a crazy holiday sweater with pride!  (E, I hope you're taking a break out there in L.A. and reading this, you nutjob, you know this will throw you over the edge and force you to get a plane ticket.)  What a photo op this will be.  There will be 25 or 26 of us there, and what could be more awesome than a picture of all of us proudly wearing our sweaters?  And I get to make the hubby wear one!  Ha!  So now I need to start shopping for them.  Oh, the potential...  I'll post the pictures for sure.

But for now I must go.  I need to research how to make a "ginormous pile of bacon" (that's what A has requested for his birthday dinner this Friday) without making my house reek for an entire week afterward.  And I have some bathrooms to scrub.

Get out there and look at the leaves, people!