Thanksgiving 2024
I was nervous about this Thanksgiving. Jer’s Mom and her husband were coming to visit, and I wasn’t sure the house would be all prepared without much effort since I had just come from being sick for a couple of weeks. We had gotten used to eating healthy foods, and I didn’t mind hosting since that meant we could cook and serve a Thanksgiving meal that would work with Jer’s new diet.
Queue the Change of Plans. Jer’s Uncle Grant passed away unexpectedly after many difficult health issues, so his whole family came together for the funeral. He was the funny Uncle in a whole family of funny people; he requested that a didgeridoo play at his funeral, and he was completely serious. I got everything ready for the trip, and we were about to get into the car when suddenly I didn’t feel well at all. Jer and the kids ended up going without me as I vomited that whole weekend, sick with the stomach flu. Thankfully Jer comforted me and set me up with a bucket before he left. I had Roxy our dog for company, electrolytes left over from when everyone else was sick the previous week, and a freezer of chicken pot pies I could air fry once I felt up to it.
On that funeral trip, Jer brought home a large TV that his Mom passed on to us. She wanted to be able to watch a football game on it while she was at our home. We’ve managed to prevent a TV from being the main focus of our living room for 15 years. I was stressed over rearranging everything to accommodate the new TV, shopping for storage to put under it or ways to mount it. With a TV there now I felt the urge to buy a new rug and sectional to make it work, and we just weren’t in the financial position to do that. The only wall it fit would take up the entire main wall where my beloved books were, so we’d need to move all of that and I was just so resistant to the changes. I’m thankful that Jeremy figured out how to make all of us happy, and took an entire Saturday to take care of it for me. We didn’t need to change anything in the living room because he put it in the loft. The lizard cage was moved to its own table. Everything was deep cleaned, organized, and put back together again. We left space for our guests to be able to sleep on an air bed, and tested out the movie situation. It worked out awesome!
For another twist, Jer’s Grandpa and Grandma would be in town for Thanksgiving so we were invited to Thanksgiving at Uncle Thad’s home instead. The Lloyds are a close family and look for every opportunity to meet, and his Mom was up for combining. This meant that many of the food plans for us changed. Instead of making an entire Thanksgiving meal, we just did some sides, drinks, and cranberry sauce. It also means that the whole diet thing was thrown out the window of course. The most decadent, fabulously Southern version of everything was too hard to resist. Zero regrets, it was an experience in itself. The kids all had fun with cousins, and I had a blast puzzling.
