I made it, and early, too!!

I have successfully completed NaNoWriMo and am sooo excited. The book is an epistolary style, letters from one woman to a childhood friend covering the period 1966 through 2010. It is not in final form, but I like it better than I expected to and may make it a project. In the meantime, I am celebrating!!

Tah Dah!!

The Big Day

Thanksgiving will never be just another day, not even when I had nowhere to go and walked down Suncrest in tears with my loyal Lab Kate; not the year one of my kids and I had a huge fight and ended up at VI for tuna melts and then a movie; not when I was an uncomfortable guest at a relative stranger's table, or ran off to Taos with friends. Not the years we did not get home for Thanksgiving, all those years at table without my beloved parents. It is not just another day for me. Yesterday we made pies and rolls and dressing; today we will make a casserole, potatoes, turkey and dressing for leftovers (when we return from a weekend road trip) as we drink mimosas and listen to The Splendid Table Turkey Triage program. Later, we go to the neighbors, bringing appetizers, wine and pumpkin and pecan pies. This day we will read the papers, discard the ads, watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade with the sound off. Monique, my current Lab, will be regularly and firmly kicked out of the kitchen. We will watch "Home for the Holidays" and drink more mimosas, and maybe fit in a nap before dinner. It's Thanksgiving, and we are thankful it is not just another day.

Thanksgiving preparations are

in full tilt. My Sainted Mother, of course, looms large - we made the caramel rolls this afternoon, and they are wonderful, as usual. We are heading to the neighbors' but nonetheless fixing a turkey breast with dressing, mashed potatoes and green bean casserole to eat when we come back from Nebraska - a road trip commencing Friday morning. Why spend Black Friday shopping here when we can hit Manard's in Scottsbluff and observe sunset at Carhenge in Alliance? We are heading out with turkey sandwiches and dressing - hence the need to cook a separate dinner. And our own pie. This year, Leigh is baking a combination pumpkin and pecan for us; pecan and pumpkin pies, respectfully, for dinner tomorrow. We are planning a leisurely morning: breakfast casserole, mimosas, caramel rolls, coffee - ummm, ummm, ummm. I am heading to water aerobics tonight for some preventive maintenance.

I forgot - the last post was a haiku, but this morning

laying abed - I watched a delicate silver sliver of dawn and thought I would try a poem - I have been madly, madly writing for National November Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and not much else. I was in so much pain during most of October that I did nothing, missed the most beautiful Fall of my thirty years in Colorado - I feel like whining, but it's over and not much could have been done. But I'm back on track with the cortisone and will schedule surgery this month, although it may be as much as three months out - anyway, I started the day with...dawn - and now i cannot recall the haiku - I had two in my head. sheesh.

Pale eastern light dawns/a narrow silver ribbon/on the horizon.

That was certainly not it - but there you are. Notebook by the bed. The morning was so quiet with that grey pearl light behind the shadow of the Ponderosa pines that i didn't want to get up and turn on a light to write. The world's loss, alas!