Everything Better When I Didn’t Have To Cook It

So as Canadian Thanksgiving comes around this weekend, I am reminded of how most of the people who read this blog are American and have to wait another month for Turkey!  And I realize I kinda like our Thanksgiving, it’s farther away from Christmas, more time to digest the meal and forget about how much you ate before the holidays start.

But mostly, I remember that despite my whining and occasional completely uncalled for hissy fit, I have so very much to be grateful for.

There are obvious blessings.  A roof over my head, food on my table, an awesome marriage and 3 great kids.

But there are many other things I am learning to give thanks for.

The Bible teaches us to love our enemies, because anyone can love their friends.  I believe in a less obvious way, it also teaches us to be thankful for the things that don’t look like blessings right away.  Cause everyone can give thanks when it’s clear we have been blessed, but it’s harder to find the blessings in the difficult moments.

This Thanksgiving weekend, like the one before it last year and, well, most others before that, DH is not home.

You (I) would think this isn’t a blessing.  And I’m notsomuch grateful for his absence.  I would love to be all together, to invite friends who don’t have family around over the holidays, cook a big dinner and fill our weekend with fun family activities that include DH.

Instead it’ll be just me and kidlets and while I could cook a turkey, well, I really don’t want to spend that kind of time only to listen to the kids complain that they don’t like it or the stuffing and eat nothing but mashed potatoes.  So it won’t be dinner at our house this Thanksgiving.  (Though we have been blessed to have never gone without when DH has been gone over holidays.  Both back when it was just me and even to now, when I bring 3 little mouths with me, there has always been room at someone’s table for us.)

And so, while things arn’t going to go down the way I envisioned, I am this Thanksgiving learning to be thankful for the blessings I never would have experienced if everything always went my way.

I am thankful for Skype.  In our first ever Skype call, using borrowed Internet from a friend, DH got to read the kids a bedtime story tonight.  I got to see his face and the kids got to scream in the microphone and stick their noses all the way up to the webcam.  How cool is that! (OK, I am new to this whole Skype thing and I realize really late to the party, but he’s never been able to use it before!)

I am, for the first time, thankful for postings.  Because postings mean that we have friends all over the country, including the city that DH is training in these next couple of months.  That means he gets to have home cooked meals from time to time, has friends to take him to church and even had our good friends lend him a car for the weekend so he could get around.  And tomorrow, he’s going to have a Thanksgiving dinner.  What more could you ask for when you’re away from home?!  (I am, however, not grateful for my jealousy that he gets to spend all that time with one of my closest friends that I haven’t seen in years now.  But I’m at least thankful we got to chat on skype while he stole their Internet.)

I am thankful for long weekends spent cleaning. When I am stressed and feel like I don’t have enough time in the day, my house is always the first thing to suffer.  Thanks to the long weekend, yesterday, I scrubbed the house, changed all the sheets, finished mounds of laundry and washed the floors.  I even moved the fridge and stove and washed behind them! (Which, I might add, is disgusting.  We are apparently filthy pigs).  And even though it took about .2 seconds to become very…. lived in again today, I feel better, like I have a head start on things for a while.  It’s nice every once and a while to not feel 2 steps behind.

I am thankful I don’t have to cook a turkey.  Cause every single attempt I have ever made has ended in near disaster.   And my favorite part is the cranberry sauce anyways.

I am thankful for good books and cozy beds.  OK, that’s a no brainer.  But that’s where I’m headed.  And I’ll enjoy every quite minute while the kidlets sleep.

So Happy Thanksgiving, eh!

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