I have next week off and I can't wait! Sleeping in, spending time with friends and family - oh...and THANKSGIVING!

So two more days this week. My husband thinks my counting is off. After all - it's Wednesday morning...and we have to work Thursday and Friday still. But I say - the wake up calls are what counts...and we only have two left - so we only have two days left until a blessed week off! :drool:

So what are we going to do, you ask?

Monday: our almost one and a half year old pool will finally get it's final inspection. We will also get our carpets cleaned and I head off to see a dermatologist because I have something forming on my leg that I don't like AT ALL. We will finish off the day with a football watching where a friend/neighbor will be making his homemade pretty darn good chicken wings and fried pickles. I hate the pickles - but the wings I can do. Come on back and visit, you ten pounds you... :thumbup:

Tuesday: our house gets cleaned. Grocery shopping for Thurs. Make a few loaves of bread for the stuffing, sourdough dinner rolls, pies...that kind of stuff. Maybe. It depends.

Wednesday: if I haven't done the baking yet, then I will on Wednesday. I will also pre-assemble some of the dishes.

I think the interesting thing for me is that I LOVE LOVE LOVE cooking and baking. To me - it's about that, not about the food that gets consumed afterwards. I know I will enjoy this endeavor even when I can only eat two bites of turkey and one bite of stuffing.

I know this because of how I am with baked goods. I LOVE to bake pies and cookies and cakes. I love to make candy. And then I LOVE LOVE LOVE giving it all away (which is mostly a Christmas thing). What I don't give away we keep in the freezer and my hubby eats far more of it than I ever do. I am very much not a sweets person. BUT I love to make it all!

And then it will be Thursday. Up at 6 am to get the stuffing started. Get the bird in the bbq by 8am. And then watch the rest of the day unfold. Depending on what I get done on Weds and what I have left to do on Thurs – I might get some time to watch some football.

Yes, I said bbq. I will be roasting the bird in the bbq this year to free up the oven for everything else. I am curious to see how it turns out...but I don't expect much difference.

So the MIL story. GRRR. :mad5:

If you have been following my blog you will know that I wrote up a fantastic rendition of loving the MIL because she’s so great. Yeah. NM.

I still love her. Don’t get me wrong. I do think I got very lucky on the MIL front. But she, unknowingly, squashed my husband and me last week.

I was so looking forward to sharing the cooking of the feast with her. I was so looking forward to spending some time with them both since they have been up in WI since April. We took the week off to spend with them – not to get the carpets cleaned.

GRRR. :rant:

Anywho, we get a call from them last Tues asking us to call them back. So once home and settled, we did. And here was the conversation we had:

MIL: So you remember the wedding I was playing the organ for on Sunday?

Us: No

MIL: I told you about that

Us: No.

MIL: I’m sure I did because I was going to have to leave on Saturday to be back in time for the rehearsal

Us: No. You were going to leave late Sunday evening since you were going to miss the first part of the week with us for a dentist appoint.

MIL: Oh. I’m sure I told you.

I interrupt this broadcast to say:

Back in September we were supposed to go to WI for a long weekend and to see their new place. At the last minute my employer decided I couldn’t have the approved vacation time off afterall. Given the current economic climate we decided the trip would wait as it was not worth risking my job. At that point, we said “well we will take the whole week of thanksgiving off so that we can spend the time with you.” And MIL and Step-FIL said “Great!”

In October we hear: well, we won’t get to your house until Wednesday evening. [MIL] has a dentist appt and she can’t reschedule it because then her teeth cleaning will be overdue.

We think: really? You can’t reschedule a teeth cleaning for a week or two later? Really?

Back to the story…

Us: No, Mom, you didn’t.

MIL: Well, it gets worse. They have rescheduled their rehearsal. So instead of having it Saturday evening, they are going to have it Friday evening.

Us: What? So you are going to come down late on Weds and have to leave early on Friday?

MIL: Well. Not really.

Us: Mom?

MIL: the organist for my church does not want to play the service on Thanksgiving because she wants to be with her family and so I said I would.

Silence

MIL: So I’ll be coming down on Thursday after the service is over.

Silence

So here’s my thing. Ok. So I get to cook the feast by myself. This won’t be the first time and I’m sure it won’t be the last. That’s ok. I have so many wonderful memories of cooking this feast with my mom and I want to keep it going. I definitely hope that someday in the future I have a daughter I can pass this onto.

But it’s leaving hubby and I with this question – why bother? It’s a four hour drive and they won’t even be getting on the road until around 11:00 AM.

They will arrive AFTER we serve dinner. And I’m not going to be the gracious hostess here and adjust eating time to accommodate a lack of thought. If this were just us and the in-laws I could see that but this is a group of people being asked to sit around and wait.

Furthermore, they’ve made it clear that the reason they are coming at all is to see the BIL and his wife. I understand wanting to see them. But, ironically, it’s not likely to happen.

BIL and his wife ALWAYS spend Thanksgiving with HER family. And they will again this year, too.

We started something last year we all proclaimed would be our tradition and that was to get together on Friday for a custom leftover Panini sandwich station. That was the plan again this year.

Anywho… :rant:

Love the family…that’s all you can do, eh? :biggrin:

Yay for only two days left!!! :cheers2: