Hope your day was great

Thanksgiving Day is pretty much over, just a few more minutes left. The day was a good one at our house. As always, we watched the Macy's parade while starting our meal. Well, first we had some breakfast, nothing major, a great bagel w/cream cheese. I love parades, almost any parade, but Thanksgiving Day parades are great because Santa arrives. I love to see Santa in his sleigh. It's a perfect moment.

Dinner wasn't too bad either, if I do say so myself. Mom made her famous Chocolate-Pecan Pie, or as we call it "Patrick Pie" for a friend of mine who really didn't eat deserts until he had that pie. I'm not sure why we decided we didn't want a turkey, but we did. I think it had something to do with the fact that it was only going to be me and my parents. Three people and a big turkey, just not worth it, even for the leftovers and the soup that can be made. Mom and I discussed what we should have and narrowed it down to some sort of seafood or ham. We went with ham, really good Virginia ham. It was wonderful! Plus, I got to try out the temperature probe that came with the new oven. Worked wonderfully. The ham was fantastic. To further make it not your traditional meal, unless you live in the south maybe, I fixed kale and mashed sweet potatoes. The sweet potato recipe is basically how my great-aunt Anne fixed hers. Being the southern lady that she was, she included some sort of "spirit" as she mashed her sweet potatoes. She wasn't too particular, I've seen her put in bourbon, sherry, brandy and maybe even some good JD. I try to carry on that tradition, so this year it was sherry since the only brandy I had on hand was apricot flavored I'll be using for my egg nog.

I had really planned on stitching in the afternoon, or going with mom to a movie. Neither happened. I sat down on the couch and promptly fell asleep. Slept for at least 3 hours. I did manage to stitch on the UFO I've been working on the last few weeks. I'm on the 2nd half of the last band. Need to take a picture of that and the white tree.

That was my day. Nothing too special. But I did manage to think about the things I'm thankful for, and there's a lot. In the interest of time and space I leave you with a short list.

*my family, especially my parents who have always been my biggest cheerleaders, while holding me to a standard

*my friends, you know who you are. I have some amazing friends, smart, talented, funny, full of life, sweet, thoughtful and down right amazing. I'm blessed to have them in my life.

*those who are both far from their families serving to protect and those who serve within our borders. I'm thankful that there are people who willing serve in every branch of service. (But especially the Navy since my nephew is in the Navy. Oh and a shout-out to the Marines. One of the former youth, he's grown now, from our church is now a Marine and just left last week for Japan.)

There's a whole lot more, but you get the idea. But one last one, I'm thankful for those of you who come and read and look through my silly pictures and leave comments. When I started this I never thought I'd have people from the UK, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, France, Canada, Australia and Malaysia visit. Not to mention 37 US states and D.C. To me that's just amazing. I really do thank you all and hope that for those who took time today to celebrate Thanksgiving you had a day full of great memories.