Just a Frustrating Time

Festive Thanksgiving Meal
Originally uploaded by sunasak

I sneakily took this photo of the line at Furr's cafeteria in Victoria, Texas, where we ate yesterday. I am glad we had a family meal last week, because I ate rubber turkey and salt flavored gravy with salt flavored bread dressing. After standing in a line for 40 minutes. All the people who sadly filed in to eat because they had nowhere else to go were sort of depressing (doesn't help that I am already feeling down), but the staff were very perky, and Lee and his dad seemed really happy to be together and to like the food fine. I must be picky after all these years of eating homemade stuff on holidays (in grad school we had amazing gourmet meals cooked by friends, even).

I don't mean to whine too much. It really was good to see Lee's dad and I know it cheered him up to have family come see him. We had a great time watching the Dallas Cowboys, and I think Lee's dad liked having someone to talk to about the game. And it let Lee nap.

At least knitting got done. I have done a bit today, but got all distracted when Lee emptied out the office closet and found the last of the books I had not unpacked since we moved here, and found all the missing knitting books from my collection. There were some really valuable and interesting ones there. Yay! I blogged a lot about it on the knitting blog. But I really am pleased he undertook the closet clean-up, though it was a lot more work than he had anticipated. Definitely the bright spot in the day.

Today was supposed to be my work at home day, I fired up the work computer, logged on and got started...only to find that everything was in place EXCEPT the drive with the files I work on. It did not mount and I could not find it to manually mount it. So, there goes bunch of potential money. That did not help my mood either. I am going to hope that tomorrow is a better day. At least the kids will come home late tomorrow afternoon!

In a Fog, but Here Are Some Turkeys

I am sort of in a fog today, so in honor of the US Thanksgiving celebration tomorrow, I thought I would show you some beautiful turkeys. These are Blue Palm tom turkeys, one of the many heirloom turkey breeds that may not be with us much longer, thanks to the overwhelming reliance on one variety that has been bred to make giant turkey breasts. I am told these others are tastier. I don't know. I helped take care of some beautiful turkeys while Beccano went to the therapeutic farm, and I would hate to eat them--they were very nice to be around and had lovely big eggs. Some of these types have feathers used for hats and such. You can get those off the turkey without killing it, too. I have a collection of lovely reddish feathers still. Want to see more turkey breeds? Go to the site where I found this picture and scroll down--you will see a long list of breeds.

The turkeys help distract me from how much I hate putting the boys on a plane to go see their dad. No, I don't begrudge him the chance to see them--I just worry about travel at such a busy time. They kindly phoned me and let me know when they got to Dallas and when they got to North Carolina, though, which helped a lot. They told me that they passed the time in DFW Airport counting how many guys with handlebar mustaches they saw (6). That airport does have more than its fair share of genuine cowboys and men with festive facial hair. I do miss people spotting in airports, I have to say. I don't miss having to get up so early to catch planes. Wow, I am zonked today after getting up at 4! But, the traffic was excellent, and I hear now the interstate heading north is crawling.

But, since Lee's been around (creeping up on a year as a couple, folks!) I have gotten to enjoy more car travel. So, that is a nice trade-off. More of that tomorrow as we head south to Germanic Texas and eat at Furr's (cafeteria). It will be good to make Lee's dad happy, though. I am looking forward to some nice relaxing couple time with Lee, too. We spend so much time with the kids that we don't get too much of it, but I appreciate that Lee doesn't mind too much--I feel lucky to have kids who will spend time with us!

I will stop here, so you can have more time to hang with your own family and friends. I will have to tell my dad about the job situation today or tomorrow, and I dread that. I hate adding to his burdens. (And I hate disappointing him, which I seem to do over and over by not being as successful as he had hoped I would be--one of my big issues, I guess.)