Recovery Day

I haven’t blogged in a week. It’s not that nothing is happening, which is my normal excuse. It’s just the opposite – lots of things happening. My “novel” which also kept me from blogging is not going to be finished within the November goal. That was known a long time ago. I ended up stalling about half-way through the month with only 12,000 words. Thanksgiving got in the way. We spent Tuesday and Wednesday of Thanksgiving week with Karen and Tim and a sick little Sophia. If you read Karen’s blogs you know that story. From there it was off to Christy and Christians (C&C) to have Thanksgiving dinner and “meet the family” – Christian’s family.

Penny and I had a great time there. C&C put a lot of hard work into making everything enjoyable and their work paid off. I like seeing Christy when she smiles the way she did this weekend.

Christian’s family was fun too. They are all intelligent, technically savvy and Type “A” personalities with a great sense of humor. His Dad was extremely interested in my work with NASA and the Air Force and we both commiserated about the way jobs are accomplished in a big bureaucracy.

C&C had a 20 lb turkey and everybody provided some food. Christy made apple salad and sweet potato muggin that was as good as Penny’s. Penny helped make gravy. Christian’s family brought mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, pumpkin pie and a delicious apple pie. Christian carved the bird.

We went to Oleno State Park and hiked with 3 dogs(2 huskies and Finn). I promptly got caught up in taking pictures and went 1 mile down the wrong path. Penny rescued me with a cell phone call. I’m surprised she didn’t take my head off when I finally rejoined the group. Penny was surprisingly relaxed throughout the weekend. I think this retirement thing is good for her. Here it is Monday and I’m still alive, so I guess I’m OK.

We took our usual recovery day when we returned home. We do very little and used the day to rest. I slept in until 8:30. We drove up to Crestview to get Penny’s sewing machine. It was in the shop for preventive maintenance. We took that opportunity to eat lunch at Cracker Barrel. Tomorrow we will worry about unpacking, laundry and all that stuff.

The cat feeder worked properly while we were gone. It has enough food in it for another few days. I’ll let it run out and see how many days it feeds at this setting. All 5 of the cats showed up today. We had 5 inches of rain overnight and into the morning. It’s not unusual for cats to not show up on rainy days. They all showed their little hungry faces, however.