A Holiday Blogging Hiatus

Thanksgiving has come and gone, and I hope, like myself, that everyone had a wonderful time of it.  Our last few days before Tobe (Jared's mom) arrived were spent frantically painting, cleaning, and arranging, all with a dash of panicking on the side.  We were left with very unprofessionally done floors and no time to redo them, so Jared arranged for them to be fixed after the holiday.

We weren't the only ones having difficulty getting to Thanksgiving, though.  Tobe and her boyfriend James left Kansas the Thursday before Thanksgiving.  Although they had anticipated driving almost straight through, the truck broke down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, just five or six hours into their journey. They spent the rest of the day there, but were able to continue on their way after getting the truck fixed the next morning.  After leaving around noon on Friday, they were confident they'd be able to make good time through the rest of the adventure.  Of course, that would make things much too easy, so two hours outside of Memphis, TN, they sat on the interstate for an hour or more in bumper to bumper standstill.  My brother, Daniel, and I made this same trip after I visited Kansas for my Grandmother's memorial, and we too had the same problem outside of Memphis at just about the same time of day.  We're not sure why the traffic was so bad, but it didn't help the already delayed Tobe.

And it didn't end there, either!  After the traffic jam, the duo managed to get through the city of Memphis just fine...but with a detour that would add another two to three hours to the rest of the trip.  Instead of going towards Birmingham, AL, they accidentally went north-east towards Nashville.  At the end of a very long Friday, they stopped there for the night, hoping to finally reach Georgia the next day.  Luckily, they had no hiccups after Nashville, and they arrived at our house twenty-four hours later than they were originally expected.

Luckily for us, we were able to get a lot done in that last twenty-four hours.  After the floor crew came, Jack returned to do a few odds and ends around the house.  We also had to move the majority of our furniture so we had places to sit, eat, and relax as a family.

Thursday night, Jared picked up our new couch from Hinesville, and luckily, it did not rain.  We had picked this guy out months ago, and it was nice to finally get it set up.  It was really nice to have somewhere to sit!

I also got the master bath painted.  There is something so refreshing about getting rid of the brownish tan that used to cover every single wall of this house.  The less of that color there is, the better the house looks.

And slowly but surely, this shell of a house started to look like a home, for the first time in a LONG time.  We arranged the TV, brought out the other couch for the front room, moved coffee tables, hung A picture, and got the space acceptable for company.

And within the space of a few days, we had a very comfortable living space set up.  Tobe and James arrived late Saturday afternoon, and they quickly unloaded the bed of the truck, which was full of Jared's stuff from his mom's house.  Though James had come along for our Thanksgiving, he also wanted to make it back to Kansas in time to spend actual Thanksgiving day with his family.  So instead of doing ours on Thursday, we decided to do the big mean for lunch on Wednesday.  If you recall, I still only had half of my kitchen counters installed, and we were still waiting for the other half to come in.

Our luck was with us, though, and Tuesday night, the rest of the countertops came in.  This added so much glorious space, and it was nice to not have to worry about the makeshift boards falling into the cabinet below.

So for the first time since the middle of July, I had a fully finished, fully functional kitchen!

But wait, there's more!  Jared had been telling me that one of my birthday presents was coming in early, and that he wanted me to open it when it arrived.  I wasn't thrilled with the idea.  My birthday was two weeks away at the time, and I like to celebrate things on the days that they are meant to be celebrated.  I'm very glad, however, that I listened to him because we were able to use this beautiful new dining set for our Thanksgiving meal!  The circle top of the table has two folding leaves, so it fits perfectly in that space, and it's much sturdier than the set we had before.  The style was exactly what I had hoped to get, and I think Jared did a great job!

We had countertops.  We had a dining set.  We had a comfy family room.  We just needed all the food for Thanksgiving!  I started my prep for the meal days before by drying/toasting bread cubes for the homemade stuffing.

Tobe and I made the pies the night before using the Standley family recipe.  They came out fantastic, and ready to go!

Jared creepily prepared the ham.  Though I prefer turkey on Thanksgiving, this ham came out very, very well.  It was a big hit with everyone, even me.

Before the oven...

After the oven!  Delish!

We definitely put my kitchen through a good workout.  Clockwise from top left is candied yams, requested by Tobe (which she LOVED), green bean casserole, the traditional side dish, pumpkin pie, just getting warm after being in the fridge, and then stuffing, which smelled heavenly!

Of course, the mashed potatoes also were fab, but they weren't an oven dish.  I hope they didn't feel left out.

Even though a lot of effort was put into the meal, it didn't take long for it to be devoured and over.

And of course, we had our friend Rossiter come over.  As a single soldier, he didn't go home for the holiday but needed somewhere to go.  Unfortunately, he had just had eye surgery two days before and was still quite out of it from the painkillers.  So he slept until it was time to eat.






After we all ate, Tobe and James packed up their remaining stuff and got back on the road.  Jared and I enjoyed the rest of the long weekend, relaxing in our family room, but it wasn't to last.  With the end of Thanksgiving, we knew the floors were going to be worked on again.  So we moved everything back that we had brought out for our company.  The computer and green chair went in our bedroom, the couch and TV went in the spare bedroom, and all the other odds and ends got put either in the attic or junk room.  After having my house usable and comfortable for only a week, we are back to living in one room.  It wasn't easy packing up everything again.  I was so relieved and comfortable, having my house set up.  Jared will attest that it was nearly impossible to motivate me to move everything back.  I'm just looking forward to this week of floor renovations to be done.

After this week, I'm planning on taking a little break from blogging until Christmas break.  Jared will have almost three weeks off for the holiday, and we're planning on getting a lot done on the house in that time.  Until then, I'm going to try to relax and enjoy a little bit of down time.  It's been a long five months, and I could use a bit of a break.

See you at Christmas!