It has been a LOVELY week. I should have vacation every week!

I’ve slept in, I’ve woken up early without an alarm, I’ve stayed up late and gone to bed early. I’ve read, watched tv, organized, cleaned, hung out with friends, watched a movie, snuggled with Louie and the cats, decorated for Christmas (more to do), baked bread, planned baking for Christmas, hiked in the woods, eaten lots of great food, enjoyed the snow, and just plain old relaxed.

It’s been fabulous. And today is the last day, sad!

But, that’s okay. Three weeks more of work and then I get to spend Christmas hosting my family, and then I get more vacation after that, and really, life isn’t bad at all. (If you ignore the news, easier said than done.)

Thanksgiving dinner was lovely. We met Louie’s family and some of their friends at the Whittemore House for a buffet, and enjoyed several hours of eating and conversation. It was a little sad not to have leftovers, but I think Christmas will be enough of that.

We met our friends Michael and Heather at Pere Marquette. It was sunny but very cold. We hiked about 3.5 miles and then went to the Old Bakery Beer Company for lunch.

I snapped this picture of the house getting home from a wedding yesterday (I did play one gig over the “break”). While we were eating dinner some young girls stopped by to ask if we needing our snow shoveled so we paid them a little to do so. One shoveled off the porch edges which wasn’t necessary at all but we don’t like to micromanage 🙂

Anyway, I’m doing laundry and probably going to pickle some cranberries now. Later we are hitting up the old house and then eating dinner out somewhere in the old neighborhood, and then back to work tomorrow. How has your Thanksgiving been?

It’s finally here! I work today and then I’m off until Saturday!!

I woke up with a headache though, which was annoying. I am blaming the weather change, but maybe I’m dehydrated as well? I realized that the sparkling water that I love was maybe making me have a bit of acid reflux or similar, so I’ve been cutting back, but have I been replacing it with regular water? Of course not, because that wouldn’t be as fun. So we watched Cobra Kai for several episodes last night and instead of my usual sparkling water I drank absolutely nothing. And woke up with a headache, hmm.

The weekend was fun and we took full advantage of the offerings at Wash U (a short walk away!). Friday night we saw Nicole Mitchell play at the 560 Center as well as some of our local favorites like Kendrick Smith. It was through New Music Circle, but was really jazz, in my opinion, because it felt so improvised and had a drummer. What does definite these different genres, really? Kendrick is a terrific jazz musician, and plays the saxophone, so that seemed like jazz. But nonetheless Louie and I enjoyed the concert.

Saturday night we went to see a play at the Performing Arts Department of Wash U. It was The Thanksgiving Play by Larissa Fasthorse, and we really enjoyed it. The acting was terrific, the play was hilarious and really thought-provoking. I found this New York Times article about it just now. I have to remind myself that we have so much to do here in St Louis when we look for it, and usually I am too busy to do it anyway!

Otherwise, the weekend was the normal work, a wedding, a Sunday afternoon concert, etc. I would have enjoyed having even more downtime but I don’t regret the events we went to. Always the choice!

But now, just one more day. We have some fun events planned for Thanksgiving besides dinner: Garden Glow, lunch at Florentin, a hike at Pere Marquette with friends, a girls’ night, and more! And I’d love to get the Christmas decorations up (and will) — we started yesterday late afternoon with outdoor wreaths which I am super thrilled with. We also set up a chest freezer in the basement that I am eager to fill with baked goods for the holidays.

What are your plans for Thanksgiving? Are you traveling? I’m kind of sad I’m not, but I’m also really happy with the things we have planned and look forward to just relaxing at home as well.

This week is going by so slowly…probably because it is the last week before Thanksgiving? I’m ready for a break, but then I’m like, oh my goodness Christmas is really soon after that and I start worrying about all the stuff to do…then I look at it and realize, no, it’s still plenty of time if I just organize it.

Thanksgiving will be low key: we are going out to a buffet at the Whittemore House with Louie’s family. We also have some plans with friends over the break, hiking and going to the garden glow, that should be a lot of fun. I also want to get the house decorated, or at least everything except the real tree. Since we are hosting, we want a real tree this year and I think it’s better to wait on those?

Louie’s dad visited from Philadelphia over the weekend. I had a fair amount of things going on, but we did get some time to hang out in front of the fire and also had a nice dinner all together (well, no cats) at Esca.

I made some fruitcakes about a week ago. I used this recipe from King Arthur, which I’d used a few years ago. It should be really delicious, though only time will tell. I’ve been “feeding” it with brandy and some other things, and will do so weekly until Christmas.

It was a busy week, as usual. I am glad to have all the student performances behind me, for sure. The only thing left for that is a few juries at the end of the semester (which is shockingly close). I’m trying to squeeze in some makeup lessons this week, and I’m just sooooo ready for some time off next week.

Life is fine…if you ignore the news things don’t seem so bad, even though they really are. I try to focus on what’s around me and tell myself that maybe it’ll be fine, even with all the talk of mass roundups and deportations is around us, the cabinet posts being filled with men who are known rapists and pedophiles…it’s just a lot. Back in 2016, I thought, somebody will save us, and I know that it isn’t true. The ACLU is doing a lot already though, and the main thing that I read that seems logical is don’t give up, don’t roll over ahead of time. That it’s the actions of everybody that matter. So I do what I can in my little world, and you can do what you can, and we can take the time we need right now, and be ready to fight, and donate, and volunteer, and (ugh) make calls and such. The other thing I found encouraging was a reminder that (and I’m not a huge Star Wars person) bad things happened again after Return of the Jedi. Like, we have to keep fighting, and fiction is fiction but it’s based on human truths. One thing that upsets me is all the people who said, oh the democrats say every election is so important, it might be the last one, etc, like they are saying it’s the boy who cried wolf. But yeah, every election is so important, and you should always vote like it might be the last one. That’s how it works. And all the people who didn’t show up, who didn’t vote, they are also to blame.

An interesting painting in the women’s room at a recent wedding venue.

But anyway, it’s easy to get bogged down in despair, but I’m not letting it happen to me. Anxiety meds help, of course, but also focusing on positive stuff. Planning Christmas, planning vacations in the future, reading books, having conversations with friends, taking walks, watching and petting cats, playing music, teaching children to play music, etc. All fun stuff!