Thanksgiving Trip

We made it through busy Chicago traffic to arrive safely at my mom's home last night. The trip was fine, though it took us two hours longer than normal due to an accident in northern Indiana and long lines at toll booths on the way into the city. However, this could have been much worse, so we're thankful we arrived in time for dinner and such.

Moose woke up at 2:45 this morning and probably didn't go back to sleep afterward (not sure...I was sleeping through most of it). We'll play it by ear if we're going to stay here through Sunday or take off a day early to get him into his own bed.

The Thanksgiving day will be calm, with my sister & her family joining us for the meal. We have lots to be thankful for this year, as with other years. Most members of my family are relatively healthy and happy. Even with the complexities life brings us, our lives seem relatively simple when compared to those who truly have had major losses this year. I savor this family time: one of my favorite times of the year. As my family has expanded with my sister and I finding partners and growing our families, the food we eat at Thanksgiving has changed with the addition of combining other families' recipes into our own tables. This is fun. I like to see the changes. I've never needed to replicate the exact same holiday traditions year after year. I guess since my family has always been so mixed (my father was Jewish and my mother is technically Catholic), and becomes even more diverse as time goes by, the holidays have always been about bringing together various customs into one place. Makes life more interesting that way, in my opinion.

This is the first Thanksgiving since 2001 that I do not have a major end-of-semester paper or project hanging over my head that must be completed in three weeks. Very different! Sure, I have this dissertation to construct, but without a looming deadline I plan to spend a few days not working on school-related things. Big change for me for this time of year!

Happy Thanksgiving, and thanks as always for taking the time to read this blog.