Thanksgiving Traditions Fading

Lots of changes in Thanksgiving are looming ahead. It was always one of my favorite childhood holidays. I loved it even as an adult. In recent years, mom and dad have passed away and so have the massive number of pumpkin pies. Dad always made sure he and Beth made a pie for each person! My parents always put out the "fancy china" on this day. It was a day of over-indulgence of food and then TV or games. The house smelled of roasting turkey when we awoke as Dad had put the turkey on at 5 in the morning. As some of us got married and had other families to include, we worked a system of all the Bertsches together for Thanksgiving and then not Christmas. The next year we would trade off and all meet for Christmas and not Thanksgiving. The system worked well for a couple of decades.

In recent years we would run in the Father Joe Carroll's Turkey Trot 5K to raise money for the homeless. It was a great way to start off the morning before all that food! It has become a tradition here in SD for us to participate in.

Black Friday has been HUGE in my family since I was a teenager. We would be at the mall when it opened at 6 a.m. and shop until noon then head home. All of the nieces have been inducted into the shopping foray and we even got Patience to join the fun. One thanksgiving we were in Chicago and she and I and her Mom and Dan's sister Beverly shopped at their freezing outdoor mall! I don't remember missing until last year.

Now that our children are married and have other families to include it seems rather hit and miss if we will be together. This is also a tough year because it is at Thanksgiving that Dan's dad, Bud, went into the hospital and died a few days later.

So this year will be really different. No Bertsch family, no Jay and Heidi, no Brian and Patience. No Turkey fixings at Bayside Lane. No Turkey Trot, No Black Friday shopping. We plan to meet up with Dan's mom and her husband, Ron, and the step-siblings. Seven in all. Not exactly the big hoopla I am used to. We are going to eat at Mimi's...

I am sad to see my childhood traditions melt away. Perhaps one day the house will be full of grand babies and new traditions will be formed by our kids. My parents love for tradition sure made my childhood extra special!

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

They're Here!

The shutters have finally arrived! I am so excited. The house looks so different and I can't wait for the new paint job too. The installer did a wonderful job. I know this isn't a good picture with all the lighting and everything, but you can get the idea. It is so nice not to have window coverings that Shore Management puts in rental units. We had those nasty plastic vertical blinds for a good 25 years-maybe longer. I feel like a grown-up now.

New Toy for Card Making

OK, a while back I shared about a new way to spend time and that was on Pinterest. Well, I started looking at "card making" on other peoples sites and I noticed all of these amazingly cool cards that were embossed. So today I was on a mission to find out how you emboss.

I discovered there are two ways. One is with ink and a heat tool. I already knew how to do that, and it is indeed very fun to do. But I wanted something more dramatic...so I bought a Sizzix machine!

Can I tell you just how in love with this new gadget I am!!? It is basically an Ellison cutter which teachers use all the time for cutouts at school. Well a function of this machine is to also emboss paper. I have made 3 samples (screwed one of them up) and I can't wait to do more tomorrow. Of course I got it on sale for 40% off so it was cheaper than a pair of shoes.

You just might get one of my new cards sometime!

Thimbles

I have been collecting thimbles for most of my adult life. My sister Beth got me started by giving me a little porcelain thimble shaped like a hat. I loved it so much that I joined a Thimble Collector's Club like the Book of the Month Club. I got a lot of really great thimbles from around the world that way.

I finally decided that I needed to categorize them and take some pictures. There are groups of thimbles from all over Europe, the Scandinavian Countries, Asia, Native American, Stone, Cloisonne, mosaic, wooden, whimsical characters, statehood symbols, glass thimbles, flower patterns, butterfly patterns, antique silver and many many more. The only ones I don't collect are the cheap airport type thimbles. Here are just a few to look at.
 
The collection has grown bit by bit as friends bring me thimbles from their travels as well as ones I pick up. I am excited to look for some in Australia and New Zealand. Part of the fun in collecting them is the hunt. They are hard little devils to find!

I now have three huge glass domes and two smaller domes that hold the little gems. I guess the next thing to do is prepare written descriptions of each. Seems like a lot of trouble though for something that can't be replaced or no one else would want.

It is a great hobby because most thimbles run from 10-20$ although some like Waterford or Dresden run substantially more. They can pack very easily in a suitcase or purse. Each one tells a story. A great addition to The Adventures of a Retired Teacher!

Brian's Visit

What a fun time we had with Brian during his visit home for his 30th birthday. Brian flew into OC airport and spent a day with his best friends in the Santa Ana area. They drove him down on Saturday in the early evening in time for his party. A few of his friends were there along with Margey and Tom, our neighbor Christa and her grown daughter Vanessa, and of course Heidi and Jay. I picked up some Mexican food and beer and we just spent time chatting. It was so nice and susper fun.

He had the opportunity to go to the Alpine Brewery and bought a few beers to take back to Chicago~stuff they can't get back there. We also went to dinner at a fun burger place called Slater's 50/50 Burger with the family, Christa, and Joey and his girlfriend, Kristin.

It was a relaxed 5 days and we look forward to having him back at the Christmas holiday time.

He and Patience are trying to work through some tough times and while they are separated, they are still in contact and in counseling. We are all praying that things will work themselves out. Neither one of them is in a hurry to make the split permanent. Five and a half years is a long time to be married, so they are seeing what will happen.