Thanksgiving is a special holiday in our house. My husband is from a Jewish holiday celebrating family, and I am from a Christian holiday celebrating family. Thanksgiving is the one big holiday that we both celebrate. We also have other special memories tied to Thanksgiving, like marching in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade when we were in our college marching band together. We told Eric's family we were expecting a baby when we were celebrating Thanksgiving at his parent's house. When we first moved out to Colorado from Ohio, we had our own little Thanksgiving in our little apartment. My mom flew out for it, and my cousin, her husband and their brand new born baby came. My sister and her husband had just moved to New York City and she was hosting a Thanksgiving dinner at her new place too. We were sending pictures back and forth and tried to make it like we were together for Thanksgiving, like we always have been. Every year since, we have always had Thanksgiving at our house. That first year we had company, but usually it was just Eric and me. We wouldn't go light on the feast, just because it was only two of us, either. We go all out. Every year. Even the years when we would be out of town for Thanksgiving day, we would always come back home and have our own Thanksgiving just the two of us. Then the two of us became the three of us. And, this year, we are hosting a real, honest to goodness, grown up Thanksgiving. Complete with ten hungry people. Eric's mom, dad, brother and brother's girlfriend are all flying in for the holiday. We are also having some family friend's over for the feast.
Anyone who knows me knows that I don't just kinda host something. I go all out. I've already got the menu, place settings and timing all figured out. (Although I'm still not sure if I want to try frying a turkey for the first time this year....any suggestions?) But this year, as well as a few other years of my life, my birthday falls on Thanksgiving day. I don't like it when my birthday is on Thanksgiving. No one notices it's your birthday when they are all on a triptophan high. My 21st birthday was on Thanksgiving. Hangovers and turkey don't mix. I don't expect a giant party every year, but a "happy birthday" or a "hey, let's go have a special dinner" is nice. Instead I get "Happy Thanksgiving, oh, is it your birthday too?!" and "Everything is closed today, so your birthday dinner is....turkey". But this year I'll make the most of it. I'm going to go out and buy myself a birthday cake (one that I don't have to make myself) and make everyone sing happy birthday to me, and maybe even wear funny hats. So there!
There is something that's been bugging me for a while now. There is a blogger that I started reading this past year. She is hilarious and a very popular blogger. But here is the problem. When I first started reading her blog she blogged about not being able to be bought. That companies were always approaching her to plug their product on her blog and she said she wouldn't do it because that's not why she blogs and she can't be bought. Well, since then, she has plugged product after product. She will even put that she was PAID to say that good stuff on her blog. As far as I'm concerned, that is being bought. I don't care in the slightest about her being bought. In fact, I want to be bought! I am totally for sale! Please, send me your products and I will totally talk them up on my blog. What bugs me is that she was all high and mighty about never selling out then within a couple months, she was totally doing it!
I've gotten a lot of questions from friends and family about our move. Here's the situation. We had a LOT of interest in our house. A CRAZY amount of showings. Some people we thought would be really great tenants. Some of them I would NEVER let live in my house. It seemed, though that the people that we really liked, really liked our house, but there was always something wrong with it. It's not our actual house, it's the location of our house. I get that. It's the reason we want to move. It's on a busy street and it has a small yard. And then the people that we weren't so crazy about, wanted to move in right away. We kept at it though and continued showings. Then, I went to Ohio for three weeks. There was no way Eric could handle showings and his full time job. Having as many showings as we had IS a full time job. So, we took the for rent sign out of our yard. We stopped advertising. Being that we own several other rental properties, we understand rental cycles and know that from now until the new year is the worst possible time to try to rent a house. People rarely voluntarily move over the holidays. If they are moving, it's usually because they HAVE to move. (i.e. getting kicked out of another place) And people who HAVE to move aren't really the kind of tenants we are looking for. So, we are putting it on hold. The house that we were planning on moving into is still available, even though I have told him numerous times that he should continue to advertise and not to count on us moving in. (They are wishy washy about renting it out anyway, and are getting some construction done on it now) Maybe, after the new year, if we are still wanting to move, we'll try again. If the house we were planning on moving to is still available, we'll move there. If not, we'll find something else.
I feel like things happen for a reason. I'm not sure what the reason is that's keeping us here, but when and if we are supposed to move, I know it will happen. There are a lot of really great reasons to stay here too. I really love our house from the walls in. And I really love our neighbors. Fortunately, we are in a position where we have the choice to stay or go, which I am really grateful for!
I've been home from Ohio for about a week and a half now. I went with Jackson for three weeks. We went to Toledo for a few days, down to Columbus, over to Athens, down to Huntington WV-ish, over to Cincinnati, back up to Columbus, and finally up to Canton. I had a wonderful time visiting everyone and showing Jackson the different places his Mommy grew up. I learned a lot about my little guy too.1) His behavior is much better for other people. He would be just fine, until I walked in the room, and then he would start whining and crying. I know it's because he spends 99% of his life with me, and he is an only child, but it's still frustrating nonetheless. 2) He is a night owl, just like his Mama. He would easily stay up until midnight every night, if I let him. (I often let him on this trip)3) He will not, will NOT, go to sleep until he is ready. Most nights he sat in his little pack and play for several hours before going to sleep. 4) He likes older women. A few people we visited have older 3-5 year old girls. Older girls love to boss little boys around and he loved to be bossed around. He would just follow them and do whatever they said. I encouraged this, as we all know, the sooner he learns the "just do whatever your girl says" lesson, the better off he will be. 5) He is drawn to male figures. Whenever there was a man around, that's who he wanted to play with. Probably because they throw him in the air better than me (Uncle Ryan) or fly airplanes better than me (Grandpa and Uncle Josh) or shoot hoops better than me (Nate). Interestingly enough, none of them seemed to be around when it was time to change a poopy diaper.....
Okay...I'm back. Man, it's been a long time since I've blogged. I was in Ohio for three weeks and then completely immersed in a jewelry and holiday show that I had this past weekend. I'm so over being out of whack that I don't even want to talk about the trip or the show right now. I'll talk about it eventually, when I'm not so tired of talking about it. (I know...ME, tired of talking?!)So, instead I'll tell you about my trip to Walmart yesterday. I actually got to go grocery shopping BY MYSELF yesterday. Most people wouldn't actually want to go grocery shopping at all, with or without company, but 99% of my life I have a two year old attached to my leg, crying for attention. So any chance I get to do anything by myself, I happily take it. So, I'm in the deodorant aisle, sniffing different men's deodorant, because Eric told me to get him some deodorant that smells good and is cheap, and I look over and RIGHT next to me is Zac Brown (from Zac Brown Band) crouching down getting a bulk amount of Dial soap. I'm staring at him for an uncomfortable amount of time until he finally notices me staring. He looks at me and smiles awkwardly and then walks away with his soap. So, I do what any rational person does, and I follow him. (He is a really fast walker, BTW) He turns and goes into the grocery department and it's time for me to check out so I get in line. This is the portion of my grocery shopping that I like to call "if some famous celebrity healthy chef came and looked in my grocery cart, would I be totally humiliated with what's in it?" This time around, I'm rather proud of what's in the cart. I'm loading the groceries on the belt and the man in front of me starts to laugh. "OMG, is he actually a famous chef and is laughing at my choices?" Then he finally speaks up and says "you can really tell the difference between a man and a woman by what they are buying". In front of him on the belt is beef jerkey and a pack of gum. I laugh back at him and he says "they didn't have what I was looking for, so I got this instead". What on Earth could he have been looking for that beef jerkey and gum could replace? I'm still totally distracted this whole time though, keeping my eye out for Zac. I check out and as I'm walking to the exit, I see him getting in line. Okay, I need a picture. How can I take a picture without looking like a total dork? I can't. I'll just look like a total dork and it will still be totally worth it. So, I go out to the red box machine and pretend to be looking for a movie, all the while, I have the camera in the ready position on my phone and one eye on Zac. He finally checks out is walking my way. I hold up my phone and snap a quick picture! Got it!
He does catch me taking a picture of him as he gets closer, but he must be used to it by now. He IS totally famous, after all. So, I get home and post the pic to facebook and look online for pictures to prove that I actually saw him. Come to find out, they are playing a show in Kansas City and there is no way that was Zac Brown. Shit.....
