Field Report: Operation Thanksgiving Assault

Thanksgiving preparations are well underway here at our cottage. Most of the Monday tasks are done, due, in large part, to The Viking and his usual lightning blitz through the chores list. Give him a list and he'll blaze through it with blinding speed, as long as you don't ask him to make beds, sort through papers or fold laundry. The man's a marvel. Check it out:
He cleaned out the fridge.

He tidied the pantry.

He did all the grocery shopping (I was going to include a picture of the newly full fridge, too, but somehow it still looks strangely empty).

My fireball of a husband has also been taking care of all the dropping off and picking up of children, loading the washer and dryer, and cleaning the kitchen after I've cooked dinner, all in an effort to save me from walking so my strained ligament will heal faster. And as I will have to be on my feet most of tomorrow and Thursday, mixing, baking, stirring and chopping, I need to save up my energy as much as possible.

Last night I went through all my clothes, giving and throwing away scads, and finally cleared the top of my dresser! Look! There it is! I love my dresser. I've had it ever since I got married and it was my mother's before that. It stood in her room and stored her clothes as far back as I can remember. It probably has no monetary value whatsoever, but it's old and every time I open or close a drawer, the sound of the pulls falling back against the front of the drawer fronts reminds me of my childhood and my Mom and reminds me that now, I'm the Mom. I love that.

Now that we're here, let's have a closer look. I keep many of my favorite things on my dresser and I love looking at them: I took those pics of the kids asleep one night when The Viking was away on a Missions trip. They were missing their dad so I let them sleep with me the whole time he was gone. On that particular night they looked more angelic than usual which is ironic since I remember they had behaved more devilish than usual throughout that entire day. I gave those pics to my mom as a Mother's Day gift and she loved them so much she had copies made, framed them, and gave them to me and my sisters. I think I even had her make an extra one for me to give to my mother-in-law. The small picture on the right is of Red Headed Snippet and me in my sister, Lobelia's wedding. I love it because it was such a happy day and there are so few pics of the two of us together looking so fancy. The wee lamp was a gift from Daria (who hates that kind of frilly stuff but knows I love it), the bud vase was a little thing I've had since college (I think I got it at a house sale), and the pic on the left is of The Viking and me in our younger, thinner days. I believe that was taken at Homecoming 1992. I was a Junior and The Viking was a Senior. We had been dating for about a year-and-a-half, were very much in love, and knew we'd be getting married. That was one of the most giddy, happy periods of my entire life and I think you can tell looking at that shot.

The other side of my dresser holds a candlestick I bought at Goodwill and spray painted (it was dull, icky brass), a fabric heart-shaped box which was one of Man-Cub's first gifts to me that he picked out by himself, a gold jewelry box given to me as payment for one of my first singing jobs (a wedding), a silly, little clock I just really like, a pic of The Viking and me on our wedding day (kind of obvious that), and a dried up, shriveled bouquet of mini-roses I cannot throw away because The Viking gave them to me on the occasion of the birth of our first son who died of SIDS 9 years ago.

This is a sketch of that same son, drawn by Lobelia one day while she was sitting next to him watching him sleep. She just absentmindedly sketched a picture of him, stuck it inside her portfolio with other sketches she had done and forgot about it. She came across it long after he had died and framed it for me with the words to one of my favorite poems, The Baby by George MacDonald. It hangs, with one of my baby bonnets, on the wall next to my dresser and is one of my most prized possessions.

Sorry for that long detour around my dresser. That was kind of silly. But anyway, the dresser and the rest of my bedroom are cleaned, our bed has been stripped and remade and right now, as I type, The Viking is building and painting the kitchen coat cupboard down at the fire station. I'm supposed to clean the stove, wash the china, glassware and table linens, make the cranberry sauce, clean the kitchen and wrestle with the kids' bed linens and The Viking and children will take care of the dusting, the bathrooms, the laundry room, and the porches and then we'll be in good form, ready for tomorrow's onslaught of baking and assemblage.

Guess I'd better get away from the computer, huh? Alright, here's to a productive afternoon and evening!