Thanksgiving

Things I am thankful for:

1. God is good.
2. Steve, who celebrated his birthday today.  He's a perfect square (he was before, but it's official this year), the straight-man counterpoint to my flaky creative side.
3. Daniel, who is spending break with his Aunt Deb and family in Philadelphia, and skyped us earlier today.
4. Secundus, who after much effort broke the 3.0 barrier last quarter.
5. Tertia, who is looking forward to singing carols for the official Vancouver Christmas tree lighting tomorrow, and may even get to see Santa Claus (and the mayor).
6. Quarta, who figured out today that helping to do dishes the old-fashioned way went really fast when you have help and company.
7. Grandma C., who came over for dinner and played cribbage and watched football.
8. Grandpa B., who skyped me this morning as I was eating breakfast before getting the turkey started.  And Grandma Deb and her parents too, hoping they had a nice Thanksgiving in Scottsdale.
9. My sister Beth, who shared the Peanuts video above.  Methinks Thanksgiving in Scotland is just not the same as here.  She also shared the clip about the flying turkeys from WKRP in Cincinnati, which has great nostalgic value in our family.
10. My sister Sarah, her family, and brother Andy in Virginia.
11. Steve's sister Kristine, who called him and chatted this afternoon, and her family in Arizona.
12. Our home is comfortable.  The patched roof is holding, apparently, and the gutter on the south side has just been cleaned out so the basement is dry again.
13. Our home is in America, and America is a country to be thankful for.
14. Steve's job is steady.
15. Our church, 1st OPC in Portland, and the many friends we have there.
16. Grove City College is providing an excellent education for Daniel.
17. Cedar Tree is providing an excellent education for Secundus and Quarta.
18. The Vancouver Public School District provides an excellent education for Tertia, with many opportunities we could not possibly give her.
19. Cedar Tree received its accreditation through the Association of Classical Christian Schools, with commendations in Latin (!) and several other areas.  This makes it one of the top 25 ACCS schools in the nation.
20. My job teaching at Cedar Tree is challenging, enriching, exhausting, and (because of the age of the students I teach mainly) makes me laugh.
21. My friends and co-workers at Cedar Tree.
22. My little blog project, which keeps me off the streets and has become incredibly fun and rewarding for me.
23. My wonderful blog readers, who come from all over and seem to find my blog worth reading.
24. My hobbies of knitting and quilting, which provide a creative outlet and more or less constant blog fodder.
25. My well-thumbed copy of the November 1994 issue of Bon Appetit, which taught me that turkey gravy tastes really good with sherry.
26. ...and that the turkey will be succulent if you rub softened butter with herbs underneath the skin before roasting.
27. My JennAire range has a convect-roast feature with a meat probe that ended the cooking exactly when the turkey reached 180 degrees.  Ordinarily I don't like appliances that are smarter than I am but this was fun to watch.
28. A really nice side dish: drained hominy, corn, simmered in half-and-half with some chopped green chiles and cilantro.  Also from that issue of Bon Appetit.
29. The turkey will provide several more meals.  I made turkey stock in two batches and have four large containers of stock in the freezer and fridge.  The meat itself... well, Hugo was almost 22 pounds.
30. I don't have to go shopping tomorrow unless I want to.  I don't have to cook tomorrow unless I want to.