Happy Canadian Thanksgiving (part ONE)

It was a great weekend (except for the fact that Fergus has had a head cold for most of it.)

I open with a picture my sister forwarded to me in an email last week. She wanted to know if I would consider exploiting our own turkey in this same fashion. What kind of a manipulative and controlling Thanksgiving cook did she take me for?? Of COURSE I would try it. The challenge was I didn't think I was comfortable having her (the obviously female turkey) cook on her back. You know, you want the front down so that she doesn't dry out. I think I figured it out. The next post will show you how I remedied our situation.

So, the rest of the weekend found Doug and I doing some MAJOR cleaning in the upstairs office and the boys' bedroom. Several months ago Doug's mom suggested Doug move his office downstairs into the empty bedroom at her place. She thought the boys would each like their own rooms. They prefer to stay together though so for that and a couple of other reasons we said no.

The first was that Jennifer was talking about moving back to Ontario and we wanted to be sure that there was a room for her. The other is that we have never wanted to take advantage of Christena like that. She didn't feel it was taking advantage (especially since she suggested the move in the first place) but it was still her space and we wanted it to be hers.

What's changed then? Jennifer is no longer talking about moving back here (at least not in the near future). As much as we desperately miss her we are trying to understand that she needs to be where she is right now. We just want her to be happy and it looks as though Calgary is where she is happiest right now.

What else? We still want the apartment to be Christena's. We would never want to take away her space. The boys are growing though and had no room to play that wasn't uber crowded. She was willing to move some furniture and have Doug move his office downstairs. I think she was happy to have a way to help us.

She was much more enthusiastic about the move at the beginning of the changes then she was at the end. I think the reality of what his moving downstairs meant really hit her hard. This has been an EXTREMELY difficult year (let alone past few months) and then to see the additional room (for which she held many expectations) actually be used by Doug was hard. There were many tears this past weekend.

Christena is creating a support network for herself here though. She has found another womyn (Mary) here in Georgetown whose own husband has Alzheimer's. Mary is experiencing a new separation from him (after 57 years of marriage) by having had him placed in a long-term care facility. Mary called and invited Christena over on Saturday and that gave her someone to talk to about what she was feeling about missing Henry.

Yesterday my parents, sister and BIL were here for dinner. Christena joined us and for an evening everything was right in our world. We have so much to be thankful for. Family is just the tip of the iceburg.

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!!