Day 1048: Thankful To Be Me

I am.

And I mean that on multiple levels.  I am thankful to be me and to be living in this beautiful life I have been blessed with, surrounded by amazing friends and family.  But, also, I'm thankful to be feeling a lot more like "Me" than I have in several years, really.  It's an indescribably joyful feeling.

Today was beyond fabulous.  It started with the Turkey Trot.  This is my Thanksgiving tradition.  It has frequently had to give way for HH's family's tradition of bowling Thanksgiving morning, but since we're not with them, this year we were able to make both work.

The older two kids ran a 1-miler and HH and I ran the 5K.

Here we are pre-race.  His smile wasn't quite as big after I beat him by a few minutes.  Mine was.

HH originally suggested I buy the banana cream pie from Village Inn.  I contemplated it.  Then I decided to make a pretty pie all by myself.  Next year I'll have piping tip with a wider opening, but I'm still pretty dang proud of this pie.

Speaking of pretty dang proud--this is the first turkey I've ever roasted.  It tasted amazing.

We invited one friend over only.  I am doing better by leaps and bounds, but I didn't feel up to the challenge of ignoring pressure of inviting over a bunch of people with their own Thanksgiving meal expectations.  So, we kept it small and I'm so glad we did.

The meal went really well and so did the prep.  But, it was nice not to be fighting off feelings of stress and pressure all along the way.  I knew that if this turned into an epic fail, everyone involved would be just fine with a Thanksgiving Day pizza.

And then we met up with a bunch of friends at the bowling alley, so HH could still get his Turkey Bowl in.  We were comparing the cheeks on these two.  Pretty close, I'd say.  I had a lot of fun chatting with my girlfriends.  And actually bowled the best game I've bowled in about a decade, with a 101.  Oddly enough, I was limping the whole time.  I re-injured an old foot injury during the race this morning.  It wasn't very painful then, but after standing on it all day to cook, it was lovely and swollen and quite painful.  So, I guess my bowling approach (dubbed "The Flinstone Run) might have been holding me back all this time.

Of course, 101 was nowhere near close enough to touch HH's 170.  And he was disappointed because he felt he could have done much better.

So, we both have our strengths and I'm glad they're different, so we're not really competing even when we go against each other.

Tonight I'm so thankful for so many things.  But, foremost on my mind is sleep.  I'm exhausted!  So, to my mom and mother-in-law who have made every Thanksgiving dinner I've been to before this one--Thank you for your exhausting work!