I have had many many things to be thankful for this Thanksgiving season. I am thankful that I got to go see my parents. I am thankful that I got to hitch a ride with Brandy on the way down. I am thankful we got to hang out at our old watering hole/college job, Taco Mac Woodstock, the night before Thanksgiving with our ol pal Nena. We had a great time, we laughed very very hard, mostly at the fact the we learned that Nena used to have a club foot and a lazy eye at the same time when she was little. It was a "had to be there moment" and the timing of the conversation was a perfect recipe for a 20 minutes belly laugh out of each of us. You think after 17 years this would have come up in some fashion, but nope and until the class pictures came out, Nena had no idea she looked any different. Bless her little Pirate Patch Forrest Gump heart.
Brandy dropped me off with my Dad Thanksgiving morning and we proceeded to the sticks for some grub and family fun. My mom had informed that it was my turn to start making the infamous chocolate pie, she said that this year she was fired, I mean retired from the duty.
Ok here is the thing, my Grandma had this amazing chocolate pie recipe that used to be delicious, but over the years Mom decided to in one way or another to "tweak" the ingredients. We all know that they are borderline purist when it comes to the menu but that doesn't mot mean take out key ingredients such as sugar and think that molasses would be a proper replacement one year. There was the year of the cocoa instead of chocolate chips, the year of the wheat soy crust debacle and I am pretty sure there was a dark chocolate and plain yogurt instead of whip cream incident. It became a fun traditional guessing game to see if this year’s pie would be edible. The only standard we held it too was if the pie turned into pie soup when it hit the plate then we knew it was at least consistent in one regard even if it didn’t taste like anything we’ve ever had before.
Well this year I got the baton tossed my way and I got to take a stab at it. Everything was from scratch, Mom and I tackled this together, it was so much fun, she read the ingredients, pointed out what was what and I did the heavy lifting. It was a huge success!!! Many many moons later we got our old pie back. I tried to convince my dad and brother that mom and helped me but they didn't believe me, ha. It’s true, without her help I would have made nothing but a mess. We did it and we did it together.
Next thing I am thankful for was the opportunity to conquer yet another fear. I am on a roll people, finally after many years in fear of anything that did not have a seat belt; I got on the back of my Dad’s Harley! Let me rewind a bit, I remember shaking on the back of a moped in Key West with Gary going like 10 MPH. A couple years later, I tried to ride on the Harley and squeezed my Dad so tight that he had to turn around, apparently being able to breathe is important when driving a motor cycle. I hopped on the back with my Mom's Harley garb on and rode with zero fear, hell I didn't even hold on to my dad, no hands no hands! It was awesome! I am pretty sure I can do anything; did I mention I drive over the mountain without a blinking the week before?? If you find me sitting outside during a thunderstorm I will be officially over my fears, but we are in no hurry, we must respect the storms and stay out of their way.
It was a great stay with my parents, Mom and I laid in the bed and had girl time, me and dad took longs walks had our time and in between I hung out with the dog. Mom is going through a challenging time with her new Chemo treatment but that doesn’t stop her from laughing and making everyone smile! She made a few abstract pieces of art and some paintings over the last little while. She gave me a couple, they all have meaning and I videoed her telling me what they meant and captured a few laughs along the way, it was pretty cool. She asked me not to show them for fear of people may think she is crazy, um Mom we don't worry about things like that, we are Baswells remember?
Anyway next time I will write about me army crawling across the street to surprise my Decatur crew and earlier today when I flossed my teeth with a piece of paper in front of my project manager while sitting in his office. I didn’t even realize what I was doing until I was picking the avocado off of the corner and handing this report to him. I need to stamp the phrase "be aware of your surroundings" on my hand. Earlier that day he asked me to measure a window in the office while he was on the phone at Lowes picking up material for the window. I promptly told him it was 3 feet and 13 1/2 inches wide. He was silent and then said or 4 feet 1 1/2 inches? Eh I mean if you want to get technical I guess.
Maybe the last thing I should be thankful for is the ability to take myself with a grain of salt and have the abilty to train people into having little to no reaction to my antics.
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