Thanksgiving Eve

It is almost Thanksgiving again, which in our house has come to mean two things: parent-teacher conferences and Nutcracker.

As usual we are blessed with capable, intelligent children whose teachers are full of praise. We saw a lot of A's at the middle school, and lots of 3's and 4's at the elementary school, both of which are populated with talented teachers and effective staff. It makes the conference time a little mundane, but always, always in a good way.

With parent-teacher conferences come short school days as well, so I still get up at 6:00am even though they're home by noon.

This morning in a rare occurance my middle schooler missed the bus. As we were driving through the lovely rural landscape, we were treated to a breathtaking sunrise with pink and lavender clouds, blue skies, and amazing clarity in spite of patches of fog. Over and over one of us would exclaim, "If only I had a camera!" The golden orange leaf on the back of the forest green SUV in front of us. The everchanging shadows and colors in the sky. The etheral fog patches shrouding cottages on the side of the road. We were treated to a morning of sunshine before the rain moved in again.

Today was what is becoming an annual event, the marathon Nutcracker dress rehearsal. The majority of the children's cast is double cast, so they run the show twice, in full dress, for each cast. In between the parents are responsible for the children, so there is a lot of time spent at the Seattle Center. Today included a best friends lunch and a lot of giggling. I am told. I was home and managed to get my shopping done for tomorrow.

And so I have many things to be thankful for this year. For talented, healthy children. For amazing landscape and weather in the mountain foothills. For no flooding or snow/ice storms (yet). For the flexibility to be there for my children with a minimum of fuss. For giving us a good year in spite of the recession.

Tomorrow we will celebrate by wearing pajamas and eating chicken. Tonight, we are winding down, ready to count our blessings.

Happy Thanksgiving

Good Things

Good things of late:

Harper Collins reissued the six "high school" books in the Betsy Tacy series, in a set of three, two books to a volume. They use the wonderful Vera Neville artwork, and are fine quality all around. Can't go wrong with books loved by people as varied as Bette Midler, Meg Cabot, Nancy Carlson and me.

I am listening to the absolutely fabulous cast album of "White Christmas The Musical." In addition to the songs used in the original film (which itself is actually a remake of "Holiday Inn"), it includes such fabulous Irving Berlin classics as "I Love A Piano" and "Let Yourself Go." We saw it a few years ago in San Francisco where this production originated, and loved it. What other modern musical uses a 40-piece orchestra these days?

It's early November, and the trees are changing colors and losing their leaves. The other day I was driving through a windy patch, and leaves swirled and danced like in a Disney movie.

Last spring I stumbled across a patch Girl Scouts can earn, The Coat of Many Colors patch, based on Dolly Parton's song. This fall my daughter's troop is collecting coats to donate to a local organization to earn the patch, and people are donating like crazy. I am excited to see something so useful be so successful.

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