Relax and Be Thankful

This year our theme for Thanksgiving was to relax. After a great deal of traveling, we have been very busy of late with many low key items at home. Our days have been filled with routine, but time-gobbling, items. For Frank there were dental appointments and train group meetings and bathroom repainting. For Diane there were quilt guild meetings and quilt guild board meetings and quilt outreach meetings and quilt guild membership database management and library literacy tutoring. For Alex there was his quarterly review meeting and of course bowling. For the bunny, the dog, and the cat there were vet appointments. We even squeezed in a dinner dance with the Hayward Dance Club one Friday night. By the way, we are the dance club's new treasurers. I am thankful that we are not rusting out in retirement!

I've been so involved of late that I noticed my last blog post to Wander or Ponder was November 9th, the day before Frank's 67th birthday. In the morning of November 10th, Frank opened a few casual gifts I had gotten for him – magazines, books, etc. – and we fielded some phone calls and birthday wishes from family.

When I said casual I meant it. Observe Frank's new tool socks. They coordinate with the sawdust on his shoes.

Then we had a break through – at least Frank did.

We would relax at home, no frantic meal out or houseful of folks for a party or travel. Here is our plan in action. Daphne and Wima were copacetic with this state of affairs.

On his birthday I cooked a turkey dinner with sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie, Frank's favorite foods. But I am slowing down. We did not eat until 8:00 pm that night! The pace was a bit too relaxed. For Thanksgiving we decided to buy one of those ready made holiday feasts at a restaurant and bring it home, saving cooking and cleanup afterward and interminable leftover storage.

So we did just that. We were to have one friend and Alex joining Frank and me on Thanksgiving Day. The day before, I had fun setting a pretty table. I wrote about it on my DianeLoves2Quilt blog in the post for November 25th, 2015. I like doing the decor better than cooking anyway. Wednesday, I picked up a few of Alex's favorite treats at the grocery store. I avoided major food shopping and its associated attempts to thaw out and store a huge bird. It is a bit early for Christmas but for Alex, I put up our artificial tree from last year and put just a few gold ornaments on it. He loves the lights of Christmas and with just gold I was in keeping with the colors of Thanksgiving. Otherwise, I spent most of Wednesday working on a quilt for charity up in my sewing room or blogging about the table decor.

The meal was scheduled to be picked up at 3:00 pm Thursday. Frank took Alex bowling in the morning while I enjoyed more time in my sewing room and puttered about putting the finishing tweaks to the table decor. I just needed to add goblets for wine and set out the drinking glasses, ready to be filled with ice water. I snipped and prepared the fresh red carnations to  add at each place setting.

Frank, Alex, and Vickie arrived at 2:00 pm. I sat with Alex and did puzzles while Frank and Vickie went for the meal at the scheduled 3:00 pm. They were back by 3:10 pm with the food. I was expecting takeout, ready to be gobbled down in the true Thanksgiving fashion. This is what came with the food.

HEATING INSTRUCTIONS? 

What the (insert not very thankful work here) ... ?

Every item was chilling cold from being stored in a refrigerator, required transferral to an oven proof container, some prep, and 30 minutes cook time. Here is a sample of some of the phrases from the instructions.

Turkey: add chicken broth (not provided)
Stuffing: break up and cover
Gravy: place unopened bag in at least 4 quarts boiling water
Mashed potatoes: for best results use a double boiler

Sweet potatoes: spread evenly, cover with foil, remove foil after 20 minutes

Green Bean Casserole: place in mixing bowl, add french fried onions (not provided), pour into casserole dish

I was shocked. My idealized vision of relaxation had just been shattered into a million bits like shards of ice. I did not behave very thankfully to say the least.

Once I acknowledged there was no other option but to proceed forward per the instructions I did. Resentfully at first, but then I took a few deep breaths and realized it was not so bad. The food was really very good, the all-white turkey meat was moist, the mashed potatoes were well seasoned, the sweet potatoes (once I added my own marshmallows) turned out great. Alex sat with us for most of the meal and ate well. I think it was more like a pail of frigid water had been thrown on me instead of being presented with the comforting abundance of warm food. 

The cleanup was not so bad either since casserole dishes did not have baked on crusty food in them. There was no turkey carcass to deal with. All the leftovers fit neatly into Ziploc® containers on one shelf within the refrigerator with that one remaining quart of mashed potatoes and partial bottle of white zinfandel to enjoy for other meals. It sure beat staring at a turkey rib cage and two amputated turkey legs for several days. Now that I know what to expect, I would order a feast from a restaurant  again. I'd still make my own pumpkins pies, though.

Except for my initial knee jerk reaction the day was great. We enjoyed doing a crossword puzzle jointly with Vickie. We were full but not to the point of being uncomfortable with over-indulgence of food. Alex loved exploring his collection of banks and puzzles. When we dropped him home he was quite happy to pose for us in his strikingly new Star Wars shirt that he had worn that day.

My son-in-law and daughter-in-law supported our theme of relaxation for Thanksgiving. I am thankful that they are such loving parents. I am very thankful that Robin and Dan have made quite happy families for themselves.

(NOTE: Autumn is not in the previous picture because even at the age of three she still rarely sleeps!)

I woke up this morning greeted by the red carnations from Thursday's table. They were bright and cheerful and had opened up fully. They set the tone for the day. Robin called and texted to talk sewing and quilts. She regularly sends photos of Autumn and Isaiah to my cell. Carrie sent me a link to fantastic family photos she and Dan had taken for their holiday cards. She keeps me current with images of Vivian on Instagram.  Frank is sitting peacefully and companionably behind me doing a jigsaw puzzle as I blog. I will join him shortly. Aah, the little pleasures of life to be thankful for...

Ponder Post: Gifts of Imperfection

Sometimes you find a pithy little book that just seems to hit the nail on the head. The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown is short, only 130 pages. It is told in an anecdotal style that is refreshing and circumvents the dangers of resembling a droning psychological tome or a trite self-help treatise. The subtitle Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are raised my curiosity as to how it might relate to life changes such as entering into the retirement phase of life.

Have you ever seen a trailer for a movie and then, when you go to see the full length feature itself, you realize that all the good parts of the movie have already been shown in the trailer. Little more remained to be gained from the film itself. That is not the case with this book. The table of contents tells it all and does so quite concisely. But reading the book itself was worth it because the anecdotal examples were highly entertaining, quite illuminating, decidedly thought-provoking, and particularly instrumental in helping me integrate the book's message into my own life. Here are ten guideposts to living "wholeheartedly" – accepting myself and making decisions that satisfy me –  as opposed to deciding and acting according to what is perceived by others to be correct. Several of the following guideposts resonated with me.

Cultivating Authenticity: Letting go of what people think
Frank always teases me about an expression I have, perhaps due to my Polish heritage. They will think gypsies live here. Shades in the house are at uneven heights... ?  They will think gypsies live here. Christmas lights up too late into the New Year... ? They will think gypsies live here. Did not dust before the guests arrived... ? They will think gypsies live here. So what!

Cultivating Self-Compassion: Letting go of perfectionism
I do not have to correct every misspelling in a text message before pushing "Send." I am still working on that one, even if the message is just to Frank or one of my kids. Also, I love to quilt and there are several stages to the process: picking colors, cutting out, piecing together, and quilting the final product. I am pretty good at the first three but need a lot of practice in the fourth. I am afraid of ruining a top I pieced by quilting it badly. Consequently I have a backlog of quilt tops that are just that, tops. Angela Walters, a well known quilter, advises that, "A finished quilt is always better than a perfect quilt top." And it is true. I'd be much happier quilting a top imperfectly and gifting it, rather than feeling the guilt of those seeing those unfinished projects every time I look in my closet.

Cultivating Intuition and Trusting Faith: Letting go of the need for certainty
Here faith is defined not just in a religious sense but in trusting ourselves to make good judgment calls and not seeking reassurance from others or even reassurances from a spreadsheet or other calculation tool! I had entered into a week of vacation with friends uptight because I had not laid out a straw man schedule of events and itinerary ahead of time. Free flow is an OK thing!

Cultivating Creativity: Letting go of comparison. 
This section had a ponder worthy concept. "Comparison is the thief of happiness." Think about it. Were you happy with that test score or that pay raise at work until you learned someone had done better? Were you content with your purchase until you found out you could have bought it cheaper at another store?

Cultivating Play and Rest: Letting go of productivity as self-worth
This is a big one when entering retirement and not just because of leaving the paid workforce. How come I still have that big pile of paperwork and all that clutter in the attic? I am retired. I am home all day. I should be ashamed that I am not more productive, right? Wrong. Consider this quote. "The opposite of play is not work – the opposite of play is depression." It is OK to diddle around a bit. Let go and be creative.

In that vein, I like to diddle around in Google images. I found these that I think represent the guideposts I discuss above. Can you match them up?

I could have read this book in one sitting but I lost it somewhere in the house. As soon as I found it I completed reading it that evening. However, it had become overdue at the library while I was searching for it and I will now have to pay a fine. Right now the fine is at $2.75. Apparently it had been misplaced for about a week and a half beyond its due date. My positive take away from this is that I am not upset and am learning to cultivate self-compassion by letting go of perfection. My sewing table, where it had been buried under some piles of fabric, is now tidier. I will return the book tomorrow and just pay the fine without hanging my head in embarrassment. I even allowed myself to refrain from returning the book until I'd blogged about it. No reason to flagellate myself at the price of $0.25 per day and I am sure I am not the only person to return books late.

I do have a small regret that I'd had to pause for so long in reading The Gifts of Imperfection due to my misplacing it. I did not get a continuous read, which is always better. In leafing through it to refresh my memory and write this post however, I was able to remind myself of some of ideas that had initially struck me. Long term memory sticks better than short term memory. I can accept that I was imperfect in a broken read through. Imperfection can have its advantages, too!

I like to mix some non-fiction in with fiction when I take time for my recreational reading. I think this book was a concise, and actually fun, way to do just that.