Last Thanksgiving David’s parents were here in Columbia. We drank lots of coffee and cooked together in our Benton Street kitchen. I asked Linda to make the pie crust because there are few things that intimidate me like homemade pie crust. The house had very little furniture still, so we spent our evenings crowded onto the futon, pulling around chairs from the dining room. David and I consciously pushed aside the mountain of uncertainties and worries about our future in order to enjoy our family and watch football games on his laptop and take blustery November walks. The Thanksgiving before that we were in South Asia, celebrating in our King…

Our neighborhood is a little lame in the trick-or-treating arena, so we drove with some friends from church a couples miles up the road to Park Street where they do trick-or-treating up right. The kids all loved it, and thankfully the haunted clown mansion (with dead people on the sidewalk who grab at your legs) was only slightly traumatic. David made his first attempt at a Jack-O-Lantern this year and it was fearsome.

Yesterday was lovely. It started with homemade cinnamon rolls, a little homeschooling, and a birthday phone call from one of my favorite people in South Asia.  Then David gave me the whole afternoon out. I went to Barnes and Noble where a friend came and treated me to a cup of coffee and a red velvet cupcake (thanks Sarah!), then I sat with my book and laptop, and read and typed to my heart’s content. I came home in the evening to tuck the kids in bed while David made my birthday dinner. We sat and ate a leisurely meal and chatted and watched The Bourne Legacy until we started dozing off…