thankful...

Today I'm thankful...

*that despite the lack of desire from just about all parties besides myself, Nathan, his two brothers, and my new sister-in-law, Anna, participated in the first annual Luce family turkey trot, consisting of a scenic two mile jog through Lakeland. Maybe next year will add feathers to our outfits. I didn't want to press my luck today, for fear of total cancellation. But next year...

*for the salvaging of the maiden attempt of providing the rolls to the Thanksgiving dinner. Homemade rolls, that is. I've been responsible for picking up the package of Sister Shubert's plenty of times before. But this year, thanks to the inspiration of my Secrets homemaking class, I decided to go hardcore. That meant buying yeast for the first time in my life, and after only three trips down the baking aisle, I was very relieved to find it.

This morning I was in the zone, getting up to make the rolls first thing so that they would have time to rise two times before lunch. All was going according to plan, until 1 1/2 hours into the 2 hour rising process I saw we had hit a bump in the road. Namely that the dough wasn't rising and, in fact, looked more like soup that dough. "What could have gone wrong?" I asked myself as I stared at what was clearly not going to turn into anything that could be kneaded and rolled out in 30 short minutes. I'll tell you what it could be. It soon came to my attention that I skipped over one line of the instructions. The one that told me to add 2 cups of flour. Yes, that definitely makes a difference. Well, there was no time to start over, so mission salvage Thanksgiving officially began. I went ahead and added the missing flour, fully aware that yeast is finicky and the dough might not rise. But rise it did, and even though I have a feeling that the fluffy factor may have been damaged, the rolls themselves were edible and served with pride.

*that Nathan didn't fall off the roof today trying to look for the football he had thrown from the backyard, with intentions of hitting Micah, who was standing in the front yard. There was much talk of ladder positioning, roof steepness before Nathan finally mounted the ladder, willing to risk it all for the $10 ball from Wal-mart. It was then that Nathan's dad made the fortuitous discovery that the much worried about football was actually quite safe on the ground, hidden by a shrub, but very much on the ground.

*that at least one of my new culinary attempts went according to plan, and actually turned out to be Thanksgiving-worthy delicious. Carmel Pecan Pumpkin Bread Pudding. It's a mouthfull to say, but it's worth every syllable. For a pumpkin and bread pudding loving kind of a girl like myself, this was a little piece of heaven on earth.

*for two turkey-wearing little girls, a handsome husband, and a wonderful family (both sides).

*for Jesus. When you boil it all down, and take everything else away, there is Jesus, and He is more to be thankful for than I will ever have words to do justice.

So today, and all the others, I am thankful. Happy Thanksgiving!