{"id":12093,"date":"2012-11-21T22:08:59","date_gmt":"2012-11-22T06:08:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=12093"},"modified":"2012-11-21T22:08:59","modified_gmt":"2012-11-22T06:08:59","slug":"thankful-for-a-clean-oven-sfresh-ice-cubes-and-a-daughter-in-law-to-be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/thankful-for-a-clean-oven-sfresh-ice-cubes-and-a-daughter-in-law-to-be\/","title":{"rendered":"I&#8217;m Thankful For a Clean Oven, Fresh Ice Cubes . . . and a Daughter-in-Law-to-Be"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_12122\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-12122\" style=\"width: 387px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12122\" title=\"lava-rock-steppingstone-garden-path\" src=\"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/lava-rock-path-2012-11-387x580.jpg\" alt=\"A lava rock steppingstone garden path. Photo by BF Newhall\" width=\"387\" height=\"580\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-12122\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jillian the Garden Artisan finished the job my newspaper-colleague-turned-gardener friend Bob Rothe started 28 years ago. She added more lava rock and bordered it with isotoma. Photo by BF Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><em>By Barbara Falconer Newhall<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s Thanksgiving and I should be thankful for the really big things. I should be grateful that there are no air raid sirens screaming through my neighborhood. No incoming rockets. No anti-missile missiles.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>I should be thankful that my neighborhood is high and dry and three thousand miles from the path of Hurricane Sandy.<\/p>\n<p>I should be grateful that I don\u2019t need hip surgery, knee surgery, chemotherapy or a heart transplant. I don&#8217;t even need Botox. (You are a kind person. You will not argue this point.)<\/p>\n<p>I should be thankful for the big things.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_12100\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-12100\" style=\"width: 200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12100 \" title=\"garden 2012-11 new lava rocks (387x580)\" src=\"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/garden-2012-11-new-lava-rocks-387x580-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"lava-rocks-piled-on-garden-stairway-ready-to-install. Photo by BF Newhall\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-12100\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lava rocks ready to become steppingstones.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>But I can\u2019t help myself. I can\u2019t round up any big, juicy feelings of gratitude for the things that have <em>not<\/em> gone wrong in my life. I take the good stuff for granted. Can&#8217;t help myself.<\/p>\n<p>What I\u2019m grateful for, what I\u2019m really jazzed and excited about today, are the small \u2013 OK, miniscule \u2013 things that have gone right for me lately.<\/p>\n<p>For example, the family Thanksgiving will be at our house this year, the grown-up kids will be here, and I\u2019ve managed to get a few things done on time.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>On Sunday I successfully cleaned the oven \u2013 days before our daughter, The Cook, arrived from southern California with her Thanksgiving Day recipes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>On Monday I remembered to dump all the stale ice cubes out of the freezer bin so the ice cube maker could refill it with fresh ice before the out-of-town guests arrived.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Last week I got all the knives in the knife drawer sharpened.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Way back in October, I had the foresight to call the window washer and get all the windows in the house washed. First time since 2008.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>And best of all . . . two weeks ago I finally gave myself permission to go to the rock yard and splurge big money on some gorgeous lava rocks. Now there is a sweet steppingstone path winding through our small \u2013 and very steep \u2013 front yard . . .\u00a0 Jillian the gardener dug\u00a0 into the hillside and laid the rocks, nice and flat. And now I can <a href=\"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/2012\/03\/20\/spring-garden-our-brilliant-bursting-buzzing-front-yard\/\">pick flower<\/a>s, photograph <a href=\"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/2012\/06\/27\/a-checkerspot-butterfly-spotted-in-marin\/\">dragonflies<\/a> and pull weeds without rolling down the hill into the jasmine patch.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I am grateful for all of the above. I am deeply grateful that it was accomplished in time for the arrival of our son Peter and his fianc\u00e9e (yes! fianc\u00e9e!) from Minnesota, just in time for Thanksgiving dinner.<\/p>\n<p>The Fianc\u00e9e is adorable. She is beautiful. She is smart and sensible (mothers-in-law like sensible). Best of all, I\u2019m pretty sure she loves my son. (I know he loves her.)<\/p>\n<p>Let me think. In the gratitude department, a sensible, lovable daughter-in-law-to-be probably outranks clean windows and fresh ice cubes. How in the world did I miss that? Of all the things to be grateful for, a happily married son has to be at the top of the list.<\/p>\n<p>Oh my. What&#8217;s that I&#8217;m feeling? I think it might be . . . gratitude.<\/p>\n<p>Happy Thanksgiving!<\/p>\n<p><em>\u00a0Here&#8217;s another story about my<a href=\"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/2012\/11\/30\/im-the-mother-of-the-groom-now-what-do-i-do\/\"> new mother-in-law<\/a> status. My soon-to-be-married son Peter was once upon a time a little guy. Here&#8217;s a story about him &#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/2010\/04\/03\/a-case-of-the-human-condition-peters-fast-track-grandmother\/\">&#8220;When a Six-Year-Old Flies Solo.&#8221;\u00a0<\/a><\/em><em>\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Peter proposed to his girlfriend very romantically. Jon&#8217;s and my story is a little different; read about it at\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/2009\/05\/15\/a-case-of-the-human-condition-the-day-she-popped-the-question\/\">&#8220;The Day She Popped the Question.<\/a>&#8221;<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><a href=\"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/2012\/11\/21\/thankful-for-a-clean-oven-sfresh-ice-cubes-and-a-daughter-in-law-to-be\/\" rel=\"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/2012\/11\/21\/thankful-for-a-clean-oven-sfresh-ice-cubes-and-a-daughter-in-law-to-be\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12136\" title=\"lava-rock-for-a-garden-path\" src=\"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/IMG_5750-387x580-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"Lava rocks laid in ground for steppingstone garden path. Photo by BF Newhall\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>What I\u2019m grateful for, what I\u2019m jazzed and excited about today, are the small things that have gone right for me lately: A clean oven, freshly washed windows, and a new steppingstone path for the garden &#8212; all in time for Thanksgiving.<a href=\"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/2012\/11\/21\/thankful-for-a-clean-oven-sfresh-ice-cubes-and-a-daughter-in-law-to-be\/\"> See more.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/2010\/04\/03\/a-case-of-the-human-condition-peters-fast-track-grandmother\/\"><br \/>\n<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12122,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[824,34,780,54,825,826,55,82,827,828,829],"class_list":["post-12093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-my-changing-family","tag-bob-rothe","tag-dont-miss","tag-extended-family","tag-grown-up-kids","tag-home-garden","tag-lava-rock","tag-family-stories","tag-on-the-funny-side","tag-steppingstone-garden-path","tag-thankful-at-thanksgiving","tag-the-empty-nesters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12093\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}