Happy Monday, y’all.

It’s quiet (sort of) around our house this morning. As I sit in my office sipping tea and looking out at the grey morning I can hear Little Bit’s giggles in the sunroom – she’s playing on her computer and Scooby cat is snuggled up next to her, enjoying the heat coming out of the fan of the laptop.

Big Girl is still sleeping – she had a rough night last night. Lots of swelling and pain in her foot. I tried, at 2 AM this morning, to figure out what we might’ve done yesterday to make it so bad last night. The only thing I can figure is that she was more active yesterday – even in her wheelchair – and that maybe having her foot down more than up is the culprit.

Today, I’ll encourage her, strongly, to stay still a bit more. I think it will be difficult, but I am hoping reminding her of last night will be incentive enough.

We are quite the trio – the girls and I. Big Girl with her foot and Little Bit and I with our brochitis-like colds.  Quite a pitiful crew.  And Thanksgiving is coming!  To be honest, right this minute, I could care less. But I want us to have a good day, so that will mean rising above the blahs that this virus has given me and taking on some baking and preparations today.

I think, though, that I will keep dinners simple this week – I’m thinking about making some turkey & rice soup today.  Mom’s dear friend sent us a cooked turkey (among other delicacies) last week to eat after surgery day (she didn’t want us to have to cook) and so we have those remains to eat.  Turkey & Rice soup sounds like good comfort food and something I can toss in the crock pot and forget about.

I have some leftover rice in the fridge, too, so it should be really simple to toss together. I’m just wondering how the girls will like it. It will be an experiment, I guess.

Yesterday, SuperMan piled up all the leaves in the front yard – Little Bit has been asking for a leaf pile to jump in and he decided to oblige.  He uses a blower to do this – I remember raking leaves as a kid. Boy, the blower is so much easier.  For the past two years, I’ve done that job, but this year, I sat with Big Girl and guarded her foot from the over-zealous attentions of the puppies who were “helping” SuperMan in the yard.  They missed her and kept wanting to climb in her lap (not a good idea when they’re 80+ pounds!)

Once the pile was finished, Sydney and Little Bit couldn’t wait to dive in. They had the best time in the leaves. SuperMan tosses the tennis ball into the leaves and Sydney dives down deep, sniffing and searching. It amazes me that she always, always finds it. Truly a needle in a haystack and yet she sniffs it out every time.  Little Bit just loves leaping into the leaves and the puppies leap in right behind her.  They’re pretty cute to watch.

I’m not a big fan of leaf piles. Neither is Big Girl.  We both agree that the leaves and grit in our hair and clothes is not the nicest feeling.  My issues, however, go back much further, I think.

I remember a time as a girl that my grandfather had this huge (huge) leaf PIT. He had a pit dug in the front yard for some reason and everyone in the neighborhood, it seemed, had put their leaves in there. It was like a leaf pool instead of a pile.  All of the cousins were there and everyone was jumping in and having a great time.

I wasn’t too crazy about the idea so I was hanging back and watching. I’m not sure who did it, (daddy maybe?) but someone picked me up and threw me in. I was terrified and came up with a mouthful (and shirtful) of leaves. Not fun.

That was pretty much the end of my leaf pile days.  But, I’m glad that Little Bit loves it and I certainly don’t want to take her joy away. It won’t be long before she decides that she is too old for those type of games.

So, we’ll be spending our week quietly – other than a post-op checkup on Tuesday we have no big plans. Just enjoying the family time together.