And Now We Recover

It doesn't feel like a Friday, but I know that it is and I am glad that I have three days to recover from yesterday. It turns out that even when you don't do all the cooking, hosting a crowd of more than 20, including half a dozen little kids, for Thanksgiving dinner is utterly exhausting. It was nice to have everyone together, but truthfully I spent a lot of the evening at the fringes of the crowd (the introvert in me fully coming out). I had planned to take a lot of photos and barely managed any, though I did catch a rare moment with my youngest nephew:

We'll have to work on looking at the camera, but it was a big triumph to get him to sit still next to me and smile long enough to take a photo.

Molly and I remembered to take a photo together at the end of the night:

Please appreciate her hair -- I spent a good half hour blowing it out for her.

The food was delicious and plentiful; I had a couple of glasses of Cava; and because the majority of the kids in attendance were under the age of 10, everyone was gone by 7 p.m. By 8, we had the house cleaned up and pretty much back to normal, and we all passed out at more or less the normal time. We slept in this morning, and I'm now nursing my second cup of coffee after a breakfast of pumpkin muffins. We're headed to some family friends' to enjoy leftovers this evening. Today, though, I plan to do some knitting. Here's where things stand on my current gnome:

I finally finished the hat -- which I certainly hope is the most involved part of the pattern -- and started what I suppose is technically the gnome's butt. I'm planning to be pretty much monogamous with this project for the next several days because I have a feeling it will take me longer to finish than any of my other planned gifts.

We have very little planned for the weekend. I'm hoping that the Mister can drive me and Molly to an LYS tomorrow, because my friend Amy is having a pop-up there for Small Business Saturday, but there's nothing else I really want to do other than my usual weekend stuff. I think we all need a calm, quiet weekend to recover from all the work of yesterday and prepare for the holiday rush that's ahead. I hope you have the same!