Autumn's End

Nov 19, 2011 11:04 AM Filed in: Day To Day
Hello, Everybody.

It's been awhile since I've posted anything, so I thought today I'd try to catch you up on happenings here and there.

Today is Farm Thanksgiving day for my family. A large number every year gathers at the farm the weekend before Thanksgiving for the first half of deer season, and to have the big family Thanksgiving feed. The little farmhouse always seems to stretch itself to the bursting point to accomodate the large number of aunts, uncles, and cousins who come for the last family gathering of the year. I've been able to make it there for about half of the gatherings these last several years, but today I'm sitting here at home sending my happy thoughts their way. It's about a 10 hour round trip drive to get there now, and I just wasn't feeling up to it this morning. I'm feeling the need to stick close to home for the next few months to take care of things
here, but my thoughts are with the family, and I'm hoping they get all the turkey and noodles and red cake that they can hold today and tomorrow!

Here, I'll be heading over to my sister's house on Thanksgiving day to spend some time with her and her family. Not sure who all might be coming for that, but it's always nice to catch up with them, and the holidays are about the only time any more you can catch all of them together at one time. It will be a traditional Thanksgiving feast menu again this year, and I'm planning to bring over a nice big dish of roasted vegetables to add to the table. I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about cooking more and trying some different and more interesting recipes. Roasted veggies instead of the more usual greenbean casserole will be a good start. This year I also grabbed for myself a small turkey breast roll that I plan to cook next weekend. Visiting others for Thanksgiving is all well and good, but leftovers are half the fun of the holiday meals! So this year I plan to cook a mini-Thankgiving dinner for myself with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatos, and roasted veggies, so here at home it will smell and feel like the holidays as well.

Let's see, not much else to say about doings here. I have only a few minor yard chores left to finish to get things properly cleaned up and ready for the long winter sleep. Nothing too involved for sure. I'll just wait for another sunny day here in the next few weeks and get that taken care of in an afternoon or so, and that's about it for here.

As for There, the big news is with V and her new job in the far north region of The Netherlands! She started about 6 weeks ago now, splitting up her time between two clinics in a family of clinics, the one in Drachten and the other about 17 miles away in Leeuwarden. She loves it! The past few weeks have been a bit of an adventure with her commuting weekly from Utrecht to Dracthen, sleeping at the clinic during the week, and finding her way back and forth between the two towns to work her shifts, but she really enjoys the work, and she is very happy with the large
group of vets that she is working with. She says that all of her colleagues are very friendly and welcoming, and they have proven to be very easy to work with. It's been a great start!

Now that some of the newness is wearing off, she'll be starting to hunt for a new home nearby. It will really help out once she doesn't have a long train ride between her and her bed at the end of the week! She's already visited a few of the neighboring villages just to see what they look like and what sort of housing might be available. The little fishing village of Grou was especially scenic, and only a short car drive away from both Drachten and Leeuwarden. Oh, and that's her other big news, V now has a car. It's an old Peugot that one of her new colleagues told her was going to be for sale from an acquiantance. That will really help her now to get back and forth between the clinics and then home at the end of the day without waiting and waiting for the buses. As it is, many nights she's not been getting home from work until 9PM. Oi. With a car now she should be able to be home by 6PM or so on most nights, and that will be a huge improvement.

So things are coming together nicely for V! It's an exciting time for sure, and I'm planning to move over to join her later next year. We'll let her get settled into her new place first, and then early next year I'll fly over for a short visit bringing one of the cats with me. ^^ Then I'll fly over again a few months later possibly bringing the remaining two cats with me on that trip. If I do I'll be able to stay for 2-3 months that time and every trip over after that. I'll be doing some flying back and forth for probably the rest of next year until I can get my house sold here. Bit by bit though we're making this work out for us. It's fun knowing we have so much adventure ahead of us!

Okay, I should go ahead and wrap this up for now. The long winter months will be here soon, and perhaps with fewer chores to be occupied with, I can spend more time here at Little Delving. We shall see! That's a happy thought for starting off the winter season for sure. Until then, Happy Thanksgiving, Everybody! I hope you all enjoy your end of Autumn.

Cheers,
JB
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