Note to self: Jacob smells like genius.

Thanksgiving progress: Pie made, stuffing loaf prepped, turkey in the brine. Still to do: slice potatoes with the food processor so they cook quickly (store under water in fridge so they don’t go weird), hard-boil more eggs, bake the stuffing loaves. Also have to sweep and hide bags of random crap. And rearrange the alphabet puzzle mat so it says "turkey" (I would do thanksgiving, but due to only having one of each letter, the best I could do is "thanksgiv")

I simultaneously didn’t do much and did a crapload of stuff today. I cleaned up and got a big-ass wooden table out of the cupboard that we are using as extra counter space/serving table. It’s about 5 feet long so that’s perfect. It makes the kitchen look less crappy, actually. It’s funny, I remember when I put it away in the closet years ago, I couldn’t do it so Nick (Jake’s brother) did it for me. Why Jake didn’t I don’t know. But anyway, I moved it all by myself, easily. It’s similar to how I can move the kitchenaid stand mixer around so easily even though I think it weighs close to 20lb. Things are way less heavy and it is all thanks to Ashley making me buff!

Ash and I had a lovely LONG nap today. 2 hours. She tried to wake up in the middle of it, sat up and then turned around and saw boob and fell on it and started eating and fell back asleep. I was so glad I got to nap too, usually I just think about closing my eyes and she wakes up. And she rarely naps for 2 entire hours in a row. So I was grateful. Last night she slept with me all night (she was fussing and crying the second she left my side…) and she was wide awake and babbling and trying to sit up, from 2:30 to 3:30. Ugh. If she had stayed awake a minute longer, I would have woken Jake up and told him to take her to the couch for a while. And then she woke up for good at either 6:30 or 7, I forget. Thankfully Jake woke up soon after so he took her and I got to sleep in a comfy position with blankets all over me keeping me warm… aah, that hour is always the BEST.

Dad was busy with a work thing tonight so we only got to Skype with Mum. Found out lots of good things that have really taken a load off my mind. I had been a touch stressed trying to work out the logistics of us flying from Melbourne to Adelaide, and also getting between Nanna’s house and the hotel each day. Apparently Natey will be taking time off work so he will be driving to Adels too, so we will be going with him. In Dad’s car, because Natey’s HoJu (named when he was my car) has no a/c. This also, I think, means Natey will stay in a hotel with us, which would be lovely. Don’t know for certain on that point, but even if he stays at Nanna’s and we are at the hotel alone, we could take the car and therefore not be trapped. WOO! I love being able to drive in both countries, it is so… freeing.

21 hours until meal time. I don’t have a detailed, timed plan for tomorrow. It should be okay, the problem is always that last little bit of time when the turkey is getting out of the oven and the potatoes have to be cooked (or are cooked and need to be mashed) and I have to heat up the veggies and get things into service dishes and make sure the table is ready for eats and… all that. Plus there is an Ashley this year. I’ve told all the siblings that they are most welcome to get here early because they can help keep the baby occupied and I REALLY hope they take me up on that offer. Lisa won’t get here until 5:30 (meal at 6) probably, Matt… who knows. Kristen and her Matt will be here before 5:30 definitely because they are making a green bean casserole that will need to be cooked for 30 minutes. Next year will be so much easier: our plan is for Ashley to go stay with her grandparents for the weekend we do thanksgiving so she is out of our way. Who knows if this will be a forever thing or just a until-she-is-old-enough-to-occupy-herself-for-a-while thing, but either way, we are all looking forward to that. And due to Lisa and Mattt needing notice to get those days off work, we won’t have thanksgiving sprung on us the week before, so it will not be anywhere near as stressful as this week has been.

Title: I was testing out the voice-to-text feature on my phone, and it was pretty close. I said he smelled like petunias, but other than that… Plus, genius is so much funnier.