{SQT}: Thanksgiving Edition

I’m linking up with Kelly at This Ain’t the Lyceum for Seven Quick Takes Friday.

🦃 Another Thanksgiving in the books. I tried some new recipes, and all of them were great! It was good to stay in my own house & cook the whole dinner by myself. My youngest son (who is 22) helped out some when I was trying to do 5 things at once! 2 of my 3 sons were home for dinner; the one who wasn't there is going to school 10 hours away, so it wasn't worth him coming home for a long weekend. He's almost halfway through law school, so he needed to stay there and study. 

🦃 My pies turned out great. They were new recipes, and the pecan pie was completely different than what I had made before, but I think this was the best one yet. 

🦃 Thanksgiving Day Mass was absolutely beautiful. There was the Blessing of the Bread & a blessing of a blanket that will go to someone who is sick. I love these traditions that our current priest began a few years ago.

(I didn't get to the table before people started getting their bread. It was overflowing during Mass!)

🦃 Thanksgiving Homily was all about not giving thanks for what we have, but, rather, knowing that all gifts are from God. Thanksgiving is about the goodness of God, not turkey (although the turkey definitely adds a little something!). It's about knowing that no matter what trials we go through, we can deal with it. This priest always poses a question for us to chew on. Thursday, he posed this question: Are we the ones going to the Lord and thanking him?

🦃One week ago, the school where I work on Tues. & Thurs. dismissed early because of a fire on the mountain directly behind the school. When I say "directly", that's exactly what I mean. The school was build on the side of the mountain. This is what it looked like shortly after it started:

Within 30 minutes, it looked like the whole mountain was on fire.

Can I just say how amazing firefighters are? From the fire dept. (the community only has a volunteer dept.), the surrounding fire depts., the forestry service, the National Guard, and other firefighters from around the country coming in to fight the fire, they are just amazing. No structures were lost. NONE. There was a story of 1 man's pond being used by the National Guard's helicopter to fill up buckets to dump on the fire. Instead of being mad about them depleting his pond that he had just stocked with fish, he filled the pond up with his garden hose from his house so they could continue to use his pond. I have a feeling that we will continue to hear stories like this in the future.

I saw a National Guard helicopter fly over my house on Tuesday, but didn't think to snap a picture. That one had a bucket hanging from it. The one below is a National Guard helicopter, but it didn't have the bucket. I took that as a good sign that their efforts are being successful.

🦃 The parish had a "Harvest of Blessings" last Sunday. Each ministry is invited to host a table in order to fund-raise and get the word out about our different ministries. The picture below is the table for the Council of Catholic Women (CCW). Our theme was Cookies (and other baked goods), Crafts, and What-nots. 

I think we had more "what-nots" than anything else. What didn't sell will be held until our yard sale in the spring.
🦃 I kept thinking that last week was the first Sunday of Advent. I am so excited to finally be able to delve into my By the Manger in the Morning, a Blessed is She Advent Journal. It arrived the same day as the fires. I wasn't sure if I was going to get it in time, because I didn't get an email confirmation. It was perfect timing..a good ending to a rotten day.

We have so much to be thankful for this year. I had another Thanksgiving with my father, who has had a rough couple of months but is hanging in there. My boys are healthy and are trying to find their way in this world. My husband and I are enjoying life with each other. 
Hope you had an enjoyable Thanksgiving, and recognize that all that we have are gifts from God!