We survived Thanksgiving with no visible scars, so that’s good. Aside from a few tense moments where my husband almost went off on members of my family who got way too invested in complaining that calls for the Washington Redskins to change their derogatory name were some sort of affront against Real Americans, but he checked himself to keep the peace. So the evening went off well and was relatively drama-free – and yes, when I say evening I mean it. Thanksgiving with my family never starts before 5 PM, which is apparently unusual. But I come from a family that does very little before noon even on a day without massive amounts of food preparation involved.

We visited with my father-in-law on Friday, and he was in good spirits and health, considering his blood pressure problems, emphysema, and recent skin cancer surgery. For the rest of the weekend, I will get a manicure, go grocery shopping, take photos, and enjoy an extra day off compliments of a student raffle at the private school – the prize for meeting their quota was the Monday after Thanksgiving weekend off, and they made it at the last minute. One of my friends and I plan to hit the Galleria that day and together we are going to try and wipe away the ill effects of my last sad attempt to impulse spend there (and yes, J. Jill did refund my money, within three days of processing the return, actually).

So I’m keeping this blog post short, but for no good reason aside from it being cute, I want to close with a video of our new kitten Simon playing peek-a-boo with Penny by hiding inside a huge barbecue takeout bag (Penny was standing behind me, off to the left of the camera). Enjoy.