4 Keys to Reduce Stress at Thanksgiving!

How many are fixing Thanksgiving Dinner?  How long did it take to prepare for it?  How long did you take looking up the right receipts? How long did you work at making sure the table and setting was just perfect?  How many hours did you spend cleaning, inside, outside maybe even your car if it was going to be used to pick up some guests?  Even if you have it all down to a science, it still took a long time to prepare Thanksgiving Dinner, if you are the lucky one fixing and hosting.   

I have fixed Thanksgiving Dinner for two to 30! And what amazed me the first time I fixed it, was how long it took to eat it.... 20 minutes… just like any other meal!  Then - boom - men back to the game.... boom - children are flying past you to get outside (weather permitting or maybe not) or back to their toys... and shhhh ... whisper boom - the teens sneak upstairs or wherever they can sleek off go to do some naughty thing besides clear the table!  That leaves the tired women to sit at the table, slowly grazing and chatting while dreading putting things away and cleaning up WWIII mess in the kitchen! 

I know, not all the women sitting around the table helped as much as the hostess did with the meal... maybe one sweet soul helped you an hour or so before the meal was served.  (I am not downplaying this extra pair of knowledgeable, helping hands – they are needed and more when it comes to putting down a dozen dishes quickly so they at least serve warm!) 
Depending on the size of the crowd eating the turkey (and how many left overs you want), the turkey must be prepared the night before and tucked into the overstuffed fridge with all the other prepped food.  But they all have been working hard all day too!  If they have children, their day started Thanksgiving's Eve too, with baths, bushing hair and teeth, tucking into bed a couple of times and laying out of the clothes for the big day.  Then it's up w-a-y before anyone else to get your ownself ready, then wake everyone, dress and rush out the door for early morning breakfast with some well rested, early riser in law.  Kids are fidgety in their ‘you can’t take that off or get anything on it’ clothes and a bit grumpy, since probably a cousin or two stayed overnight and they decided to see who could stay up the longest! Of course here you sit in a warm restaurant - fighting to act interested in chit chat silently screaming to your eyelids to stay UP!  Before you know it, someone announces it's time to go.... and off you all dash away – packing in and strapping up - and fighting with the car seat age angles - while all along you try to keep your cool...but loose it when your husband who is strapped in himself, mini van running and looks back at you and asks smugly, “Why do you gotta have all the doors open it's cold outside?”  (As you sweat buckets, your winter coat tossed on your seat in front... that's why your door is open too, opps.)  Awkwardly, your eyes meet and a chill runs up his spine and suddenly he becomes super, helpful husband!!!

This senerio plays out for lunch too and now here you are nodding off at the dinner table, woken up by male tone cheers in the other room over some stupid game where men are paid a fortune to fight over chalk lines on a football field!

Oh…. But I am writing this to help you have a stress-reduced Thanksgiving… Christmas… etc!

#1.  Decide early… what is best for your family… stay at home and invite guests to your home, or not.   Even if you would rather ‘not’, we can still cut down on the stress described above!!!

#2.  If you have selected ‘Not’ in #1… then make your wishes known early (months early and repeat several times throughout the year) that this year you are going to have one Thanksgiving meal a day!  Thanksgiving runs from Thursday to Sunday…. Spread the love!!!!   No one enjoys that overstuffed feeling of eating ‘some of everything’ at every get-together so you don’t offend someone!!!!!!  Even offer to bring a dish or two, maybe bring wine, pop… gee, Kool-Aide for the kids and the grownups that use it as a mixer!!

            #2 - A  - If you plan to dress your kids to the hilt so they look good for the friends and family pictures…. I’ve been there and done that.  But bring them some clothes to change into, because all they are thinking is when can I get away from all this boring, grown-up talking and go play with my cousins!! You make your kids take off their ‘school clothes’ when they come home from school before they start to rough house, right???

NOTE To Grandparents and Childless Others who invite families to their homes… Maybe it’s a good idea to help your son or daughter host the dinner.  Even offer to spend the night so you can help cook and or watch the kids.  Your home is probably far from childproof! And all the kids usual distractions like games, toys and friends are at their house… not yours!

#3.  To the Host/Hostess:  
  A – Deep Breath.  It's going to be ok.  It's just a meal!!
  B – Plan out what you want to eat.  You don’t need a million items!  What do you make best?  Simple – make that!
  C – Delegate the rest of the meal out!  My mother-in-law was the best pie maker, my sister-in-law made a salad that was a meal in itself, and my brother-in-law knew wine and stronger drinks better than of all of us. 
   D – Keep delegating!  Don’t waste your precious time carving the bird… have someone else do the job, who cares if it’s not in perfect slices, turkeys are so tender they just pull apart easily and lay nicely on a platter, add a touch of garnish, or a bigger piece of meat (that no one will probably take) like a leg or wing!   Have the dishes brought to the table by several adults or teens, so everything is served quickly and hot!  Or, try buffet style, that can be fun too!
E - Make clean-up easier, use throw away oven ready, foil pans whenever possible for of course the turkey, but also for the casseroles.  Use aluminum foiled cookie sheets for the bread/rolls.  Use nice Thanksgiving napkins and heavy paper plates, if not for dinner, at least for desert!  Have already clean and ready to fill disposable, plastic bowls for left overs for you and your guests! (I also use freezer, zip-lock quart and gallon baggies!)

#4.  Be Thankful!  Have fun! Create some new traditions and games.  Enjoy your guests!  Thanksgiving is about more than just the food!!!   It’s about Black Friday (!!),  that’s only a few hours away!!!! 

Time to Flee?

Packed roads of evacuees leaving Florida.

This heavy traffic continued long into the night!

But where? Is there a safe place?  Is this the end of the world?  With the disasters just here in the states, it can make you question… are we living in the last days? 

In the last few months alone, we have experienced Hurricane Harvey who worked his misery on Texas! Kim Jong-un looks more menacing than ever!  An 8.1 magnitude earthquake that rocked Mexico City and fires continue to rage all over the west and southwestern Canada – working their way even into our National Parks! Hurricane Irma (with Hurricane Jose’ on her heels…) said to have been the most catastrophic hurricane to ever hit Florida and the most destructive hurricane in the Atlantic in the last hundred years!!  Not to mention the total Eclipse of the sun and the latest blood moon! 

 As I watched, the ferocious forces of Hurricane Irma as it roared through the Caribbean’s with 185 miles an hour winds – I counted the days I had left to finish preparing my home for it’s possible total destruction, a little voice questioned, “Is this it?”.

Forcasted spaghetti lines showed Irma visiting Ohio and Indiana in her furthest reach north

As I went to get my last provisions at the grocer, I seen the doomsayers holding signs at corners and intersections shouting that this was the end… that same little voice spoke a little louder in my head, “Is this it? Are they right?  Am I ready?”

I don’t know if you have ever had to evacuate an area fated for natural disaster, but it can bring out the best and worst in a person as anxiety and stress levels rise.  Some run as fast and as far as they can, while others demand their right to stay to sometimes their bitter end.  

I battened my hatches best I could and packed a few of the irreplaceable belongings including my mom and small dog and left.  I drove about a mile and was stuck in thick traffic for 7 hours!  (I wasn’t on I-75!)  As we experience nature’s sometimes disastrous behaviors, we build hurricane proof buildings, underground shelters for tornadoes and dams to redirect powerful rivers.  

Hurricane Irma made her way through my area September 11... 9-11, again.  We were 4 days to 10 in the area without electricity.  Mom and I came back to not as much damage as we expected, and happy to have our home still standing! 

Much of the destruction came from the winds.

 Even though we came back 10 days after Irma passed our home, our local grocer was not fully stocked:

Still, we had our home and our lives, where so many did not from the storms and natural disasters that hit the US and surrounding areas hard this year:

Hurricane Harvey:  over 60 dead and over $160 billion in economic damage.
Hurricane Irma: over 70 dead and approximately $100 billion in damage.
Hurricane Maria: over 30 dead and a little less than $100 billion in damages in US - Puerto Rico.
Mexico has lost many lives in over 1500 earthquakes this year!

Prayers for our families, friends and neighbors.

Battle Between Happiness and UnHappiness

One upon a time, there was a wise grandfather who had an important lesson to impress upon his grandson about two wolves.

He said, “Within all of us, we have two wolves. One wolf is call ‘UnHappiness’.   He is full of resentment, bitterness and jealousy.  He is full of lust and greed.  His thoughts and actions are for the betterment of his own life.  The other wolf is named, ‘Happiness’, and he is full of joy, kindness and compassion.  Empathy guides his path as well as passion for the well fare of others that he knows and may never meet. 

“Everyday, these wolves are battling to control your life.”

The grandson then asks his grandfather, “Well then, who wins?”

And the old man looks kindly in the youth’s eyes and says, “The one you feed.”

My dad told me early every morning when I was a kid, “Count your blessings!”  We are so blessed… no matter who we are or where we are!  If we want to embrace happiness we have to fill our lives with gratitude! 

Another thing my dad always said, “It’s more blessed to give than receive.”  I know that there are many lessons learned by receiving, buy the act of giving freely and without grudge or second thought, will shower you in happiness!  An act of service (without reservation) will empower you!  Something as simple and free to share is a smile… and when someone smiles back at you, a little firework of happiness shoots off in you!  Compliments are free but priceless!  Don’t you like to receive a compliment?  So does everyone else… so kudos to the kudo givers!

As Joyce Meyer has been quoted saying, “The more you refuse to let negative emotions rule you, the weaker they will become.”  Try to keep negative thought out of your mind and open the floodgates of positive energy! Radiate warmth and optimism every day and help bring out the happiness in others!