Everything is good.   I am going to make cornbread and start the process of making dressing today.  I am in charge of dressing and gravy.  That's my job every year since Becky took over Thanksgiving.  Last year she made 14 pies.  From scratch.  Homemade crust--so flakey.  So good.  I think we ended up with 36 people.  The pies were gone by the end of the day.  So was most of the rest of the food.

I was going to order huckleberries so we could have a huckleberry pie but they were $100.00.  Not blueberries--if you live in Oklahoma, you know the difference.  I wonder if we will ever have a huckleberry pie again.  Nobody wants to pick them anymore.  They are teeny-tiny and it takes a million years to pick a quart.

One of the things I love about the day after TG is that Becky makes gumbo with what is left of the turkey.  Gumbo to die for.  And she packs containers for me so I can freeze it and enjoy it all winter long.  Yum.

This has been the strangest November.  It didn't freeze or even get cold until last Friday night.  The next day, Saturday the 19th, marked 3 years since I lost Ken.  It was a very cold day--in every way.  I can't believe it has been three years.

Ken told me (when he asked me to marry him) that the nine years difference in our ages wouldn't matter then, but that someday it would.  He was right.  I miss him.  But I'm okay.   I stay busy.  I guess God isn't through with me yet.  And unlike many people who have lost a spouse, I was prepared.  Because Ken was gone so much, I learned how to be independent.  How to function well by myself.

I don't like it.  But you have to live with what you've got.  This is my life now.  And I am determined to fill it up.  And try and be helpful.  And available to the needs of those who have something for me to do.  I have four children with wonderful spouses.  Ten grandchildren--six of them married to wonderful people, and three great-grandchildren.  Lots of friends and a church that keeps me busy.

But......I miss him.  I wish I had thanked him more often for what he meant in my life.