oil on panel, floral, 6×6
Available here
Small to large prints of this painting available here.

I don’t know what it was about this Thanksgiving, but it was a real struggle to make it happen this year. The ending turned out great, but man..getting there was challenging. As you probably know, we had to reschedule dinner 3 times because of weather. The big day was yesterday, and bam..the day before guests arrived, our plumbing decides to act up. And, by act up, I mean, Greg started a load of laundry, and when it drained, it had nowhere to go except into the toilet, bathtub, and kitchen sink. The toilet overflowed all over the floor. It also flooded our lawn and driveway. It was Saturday, and our plumber wasn’t answering his phone. Finally got him, and he said he’d be here at 8am Sunday. That meant a whole afternoon and overnight without using the toilet, shower, laundry, and no sink. Arrrrgh!! I came a bit unraveled at the news because I had walked into the bathroom for a reason, ahem, but hey..it was going to get fixed before Thanksgiving dinner, so I didn’t panic. 

I knew what to expect because we’ve had the plumbers out here 4 times this year for the same exact problem – the neighbors tree roots clogging up our pipes. We’ve talked to the city about it several times, but of course nothing is being done. Now, it seems our Mulberry trees are causing a problem, too. One root clog was right near our house, and another down the alley too, which are the neighbor’s trees. Not good news because the city won’t do anything if it’s on our property. I guess we could still talk to them again about the neighbor’s trees, tho. We’ve had to pay countless plumber fees over the 8 years we’ve lived here because of the root problem stemming from the alley. The backup always happens without warning, and always in the same manner..when one of us does laundry. It seems to happen on a Sunday, so we have to pay extra, of course. Greg went to Home Depot and bought some root killer to put in the pipes yesterday, so maybe that will help solve the problem. It’s really getting expensive to have them come out every couple months.  

Anyway, the good news is we made it through Thanksgiving, FINALLY, and everything was great in the end. Dinner went on without a hitch, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Whew. I’m not sure I want to do this all over again in a couple weeks, but you know what? I will because the thought of not being together saddens me, so yes, of course I will do it all over again. Hopefully it will go a lot smoother.