The last couple days have been fun...
2 years, 2 months By Allyson
In: Allyson Hibbard
We had surprise visitors this week! On Wednesday night my friends Heather and Coy showed up with Chinese food for dinner! I haven't seen Heather in I don't know how long. And it was a lot of fun just talking with her. One of the things that I love about her is that it doesn't matter how long its been since you've seen her, you can always pick up wherever you left off and make it seem like there was never any gap to begin with.
Then on Wednesday night Tim came in from out of town and spent the night. Riley was thrilled. She loves it when people come over (almost as much as I do! ) Ha ha. For Tim we had Papa John's. And this was at Tim's request because they don't have a Papa John's out where he lives, and that's his favorite kind of pizza I guess??? And we had wings too.
The next morning before anyone woke up, I got dressed, and went outside for a morning walk. I was trying to compensate a little because of the turkey dinner I'd be having later. Of course then when I came back, and we all got showered, dressed and ready, Thom suggested going to breakfast. Pretty much the only place open was Denny's. Which for what it was the breakfast wasn't bad. Lenny had half an egg and a whole piece of toast! I ate more of a breakfast than I anticipated but I still kept the amount of points I was eating relatively low. (And for those of you who don't know, I'm weight watchers right now. So all food gets designated a certain number of points. And depending on weight, age, height, and gender you get a certain number of points assigned to for the day. As you lose weight the number of points that you are allowed to eat for the day goes down too.) I'm now at the point where I've lost around 25 pounds.
But getting back to Thanksgiving, after Tim left we headed off to Thom's mom's house. It was kind of a somber Thanksgiving in some ways because Thom's dad wasn't there. And we went to the cemetery after eating. It was incredibly cold and windy outside. Lenny and Julie had fallen asleep in the cars by this time, so we left them inside the cars. We were standing right next to them so it wasn't a big deal, we could still keep an eye on them.
Molly had made a really pretty plaque, with the name Hibbard on it to put on the grave. From there Thom, Riley, Lenny and I decided to head to my mom's house. It was kind of a sad day there too. I really thought they would have had my brothers over or something, but it was just the two of them. At that point I felt really rotten that I didn't go spend the day with them. For those of you who don't know my step dad just lost his job recently, and they had to foreclose on their house. So they are now living in a rented house. They didn't act sad or anything. But it wasn't the usual mood you find at Thanksgiving for them. But I had my obligatory sweet potatoes. I love my mom's sweet potatoes and it doesn't feel like Thanksgiving to me without them. And we gave pumpkin pie to Leonard. Which he was mad when it was all gone from his plate. Heh heh.
I'd be lying if I said I felt fine when I came home. It's really hard to watch my parents go through this. And feeling helpless to do anything about it. It takes them 6 months to earn what they were earning when Pete was working at EEC in one month. So they are living on a severely cut budget from what it was before. They are both currently working at the church. My mom is at the daycare. Pete is doing maintenance. Both of them working part time. I wound up crying a lot last night. My mom put her whole inheritance into renovating their house, and now they have nothing to show for it. And then to not have anyone over for Thanksgiving.....except us later after the dinner was over. I felt really guilty. But we needed to be there for Thom's mom too. That was important because it was her first holiday without her husband. I don't know what the right answer is.
I just hope things get better. For everyone.
~Always Allyson
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