Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving means family, food and travel. Before I got into the full spirit of the weekend holiday, though, I still managed to move some projects forward. I finished most of the carrot tops for my ‘Baby Carrots’ piece. I still need to finish one carrot top and needle felt the little babies onto the background. And dig up a few treasures for the soil—perhaps a rock or some slag and a rusty nail. Just the kind of stuff you dig up when planting veggie seeds in the garden bed. When I re-launch my art career tomorrow, after unpacking suitcases and getting laundry going, I’m also going to start on a black ruffled merino shawl that I was commissioned to create. I just got a big shipment of merino wool from Oregon, and I had already purchased all the black merino within a fifty-mile drive of home. My plan is to use the wet-felting strategy I developed for my ruffled scarves and create a larger triangular shawl.

This year for Thanksgiving we drove to see Grandma in Michigan. We started off from school Tuesday after lunch and drove like the wind. The whole family was mesmerized by a book on tape: Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. Tommie and Jim have read the whole series, but Jacob and I were hearing it for the first time. We both guessed who the traitor was, and what parts of the prophecy meant as the book went along. Even better, we were able to drive without stopping until dinner around five. We then embraced Kawkawlin with hugs all around with Grandma and Uncle Tim. He arrived from New Mexico earlier in the week and had some alone time with Grandma before we descended on the scene. For Thanksgiving dinner, Aunt Lois drove in from Essexville and the Gibsons from next door joined us. They brought their friend Millie. Everybody contributed to the dinner, which was fun. The Gibsons brought turkey, stuffing and gravy, Millie brought scalloped potatoes, Tim made a potato and bean stir-fry dish, Jim made salmon and Aunt Lois brought cranberry salad and mom made squash. She also arranged the table and made the place look special. I was in charge of cutting bread, arranging the relish tray and keeping wine glasses full. An important task! Everything came together beautifully. Everyone had all they could eat and then we finished off the feast with pumpkin pie and ice cream. We even opened a fifteen year old bottle of Muscat as a dessert wine that we have been saving since before we were married. The dinner, like most of the weekend, was just lots of chillin’, hanging around and chitty-chatting with family and friends. It was all very nice. We got to do a little secret Christmas shopping, and I even got a stylish winter jacket from Mom that I get to wear now, but promise to keep clean until Christmas and put under the tree. The highlight for the boys was when Ben and Kathey Gibson, took them to the airport. Ben flies a jet in his semi-retirement, and he took the boys for a tour of the plane. They got to sit in the cockpit, learn about engines and flying, and even had a brownie sundae at the airport. Does life get any better than that? When they came home they were just bubbling over about their adventure and showed us all the pictures and movies they took. Today we got an early start and sped straight home in time for welcome-home Kluski dinner! As soon as I get this written it’s sure to be bedtime. Tomorrow it’s back to work and a chance to reflect on the weekend.

And now back to art... this weekend is the Holiday Art Fair at the Unitarian Universalist Church (Fee Lane and the bypass, here in Bloomington) on Friday 10 am - 7 pm and Saturday 9 am - 5 pm. Hope to see you there!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin