Running With Quills: Susan Gives Thanks

Welcome to Running With Quills, your online newsletter designed to keep you up to date with what your favorite authors (that would be us) are doing throughout the year. Here you will find the release dates of our new books and get information about our backlists. We'll preview our cover art here long before the books hit the stores and we'll keep you informed about works-in-progress and special projects. You'll also receive advance notice of signings and appearances. From time to time we'll give you a peek at our worlds, tell you what we're reading, and introduce you to some new authors.

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Susan Gives Thanks

Happy Day after Thanksgiving, everyone!

I have so much to be thankful for this year.

My best friend Mimi's husband Doug, who is a very good friend in his own right, is finally on the mend. Just a few short weeks ago he was in Seattle's premiere trauma center, where he'd spent 5 long weeks in ICU connected to so many tubes and machines, having so many procedures done to him it boggled the mind. I'll tell you the truth: we weren't always confident he would recover and it's devastating trying to imagine a world without someone you cherish in it. But he's home now and although it might take him a long time to regain all his strength, in the end he will.

And I give thanks for that.

My mom is getting up there in years and she's kinda forgetful these days. But she's still one of the most generous souls I know and she has that best of all possible attributes: a wonderful sense of humor.

And I give thanks for that.

(that's her on the right in the blue turtleneck)

I guess I simply give thanks for family --both that into which I was born, that into which I long ago married and that which, while not technically related perhaps, I call family all the same. (Here's my Sweet Baby Boy with The Girls)

I spent the day at my oldest brother and sister-in-law's house. There were 18 of us and kids laughed and played, adults laughed and talked, and I ate way too much. I'm sitting here now in a turkey and pumpkin pie induced stupor.

Pretending those calories didn’t really count and tallying my blessings.

I hope you all had a lovely Turkey Day. How did you spend yours? What do you all give thanks for? And did anyone else (she inquired, burping delicately behind raised fingers) eat as much as I did?

25 Comments:

Anonymous said...: In Iceland we don´t have Thanksgiving Day, so it was just an ordinary day for me. However, since I know it´s a HUGE day for Americans then I hope you all had a wonderful day with your families.
Sirry.; 11:45 PM
mary said...: Happy Day to all Quills and friends....

Thanksgiving Day this year was sort of strange because we seem, as a family to be entering that - every other year - format. Of my local family, all the others shared Turkey with the "other" side. I made a small Turkey, that we had early in the day for those few that were available. This was followed by football on a new big TV.

Life gives us new stuff often and today, our Thanksgiving Day ended really early and was pretty quiet. But fortunately we have a snacks and desserts party scheduled for Saturday evening when all us "local" family are available to gather.

Even if it was a weird and quiet day personally I also know it was better than many will have. So it's easy to feel thankful as well as understand the poingant nostalgia for what used to be and is transitioning into what the future will become.

The Holidays have begun!
Cheers!
Mary; 11:48 PM
Karibear said...: Overall, it was a quiet holiday, especially compared to some I've experienced. We had cornish game hens instead of turkey [a bird's a bird, after all], stuffing from a box, mashed potatoes from a box, gravy from a can, cranberry sauce from a can, pumpkin pie from a grocer's freezer. I might have gone to more effort, but it's just the 2 of us - and not cooking a major feast is something I'M thankful for!

The biggest one I can remember was a group of friends 30-odd years ago who got together and rented the local VFW hall and had a giant potluck - there were well over 100 of us, and everyone brought their single most favorite Thanksgiving dish, except the turkeys. Half a dozen people volunteered to stuff and bake them if they got contributions for the cost. They did and they did. The next biggest was in a private rooming house - we had 2 turkeys, a ham, a side of venison, 25 lbs of mashed potatoes, 15 lbs of sweet potatoes, and all the trimmings in equal quantities. A lot of fishermen came by [this was years ago in Alaska] and donated bottles and six packs and helped eat - I had to work that night, and when I got off and came home by 3:30 AM, there was nothing left but dirty dishes.

So I'm really really thankful for not cooking quantities any more! As for eating too much, we've been grazing all evening and giving the dogs tidbits. They're the ones doing the burping, the little piglets.; 12:08 AM
Lori Foster said...: Susan, I'm so glad your friend's husband is on the mend. I'm glad you had such a wonderful day too. Ours was great - busy, crazy, full of laughter and fun and way too much food.
Today I'm zoned and so tired, but I'm equally thankful for all the wonderful people in my life.
Hugs,

Lori; 4:43 AM
DFender said...: How did you spend yours?
Ha! Eating! Our family gathered at Mom & Dad's brand new home... which my little brother built and my parents are oh-so-thankful-for. My family... HHP, the girl- and boy-child, my parents, my mom-in-law (in from Vancouver, WA)my little brother, his wife, my two nephews, my baby brother, his wife. Whew. We had a blast and played with Floam, LOL

What do you all give thanks for?
I'm thankful for the fact that each day is a new time to make memories that'll be with me for the rest of my life.

And did anyone else eat as much as I did?
You're kidding right? Lemme just say this... I was very thankful for Pepcid last night... LOL

Have a wonderful weekend!!

Deb; 5:18 AM
elizabeth said...: Beautiful family!

I'm still in a food coma. *burp*

But I cleverly divided up the leftovers and sent them home with friends and family. *eg*; 9:02 AM
btuda said...: I am very thankful for my family, both my own and my in-laws, as we had both over and everyone got along great. My folks moved 400 miles away two years ago and little health issues are starting to become a concern. Everyone is doing well.

I am thankful my stepson and the dogs were well behaved throughout the day and that I had no unpleasant surprises awaiting me.

I am thankful Mom brought homemade cookies, kinds I'd never of thought to make myself. Yum!

I am thankful we managed to save enough pumpkin pie to share tonight for dessert.

And I am most thankful for my dear husband who was a tremendous help with both the preparation and saving my sanity!

Did anyone else eat as much as I did? Um, were we supposed to stop? I think we are still grazing over here. Napping and grazing. And those of us who had to curse the Employment Gods this morning brought in even more goodies. Excuse me while I wipe the Cool Whip off my chin ... :); 10:08 AM
Susan Andersen said...: Mary, we used to do that-- spend one holiday with my side of the family and the next with my husband's. Those who are married in the our kid's generation still do that. Last year was one of our smallest T-days for that very reason (only 12 of us). Our biggest T-day there were 40 plus people.

Elizabeth, that was my downfall--taking some of those leftovers home!!; 10:12 AM
Estella said...: I give thanks for my family who were all gathered for Thanksgiving dinner.
I also ate way too much---but didn't bring leftovers home.; 12:01 PM
Jayne Ann Krentz said...: Frank and I went to a restaurant for Thanksgiving this year. The upside? Portion control. The downside? No leftovers. Hmm.

So glad your friend's husband is home from the hospital, Susan.

Hope everyone had a great holiday.

--Jayne; 4:09 PM
Carrie from Wisconsin said...: How did you spend yours?

This was an "on" year for my husband's family. As we have many busy teens and college students in the mix, we also celebrated 3 birthdays! We played a neat game that was printed in our local newspaper, a Thanksgiving driven version of add-libs. Almost everyone contributed answers. There was a story to be told that required a person, phrase or noun. Since everyone contributed answers, we picked the answers from baskets. The best part happened after the story ended. There were so many unused parts left that one of my brothers-in-law wasn't satisfied, so he add-libed his own story!

What do you all give thanks for?

I have to admit that gatherings with my husband's family are always fun, enjoyable and memorable. I am thankful for that!

And did anyone else (she inquired, burping delicately behind raised fingers) eat as much as I did?

Didn't eat as much as I normally do. The word was everyone was going to take home leftovers so all of us were supposed to make extra. I made close to 10lbs of mashed potatoes for about 22 people and there was about 2 small servings left! Needless to say, only one person got extra potatoes - the host/hostess of course!

I'm glad to hear that your friend is getting better. Even though I do not know him, nor know what happened, I wish him well and a speedy recovery.

All the best,

Carrie; 11:45 PM
Judy F said...: Glad to hear your friend is better.

We all went to my brothers house. It was a great time but she doesn't give out leftovers. I miss that...

I am thankful for great friends, a good job and wonderful family.; 9:25 AM
Suzanne Simmons said...: So glad to hear your friend is doing better, Susan.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend with our family. Now everyone has headed home and I'm going to stretch out on the sofa and do absolutely nothing. :-); 2:08 PM
Ranurgis said...: What a wonderful family picture! Are the girls your nieces? They almost look like triplets or are they? I remember someone had triplets in their family.

I'm glad your friend is recovering. When I was for lunch with friends earlier this week, I met a man who had been in the hospital for 13 weeks. He had seemed perfectly healthy until his system did a massive shutdown. In Canada, where a week is considered a long hospital stay, 13 weeks is almost unheard of. They tried all sorts of medications to get him to the point so that he could go home. Only he didn't really go home. Because of the damage that the incident and side-effects of the medications did, he had to leave his home and move to a nursing home. His wife died 6 years ago.

During the meal my mind began to work because I'd heard his unusual last name before. It finally turned out that he was the father of my sister-in-law's youngest sister's best friend. It's a small world. I'll see him again on Wed. when our friends have invited us to an early Christmas Banquet. I still haven't reached Cathie to tell her about the meeting.

Enjoy your weekend everybody.

P.S. Canadian Thanksgiving was in early Oct.; 6:34 PM
Susan Andersen said...: The girls are my great-neices and they are triplets. They're great kids.

Suzanne, I hear ya on the stretching out on the couch thing. I'm finishing off a book and it's sooo nice to be in the prone position. Tomorrow morning we have to get up pretty early to watch our son cross the finish line in the seattle marathon (he's running the 1/2 course) and we're having turkey soup at my mother's in afternoon, but other than that it's been a fine long weekend with nothing that we HAD to do. Very relaxing. I keep thinking today's Sunday and it's so nice to remember it's only saturday.; 9:04 PM
Anonymous said...: I am glad everyone had a thankful Thanksgiving. I had a good one, too.

By the bye, I just want to mention something about your accumulative blog page. I have a dial-up connection over a phoneline.

Today, when I came to the quills blog page, just to follow up on my prior blog posting under a previous author's essay - it took forever to do that, since the way the blog page is setup it insisted that I wait until EVERY single picture and graphic was downloaded BEFORE it would allow my to open a 'comment' page.

Is there a way to have less graphic pictures downloaded on the 'start blog page'?

Maybe have just the one current essay and current photos be automatically downloaded - and not all the gizillion graphics of 5 or 6 prior essays and all photos ?

On a phoneline, it is just too time consuming to have all of those downloaded.

Has anyone else on a phoneline, been having this same bottleneck ?; 1:19 PM
Karibear said...: I have a really slow dialup - 26K - but generally once the pix are loaded they stay in the computer's memory and pop in immediately with each successive visit to the blog. With a new series of pix, if I don't want to wait, I click on the browser's 'stop' button, then go directly to the comments.

What I'd really like is to be able to do away with the Spyware program that deletes all cookies. I know cookies can be dangerous, but it really sucks when I log into my bank account, for instance, and I get the same message: We don't recognize your computer. Please enter the following information for security purposes.'; 2:20 PM
Ranurgis said...: Anonymous,
I've had long waits at downloading pages myself. I don't know which program you are using, but both my Mozilla and Windows 98SE have spots where I can stop images or pictures from downloading.

In Windows Internet Explorer go to Tools; Internet Options (last one); Advanced; and go down that page about halfway to Multimedia; look for "Show Pictures". If it has a check mark click on that so it's gone and then click at the bottom on "OK" (some say "Apply" and OK but I see no difference) and then "Refresh" your page. Some pictures automatically do load, but photos as a rule won't unless, as in the Quills' pictures case they are already part of the program.

I've used that a lot because it makes pages load faster. Sometimes you do need the other features governed by the "Show pictures" deal. For example, the "Verification Word" won't show up if you've shut off "show pictures". It may mean messing around with that more. But as a rule it does help especially if you've already downloaded the rest of the page once.

If you're using Mozilla, it's Tools, Options, Content and Load Images.

I hope this helps anybody who's having problems. The bad thing is that you do have to make sure that the "load images" for the "word verification" is up *before* you start your comment. If it happens to you as it does to me that I forget about that, I just highlight my whole comment and hold Ctrl and the letter C to copy that part. Then Ctrl and V (always hold both) to paste. Before I found this trick, which might be old hat to others, I always ended up deleting everything and doing it again. What a pain in the fingers and hands.; 5:00 PM
Cbell said...: Glad to know your friend is on the mend. Spending the holidays in a hospital is so difficult. I remember losing a grandmother right before Christmas and how hard that was on our family.

We spent the weekend with family in Arkansas (I live in TN) and the drive was horrible for the first set of family to head out (around 2pm) but those of us in the second car (leaving at 6pm) had a much easier drive! It took the first group almost 10 hours and took us just a little under six! Whew!

I was grateful that we all made it in one piece and that I didn't fall asleep behind the wheel!; 11:18 PM
mary said...: It was our first Thanksgiving without my parents - well last year was but it was so fresh and new last year, it didn't count. There are only a few left from their generation and a lot of us baby boomers in my family that are contemplating that we're the older generation now.

Having been the one of a huge family that was -out of town- I'm a bit amazed that what I created to compensate my family for being out-of-town during the holidays are something my children consider important. Now that's a really wierd concept. What you created for your children for the holidays in place of the great stuff you remember enjoying as a kid - in now the "great stuff" they remember????

My greatest treat was last night when we celebrated our family time of snacks, desserts and kareoke.... My son-in-law only has one more chemo treatment to go and he looks awesome. Gaining weight, good spirits.

Thanksgiving is something we need to do every day of the year, evey year.; 11:26 PM
Carrie from Wisconsin said...: For those of you with dial-up, have you thought about DSL? We have DSL and I really like it. It uses the already existent phone-line but because it links you up directly to a server (Direct Server Link [or something like that]), it's much faster than a regular dial-up that has to go through one router and then another. With DSL and a fast processor and lots of RAM, loading pages should be a much faster.; 2:54 AM
AgTigress said...: Carrie - DSL (the usual term in this country is Broadband) is simply not yet available everywhere. One also needs to take into account the fact that many people have older computers, with older operating systems, which may not take kindly to broadband connections, and while they are still working, why go to the cost of replacing them?

Broadband is certainly much faster than dial-up. It is also, in my case, a great deal more expensive, though that may not be true everywhere. I am not yet quite sure whether the benefits of speed quite outweigh the extra cost.; 5:14 AM
Karibear said...: I'd love to have either DSL or WIFI, but neigher are available in my specific area. The phone lines are too old and outdated to use the DSL available through the phone companies, and the trailer park where I live has a service contract with a local TV provider who does not include - it's a feedthru from Comcast that doesn't even provide all the basic channels. Because of that blasted contract, we can't even get Comcast directly. I spent a lot of time last summer trying to find a wireless alternative, but even Clearwire stops short about 20 miles south of us and can't cover us. So I'm stuck. Because of the old phone land lines, I can't even get a decent dialup connection - my computer has a 56K modem, but until some twit ran into a phone pole with a repeater box and knocked it down last summer, the best I could get before was 14.4K. Since that pole and box were replaced with new ones, I've been able to get 24.4 to 26.6K connections. I suppose I could hope that more phone poles were knocked down, but that seems sort of drastic!; 9:21 AM
Susan Andersen said...: Cbell, what a difference an hour or two can make to traffic, eh? Glad you made it safely in both directions.

Mary, I remember the year my father died. My brothers and their and my families packed Mom up and drove down to my aunt and uncle's place in Placerville, Calif. It was a much needed break from our usual tradition. And it sounds as if your kids like the traditions you made for them to replace the ones you grew up with. I think that's really nice!

Good news that your son in law is gaining strength. Chemo is rough. My neice-in-law (the triplet's mom) had breast cancer about 3 or so years ago. She had two rounds of chemo, a mastectomy and a round of radiation.

You really do have it all if you have your health.; 4:18 PM
Carrie from Wisconsin said...: Agtigress,

For us, we have either DSL (which uses regular telephone lines with special filters) or broadband (aka cable connection). We have our old computer, which is a 233 MHz processor or slower, which uses DSL just fine.

Since we have markets competing for our patronage, I guess the costs are driven down a bit.

Have you investigated a wireless laptop system? Refurbished and new ones may be affordable and provide a new way of communication for you. With the right set-up and decent equipment, your computer can even act as your telephone. It might be worth checking out. Again, I may just not be familiar enough with your environmental situation to understand all the variables you have to deal with. City living tends to do that to people. I hope things can improve for you though and I do enjoy reading your posts!

Carrie; 2:28 PM

Previous Posts

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Susan Gives Thanks

25 Comments: