It is our family tradition on New Year's Day to have a pork roast, applesauce, mashed potatoes and turnips, peas, and gravy. It's the dinner we make and eat as a family every New Year (sans one or two when mom wasn't feeling well and we didn't get together.) On Friday we all went over mom's house around 4 and helped cook. Of course, my mom, being the mom that she is, had already done most of it herself, with my sister Kellie's help.
We had a really nice time, me, the kids, mom, Kell, Tiny, and Amanda (a family friend and 'sista in Christ!' that lives with my mom and Kell.) After dinner we hung out and chatted. Kell wasn't feeling well. She was sitting on the couch looking miserable with a bag of frozen veggies on her neck. Kell has a decent sized lump protruding from her neck, her lymph glands are swollen-her doctor is having the lump biopsied tomorrow. She gets really tired easily and sick to her stomach sometimes too. We are praying for the best, we hope it is not cancer. I have been praying for God to send her healing.
After dinner, Kell made a fire in the firepit and we all sat around the fire telling stories. The girls' stories were silly and full of fantasy, Kell told some stories about Iraq and her military days, and my stories were mostly silly stories about the kids. Mom even sat out there with us, and she hates the fire pit. See, it's not really a fire pit, per se. It's not, you know, all cutesy from the garden center at Home Depot or anything like that. It's more of, well, a drum from a burned out dryer. Which sounds really tacky but you can't even tell what it is, lol. My sister is a tinkerer, and we both love fire. We got tired of making bonfires in the BBQ, and dad got a gas BBQ which isn't a good idea to make a fire in, because the one time we did we could see the pressure rising on the propane tank guage as the logs in the gas bbq heated up. So obviously we really NEEDED a fire pit. Mom's dryer busted about a year and a half ago (don't worry, she got a new, much better dryer) and Kellie said she had heard one could make a fire pit from a dryer drum. I was in. Mom, not so much. Kellie took the drum, laid it on its side on some cinderblocks, and viola! instant fire pit. I don't know how many times mom has demanded it be thrown out but it never has. We've roased hot dogs, sausages, marshmallows, and all kinds of other stuff on it (including my shoes when I absent mindedly put my feet up on the side.) The kids found out on New Year's night that if they get a cup of cold water, take a big mouthfull, and spit it out on the drum, the drum steams and hisses loudly. They got a very large kick out of that and kept spitting on the drum to Kellie's dismay. (Classy eh? But oh well, they're little kids.) It took us a yer and a half, and my sister being sick, but we actually got mom to sit around the fire with us. it was a reall beautiful night. We stayed out there until almost 11-I didn't even realize how late it was because we were all having so much fun. I don't know what this year will bring us, but i'm just going to savor nights like this that leave a beautiful memory with my family upon my heart. I'm so grateful for everything I have in this life. I'm so blessed!
