Yes, things are starting to fall into place for Thanksgiving. I think I’m going to make it. I wasn’t sure after Monday’s post of the disaster I had on my hands.
I’m almost finished washing (and washing!) my grandmother’s set of antique Noritake dishes. Wow, that was a project.
Look! You can actually see the top of my dining room table. Only a few more dishes to wash.
Then, I’ll have to polish my silver. But I love and adore polishing silver. I know, I KNOW, I’m crazy that way! 
Then all that is left?
My family to all come home and traipse in through my newly painted red front door! 
I have much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. Here’s hoping you have a happy and blessed Thanksgiving with your loved ones. I’m going to be spending time with my family for the long weekend. I’ll see you back here on Monday. Have your “I’m thankful for….” photos ready for the photo of the month contest! I’ll call for submissions on Monday’s post!
So we got propane heater pole thingies (You know, those heaters you see in restaurants on the patios?) We got a couple of them for our backyard courtyard so we can use it into the fall. (without me freezing my rear end off…) We also got a fire pit…but that tortuous story is for another blog post…
We found them at Sam’s, and SuperGuy put them together. I do like them. Nice, shiny, stainless. We’ll use them near the aforementioned turkey frier if it’s cold on Thursday.
So I look outside a bit later and what do I see???
Seriously?? Asleep on the concrete driveway?? That must have been one exhausting chore, don’t you think??? 
I’m having Thanksgiving at my house. We always have Thanksgiving here. It’s SuperGuy’s fault. He got my family addicted to his fried turkeys. The downside? I no longer rotate Thanksgiving between my sister, my mom, and our house.
This year I decided to make it even more stressful…My mom gave me my grandmother’s china.
Why is that stressful, you may ask? Because it’s all boxed up and needs to be washed. Notice the headline on the newspaper. When is the last time you saw a Watergate headline??
Oh, when I said it needed to be washed? I meant hand washed. It is handpainted Noritake china. From what I can research, it was made somewhere between 
914 and 940. (does my blog show the extra space between the one and the nine on your browser?? I can’t figure out why it’s doing that…) Anyway, I’m going to the library to do some more checking into it. My grandmother had twelve place settings. And when I say place settings I mean:
Dinner Plates, salad plates, dessert plates, small bowls, coffee cups, saucers, more bowls, covered serving bowl, serving bowl, creamer, sugar, platter…oh, heck, I’m sure I’m forgetting some of it. That’s a whole lot of hand washing going on…
The pattern is really pretty, and very antique-y and I love and adore it. (If you just happen to know this Noritake pattern, you could speak up now. The mark on the back is green, with the M (not the newer N that Noritake used in later years. It says handpainted and Japan under the wreath.)
Anyway, the best thing about this? My mother is taking MY china. You remember my china. The china I mentioned that I don’t like anymore?
Anyway, it will look fantastic in her dining room. It’s Noritake too.
But I have to box up all of my china. Wash the new china…and pull off Thanksgiving for everyone…
This is what my dining room looks like right now with my grandmother’s china unboxed, my china waiting to be boxed up…oh, and all the stuff that was in my garden window dumped onto my dining room table. Save me… 
Usually by the weekend before Thanksgiving I have the house cleaned. Pies made. Dining room all clean and set up and ready to go. Tell me I’m going to pull it off this year. That we’ll actually be able to have Thanksgiving in this room.
Did I mention I have a painter here this week too? Traipsing around doing doors and stairways??
Tell me it will all turn out. You can even lie to me if you want! Why do I do things like this…
It will be really, really cool to have Thanksgiving off of my grandmother’s china though. If I have it all hand washed by then…
