So, here it is, Thanksgiving again. It’s my favorite holiday. It’s a chance to get together with friends and family and just appreciate each other, without the presence of presents. Everyone around me is always thankful that Thanksgiving only comes once a year. They are most thankful when they are driving away from my house, because it’s over for another 364 days. So, here are the things that I am Thankful for:

1. I am thankful that Tessa had a successful surgery to pin that lousy stray bone fragment back in place yesterday. After shifting back and forth a few times on whether or not to do surgery, we were forced into surgery when the bone fragment displayed its true nefarious nature by shifting out of place in the first week after Tessa was brutally tackled during a basketball game. The ensuing pile-up (during the game of street-ball) was more impressive than a Blues Brothers pile-up. Leave it to Tessa to overachieve.

2. I am thankful that I won’t miss the Volkswagen Crappy Car when I finally win the argument and he finds a new home on a used car lot. By the way, I anticipate winning this argument soon as the check engine light is back on, for the third time in two weeks, after Travis replaced the ignition coils on Sunday. I am not sure how that diagnostic thingy works, but it looks like it has teamed up with Crappy and the joke is on us. But not for long…Travis has to sleep sometime…and I will quietly replace that car. Or maybe Crappy will be car-napped. Yes, yes, car-napped. The only people that should own a Crappy Car are people named Brian who have magical, mystical, mechanical skills.

3. I am thankful that Crappy has such a good friend in the Acura TSX that the two always quit at the same time. It’s so joyful to spend our hard-earned money on a rental car while we have two non-working cars in the garage. So, Crappy needs a new home and the Acura needs a new clutch. After getting an unprecedented 150,000 miles on the first clutch, we only got 40,000 on the second. The first clutch died soon after teaching Trent how to drive stick. The second died after teaching Taryn and Tessa. I think I see a trend here. Perhaps anyone with the first initial of T shouldn’t drive the Acura. I suppose it also has something to do with switching from a highway car to a zip code car. My dad taught me that term. Since it is so old, we tend to only drive it in our zip code. I will be even more thankful when Crappy finds a new home because the Acura won’t need to come up with expensive sympathy illnesses anymore.

4. As always, I am thankful that Travis and I haven’t killed each other this year. There were a couple close calls, mostly related to child-rearing differences, but we made it through to another Thanksgiving. I may go missing shortly after Crappy the Car goes missing. Although, I suspect that Travis will be relieved and not mad. He is only pretending to like that car.

5. Finally, I am thankful for anyone that reads my crazy posts each week. I am not really sure why I find some satisfaction in over-sharing my life events (perhaps I need a shrink to tell me this), but I can’t over-share without you. I especially like it when you share in the comments. It just shows me that there is more than corn in Indiana.

So, I will enjoy having the core six all home together for a brief sliver in time, before the two older ones wear out their welcome and we happily ship them back to college. There’s a reason that going away to college is so important. We come up with all the cute reasons, like learning life skills, living without leaning on their parents, but really, it’s expensive to us. We do it to save ourselves from a murder rap. And when they come home for short bursts, we get to actually enjoy them, partly because we know that they are heading back to school. I truly love my kids, but it’s time for them to learn a skill so they can make successful lives for themselves that we aren’t bankrolling. And eventually, they can have kids just like themselves.

So, happy Thanksgiving. If you are around our way, stop in for brunch. We won’t even notice a few extras. And hug your siblings in thanks that you don’t all live under the same roof anymore. And our parents, well, now we are truly thankful for them because we really know what they went through while raising us. It turns out we had kids just like ourselves.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!!