Our house...in the middle of our street...

This is a picture of the sidewalk in front of our house last fall. I love the colors of the trees. This year was different. The leaves didn't really turn colors. It was as though they skipped that stage and went straight to falling off onto the ground, already dead. Fall wasn't fun this year. We had an early frost so that all of the pumpkins were ruined before my family even got to go to the patch. I was literally heart broken. So, I drug this picture out to bask in the memories of last fall.

Our house looks so stauesque in this picture. It is a bit misleading as well. I mean, after all, it does have the white picket fence that is a symbol of the American Dream. Think about what the American Dream means to you. The white picket fence isn't really representative of it, is it? Sure, the house we have is gorgeous and the fence, too. But, even in this small midwestern town, there are the roots of evil among us. For example, the mailbox that is hidden behine the largest tree on the left is no longer there. A new mailbox had to be put up in its place because a local teen was driving along at noon on a quiet Saturday and plowed into it with his car. You see, he was high on multiple kinds of drugs. Thank God not one of my children were riding their bikes on that sidewalk you see. Because had they been, they would have died. That, my friends, is tragedy. Just three weeks ago I saw someone outside walking on this same sidewalk. I went out to get the mail and who was that person? None other than the boy who ran over our mailbox himself. He was walking as a free man, without a care in the world, it seemed. He hasn't even paid us for the damages to our property yet, but he is allowed to walk right past the crime scene as if nothing happened. (I use crime scene in loose terms, naturally...) It took all I had not to say something to that boy. But I didn't. I simply thanked the Lord that he didn't hit one of my kids or my husband mowing the yard that day.

Next week this time, I will be getting ready for a big trip with the Husband. It is a trip we have definitely earned, so to speak. I am trying to get over this flu bug and the whooping cough that I must have gotten from my daughter. It has kicked my butt, let me tell you. Today was my first day back at work and the first day out of bed (other than tending to the young) since Saturday. And Lord knows, if I am not able to get up to eat, there is definitely something severely wrong! My students missed me. The administrators probably did not. That's okay. I'm there for the students anyway, when you get right down to it. My time at that school is coming to a quick close. I am thankful in some ways, but in some ways sad. There are those certain students whom I hate to leave. And some fellow teachers I will miss. I just hope I have touched someone's life there and inspired them in some way. I digress...back to the trip...

So, the Husband and I will leave for NYC and spend Thanksgiving there. We have on the agenda the following:

Turkey Day: Macy's Parade, perhaps Letterman, and dinner at Tavern on the Green

Next day: seeing Broadway's The Color Purple, dinner at Sardi's, and probably a jazz club

Next day: matinee of A Chorus Line (tickets courtesy of a fellow producer who worked with Husband's uncle), a grand dinner somewhere, and shopping!

Sunday: stroll through Central Park, more shopping, an afternoon cocktail or three, and get ready to return to the rat race, relaxed and filled with great holiday memories.

Who can't love that? I am so excited I am getting to the point where I can't sleep. I think I'm gonna squeal...