Full

Too stuffed to type. Another first in our new house. It's hard to believe how much can change in a year.

Apart from badly scorched chocolate pie filling (my teenage nephew offered chivalrously, "I thought maybe it was coffee-flavored"), Thanksgiving dinner was perfect. Patrick made his mother's dressing. The kids gathered autumn leaves for table decoration. Relatives came with warm casserole dishes and helped us shuffle a thousand puzzle pieces around the coffee table. The edible pies were served on the antique side plates sent by my mother to match the china set I started last Christmas.

The last guest was just sent home with a full foil pan. The kids are playing Lego Star Wars on the Wii. There's a stack of newspaper circulars on the floor telling me to get up early tomorrow and bust some doors, but honestly, I don't see anything in them that I would let come between me and my pyjamas.

At the end of our meal, the men pushed their chairs back from the table and sighed in unison. I feel like one of them. Enough.