Thirty days of thanksgiving

I was talking to my mother-in-law on the phone yesterday evening when we realized it was exactly one month to Thanksgiving.
It's a good year to be thankful. Come to think of it, when is it ever a bad time to be thankful?

For family and fun and free time (little inside joke there, not to worry) and the fantastic fireworks of life.

Man, that dog likes to jump at falling leaves. Every year I take dozens of pictures of him leaping in the air like a fool after leaves as they drift down. The girls enjoy helping him out with his game. When there are no leaves falling, he settes for bubbles. But the leaves are clearly preferable.

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I stayed home yesterday in a serendipitous dead battery situation (it was a car, not a metaphor) so Laura and could have tossed a few leaves between rain showers. But we didn't. We baked chocolate chip cookies while the big girls walked across the road for band and a wetlands project.

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The wetlands part cracks me up a little. Don't tell Grace; she takes it very seriously. And of course she's right. Preserving and restoring our native environment is very important. It's a big part of what my husband does every day. But last week? The kids came home full of knowledge of the "edible" plants of the wetlands.

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Um, well-meaning school district? Do we need to be encouraging our children to forage in the wild for camas bulbs and cattails?

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Even more for which we can be thankful.

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On the homeschooling front, I am grateful that we are in a good groove this year. Last year's shiny slick has worn off and comfort is back in our learning styles. Madeleine and Sarah spend a good deal of time on self-directed reading and research every day. We opted not to drive into town for chess or archaelogy or any of the other cool electives they took part in thanks to a homeschool co-op last year. Although the classes were fabulous, the girls and I were in the car way too much. So this year everyone is blessed to take part in our local great music program including flute for Sarah and clarinet for Madeleine. In addition to that they can and do join the school for any special projects.

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Gracie is excitedly learning to read. Her favorite book character is "Bob." As we are attending a masquerade party next week at which everyone must dress as a character from a book, I am struggling to figure out how to dress my five-year-old as a stick figure with a very square head who likes to rhyme every sentence with the next.

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Madeleine is going to be -- who else? -- Nancy Drew. I am on the hunt for some penny loafers. Sarah vacillates between Hermione Granger of Potter fame and Fern from Charlotte's Web. I hope she decides quickly or I am going to be thankful for my sewing machine in an all-nighter kind of way.

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Laura doesn't get to vote. She'll be Dora the Explorer and I defy the host and hostess of the party to mention that Dora is not primarily a literary figure.

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It's 29 days to Thanksgiving Day here in the United States. What are you thankful for?