A Window-Look Across the Way

On November 24th my post was called Looking In, and a few people commented that they also loved looking in the windows of houses they drove past at dusk. We do it politely; we might slow down but would never park the car and get out with our cameras. Might be trouble to pay with that. But we all love looking into the houses of other people.

At the bottom of each page of this blog is a line written by Anne Morrow Lindbergh that I love and expresses what I want this blog to be, and truthfully, it is why I read other blogs. Lindbergh writes:

A score of household selves

Polish the floors, replenish pantry shelves,

Ticking to duties all the clock-told day, 

Without a window-look across the way.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh from "Two Citadels" in The Unicorn

Do you think that blogs help to give us this window-look across the way? From your house to mine and from my house to yours? I think they do. I don't want to close this month of November, this first month of this blog, without giving you a peek into my sister Deb's house on Thanksgiving Day where my family members in Florida gathered, including some of our sister Jenn's family, and our precious mother who turned 88 this month.

Deb and one of her granddaughters love doing projects together, especially seasonal ones. For the sixth year they made their traditional Blessing Mix bags. I hope the recipe is readable on this picture as it is delicious.

My sister Jenn and our niece working in the kitchen, the ladies all wearing aprons Deb and her granddaughter made together six Thanksgivings ago. 

Everyone had fun working together, the men setting up tables and making the Pineapple Wassail in a crock pot out on the screened porch. There were two turkeys from Whole Foods, one roasted in the oven, the other in the Green Egg. The women all made pies, apple, pecan and pumpkin, several of each. There were Brussels sprouts with bacon, roasted sweet potatoes seasoned with honey and lemon, green beans from the garden, new potatoes with fresh rosemary from Deb's herb pots, cranberry sauce flavored with clementine juice, and rolls. Let's not forget the dressing, the recipe passed down from Mom, Jenn making it now and adding her touches. My sisters are all great cooks so I know it was all delicious.

Gathering in a circle to hold hands for the blessing, our Mother holds hands with her granddaughter and great-granddaughter.

All to the table next except for the photographer!

Deb and Don's sweet little granddaughter asleep after her Thanksgiving dinner.

There you are, a look into my sister's house without even having to peek through the window! Until next Thanksgiving Day, here is a window-peeker:

Sometimes he simply walked around the town, 

slowing his stride when he came near a home which enclosed what seemed to him 

a particularly admirable family.

He liked looking at the windows where the curtains hung in such a fashion

that they seemed to him, an outsider, 

to be framing a little diamond of bright, mysterious inner life.

Nancy Thayer Body & Souls