The kick ass turkey, amazing stuffing, cranberry sauce, perfect mashed potatoes, green bean casserole FAIL and birthday cake for my visiting brother made it a day for highs and happies.

How awesome!
A day for cooking.
And then eating.
And then gratitude for the whole lot.

We danced a lot.

But then, as my body would have it, on Friday and Saturday, I recovered from the flu.
It was bad, the flu, but you’ve flu’ed before.
I don’t need to tell you flu.

What frustrates me is that the whole time, in my head, I was angry with myself. There was a guest in the house, my husband needed a break from tending children, client projects to finish and housework to complete and meals to plan and holiday cocktail party to plan and and and…
STOP.

I was so sick all I could do was lay there and listen to my brain go VRROOOM VROOM STUPID HELEN JANE and when I could finally stand up I had the dual guilt + feeling like I didn’t tick my things off of my LIST.

And of course, writing this out, I see how silly that is.

I was sick.
I needed to rest.
That’s okay.

And if you need to rest.
That’s okay too.

So what I’m saying is that this Thanksgiving, although I wasn’t at the time, I am thankful for rest. It’s a good time of year for rest.

(Maybe we could all schedule a little more into the season.)