What to do?

I am officially all caught up on the laundry.  Well, except for a few "lie flat to dry" items which are, well, lying flat to dry.  This never happens.  I hardly know what to do with myself.

I am making a turkey dinner today.  I guess I just missed cooking for Thanksgiving so much that now I have to do it.  Plus, I wanted to try brining a turkey.  It is brining in the cooler right now as I type and two pumpkin pies are baking in the oven, so you see, I shall need to write fast today.  I hope I did the brine right--there were so many different recipes that I decided it wasn't all that fussy.  Now I'm not so sure...

I have a fantasy that some dear old friend will randomly arrive in Syracuse and call us up today, and I will be able to say, "I just prepared a turkey dinner!  Please come over and enjoy it with us!"  Things like that never happen.  

When I cook a planned company dinner, either I mess everything up because I am so nervous, or I do the cooking fine, but I am so tired and stressed out by the time I am done, I can hardly lift my fork, let alone taste anything.  When I cook just for the family, it is often absolutely delicious (often--not always--but often is pretty good).  So we sit and feast and have a gajillion leftovers and nobody to share any of it with us.

I wish I were a different kind of person.  I wish I were outgoing and carefree and popular.  Instead, I am nervous and shy and I have a complex about people not liking me.  I know in my head that I need to be kind and reach out to others--that others are as hungry for meaningful friendships as I am and somebody just has to take the risk and make the first move (and get the blessing of being a blessing to someone).  But in real life, it seems more complicated than that.  Some days I do better than I expect, other days I am a dismal failure.

What a blessing it was to come home from our Thanksgiving trip and be greeted by precious ladies who count me as a friend at my church.  Most of them will never know how much it means to me to receive a greeting and a smile, to be told that I was missed, to hear that they prayed for me.  God is so good.

The timer says it's time to test the pies for doneness.