The Return Of Normalcy

One group of my children and grandchildren left yesterday. The other group left early this morning.

The house is quiet - with only the washer and dryer making noises. And that will last for a while yet.

Like all my contemporary friends would say, 
"It is good to have the children here visiting. It is good to see them go back to their own homes."
We oldies are not used to the constant commotion around us. It wears us out.
I will probably sleep for twelve hours tonight.

Don't get me wrong, I was glad to see them.
And I was grateful for them doing all the "Honey-dos."
They racked up and bagged the heaps of leaves in my yard. They fixed up all the things that needed fixing around the house for me - since I am not handy at all. Thank you, kids.

My house is not built to accommodate a number of cooks working simultaneously in the kitchen. So you can imagine the chaos when my one daughter tried to teach her niece, my grand-daughter, how to make an apple pie in the midst of mounts of food, cooked and uncooked on the counter top; not to mention another one or two people trying to do something with the dishes and such, and a dog underfoot . . .
Poor Doby, my grand-daughter's dog, got stepped on many a time. 
He wanted to have a piece of the action nevertheless. He hoped for someone to drop some "goodies" accidentally so he could have a little treat.
May be someone would take pity on him and let him have a piece of bacon or so.
  
For several days, we ate too much. 

We feasted and we no doubt wasted some food. I thought of the hungry children in this world.
We had had enough food in a few days that could have fed a family for a month and more.

The children had far too many toys. They would cast off one to the side when they open another box for another new toy. They did not treasure them like they should, if they had merely a few of them.  May be we need to do a bit of Present-control next year.

Since three of us have birthdays in January, we decided to celebrate them early while we are together. More food, more presents. We did have a good time.

I hope that you and your family did, too.