You guys.  I have thoroughly enjoyed this Thanksgiving holiday.  We went home to my parents house where we celebrated with all kinds of food, family and fun.  On Friday, I bypassed all the shopping madness for sitting around with  my kiddos, reading, watching TV and consuming mass quantities of pie.  My brother and The Hubs took me to the movies where we watched “The Best Man Holiday” in the tiniest theater the cineplex had.  We were practically sharing seats, and when the woman behind us wouldn’t stop talking, I didn’t let the holiday spirit prevent me from shushing her.  Oh, she got indignant about it, but wharves.  I believe her actual words were, “What?! Did she just shush me?! I’mma keep on talking!” and funny enough, after that outburst, she actually shut the hell up.  Nice.

Saturday brought some sisterly relations with one of my young sorors. It was great to sit around just talking about our respective collegiate experiences.  I squeezed in a manicure and got both Mo and Co’s hair washed, conditioned and twisted before The Hubs and I went to a wedding for one of his frat brothers.  The wedding brought several college friends together, and confirmed for me that we are at a stage in our lives where we are not the kids any more, but not quite the grownups.  We’re straddling this line of adulthood.  Our parents have moved up a row, so to speak, now that the majority of our grandparents are passing.  That means, my generation is filling in that vacated row.  Not sure how I feel about that.  The Hubs turned to me while we were sitting listening to the prelude music at the wedding and commented on how, this is an instance where we’re at a wedding where we don’t know anyone aside from the bride and groom.  Considering we went to 10 weddings in the two years after college graduation, that’s something.  When we did connect with some other buddies at the reception, we clung to them like grim death.  Well, let’s just say, it was nice to sit and talk with folks we already knew rather  make small talk with “How do you know the bride/groom?” type table mates.  It could have gone either way, and I don’t doubt we’d have had a good time in either case.

So, that brings me to today.  December 1st.  Kind of fitting the first day of the month, the end of the Thanksgiving week-end, and the beginning of the next holiday starts on the first.  It’s a clean slate, and I like that.  I have completely wrung the fun out of Thanksgiving. I’ve eaten, drank, haven’t exercised, stayed up late, fed my kids junk food while their hands fused to their iTouches and their eyes glazed over from the steady stream of My Little Pony Equestria Girls.  It’s been awesome.  And now, I’m hitching up my pants (which surprisingly still fit) and looking to getting the Christmas season underway.

It’s December, and do you know what that means?!

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Two more months. . .two more months and we will have successfully completed the 365 day, 12 month photo challenge.  I know, I’m a little premature in the celebrations, but why not get excited about this penultimate event and the fact that I used the word “penultimate” properly.  Whoo-hooo!

For those of you unfamiliar with the Photo A Day Challenge, I’ve provided you with a list of prompts or suggestions for each day of the month.  On the designated day, you snap a photo of the suggestion or a photo of your interpretation of the suggestion and post it to Instagram.  You can add a caption to your photo, as well as the hashtag #hilarywithonel so we can keep up with you.  If you input #hilarywithonel in the Instagram search box, you’ll be able to see what others have already posted.

These monthly challenges are part of my greater year long challenge to take one photo a day.  You can follow my progress here: f/365

Don’t beat yourself up if you miss a day. It’s just a fun way to be creative.  No penalties for missed days, and no prize for hitting all the days – well, satisfaction is a prize in and of itself right?

Snap on, my friends, snap on.