White Friday last year is such a blur. That week turned my life upside down, but in writing today's blog post in early November of 2024 (I traditionally have composed my White Friday blog posts a year in advance, as they happen, or right after), I realized my life wasn't the center of the universe last year. Lizard's life took the biggest hit he's ever faced, and we're still dealing with some of the repurcussions. What began on Thanksgiving 2023 may influence the rest of his life. It was not something we planned for or expected, and now it's something we are forced to deal with on an almost daily basis. But Thanksgiving is a time for giving thanks, not moaning and groaning about things that can't be changed.
I'll start with the White Friday soap. I thought I'd detailed our White Friday ordeal on my blog earlier this year, but a search turns up nothing except the aftermath. I hinted several times at what happened, but I never explained. It all started with White Friday soap. In a hotel room. During our Thanksgiving celebration with Lizard's family. Even that is foggy now. White foggy.
Back in about April or May, I thought I should probably write in more detail about what happened. Now that the annivesary is upon me, I'm not sure I can do it. It might take a bit more healing. A bit more gratitude. A bit more distance. If it doesn't appear weekly or monthly on my blog beginning next week, rest assured I kept a good journal. I will share the story at some point.
Lizard was up for only a very short drive on White Friday. Although we did get a few fog photos, I was mostly limited to White Friday photos I could take in the neighborhood and white thread crochet, which, I confess, I wasn't as motivated to do at that time, and white thread hand-quilting.
Higher elevations of the nearby canyon got a bit of snow Thanksgiving night. So a touch of white was just waiting to be photographed. At the time, I wished Lizard felt better so I could shoot more. Now, in retrospect, I'm so thankful he agreed to go out at all. We got snow White Friday night. The white Grand Junction temple made for perfect White Saturday photos.
The drive home was treacherous for the first three or so hours because road conditions did not improve without the blast of sun the canyons got later in the day, after we'd already nagivated our way through. It was too dangerous to pull over to take photos, so I got only a handful of photos before we got into the canyon shadows and only one snowy shot at an official rest stop.
The snow followed us home, and we had a White Monday while I worked from home.
I finished only one snowflake during the Thanksgiving holiday. It wasn't totally original. It was inspired by an old snowflake.
My White Friday hand-quilting still is not done yet. Still packaged from our 2023 Thanksgiving trip. I never took it out of the bag after we got home. Never had time. Now I'm two weeks and a day away from White Friday 2024. This project will be one of my goals for next year's White Friday blog post. And I'll try harder to snap more White Friday photos in 2024. But you won't see them until 2025. :)
Another 2023 White Friday goal was to finish the hand-stitching of my QAYG Hawaiian Punch, which I fully intended to gift to my 50-plus-year penpal in April 2024 for her birthday. I finished this part of my White Friday stitching in January of this year, so not totally White Friday. I was able to finish this portion of the project once Lizard's White Soap skin trauma abated. Working on this piece in peace for the first time in a couple of months reminded me of the true spirit of Thanksgiving and my very own White Friday tradition.
I just recently learned it's okay to pat myself on the back, quite literally, for making it through one of the darkest times in our lives, the six weeks there was no white and no light. Almost no hope. Just fear. Just panic. The resulting gratitude is something I hope I can incorporate into every day, not just Thanksgiving, and not just White Friday. I am thankful for Lizard, for faith, for prayer, for overcoming, for healing, for friends and family, for hobbies, for snow, and for being able to stay home and keep my wallet shut on the biggest shopping day of the year.
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