Grandma was Catholic

And that's why we have to rent a town hall for Thanksgiving. We had the Ohio Davis-Finney's with us this year, other than them it was just us Wisconsin and Illinois locals -- not even all of us at that.

I love having a large extended family. When I was young, I thought I wanted to have ten kids of my own, but then I grew up and realized I am not made of the stuff it takes to raise a large family. I wish I were, I'd adopt a boat load, or be a foster mom, but there's no way. I think about it on the days my sanity is pushed to it's limits by just the three kids -- if there was one more person chinkin away at my armour, I'd be eating from a tray in some institution for sure.

My kids get the big family benefit anyway. My family is really good at looking past flaws and loving what is good about each other. It's kind of like an army of speaking dogs, always happy to see each other and thinking each other is the shiz-niz. And we all have the same weird-meter installed, so everyone always laughs in just the right places and everyone has ten conversations going on at once -- we all follow along one another's broken thoughts and spark off of each others wavelenghts, etc.

I can't tell you what that does for the soul. On the lesser days this world has to offer -- I have fans, lots and lots of them.

They are the reasons why I'm so well adjusted despite an insanely screwed up childhood (or maybe the reasons I think I'm well adjusted -- I'll take it either way).