Thanksgiving Day.

What a day. I want you to picture this ! The day before Thanksgiving we are working to get the house ready for our guest, moving furniture, putting all the food together (all from scratch). Three turkeys cleaned and dressed for the ovens, oyster dressing, cornbread dressing, deviled eggs, green bean casserole, and the candy sweet potatoes are prepared and are set aside and cooled down prior to refrigerating. The potatoes have been cut and put in cold water they are in the fridge and ready to go on the stove top the next morning. The giblet's from the turkey are cooked and ready for the gravy. They need to cool down also before they are put in the fridge. The turkeys will be slow cooked until 6 a.m. when dressings will be put in and cooked for another 4 hours. Then all we have to do is put the green beans and sweet potatoes in the ovens around 10 a. m. Wow !!!!!!! Everyone is so ready for Thanksgiving. Now I know that this was to easy. I have never experienced a holiday that went together the way this holiday has. I am thinking to myself that I must be getting this down ( Did you notice I said "I"). I come home and I'm bragging and feeling really cool because I got this holiday stuff down and the guys in the house are so ready to have this wonderful day with their families and friends. Nothing could go wrong. Right?

Thanksgiving Day......... I got up and took my time, not to worry everything is done for the guests coming at two o'clock. Got over to Grandpa's House just before 10:00 am. Now you know that nothing happens in this world by mistake. The guys were coming from the other houses with these beautiful birds. They looked so good. They were perfect. We went into the main house and I looked in the other room and the green beans were sitting on the table. I turn to one of the guys that live in the main house and said " What time did you pull these green beans out of the refrigerator? His answer was, "they never went into the refrigerator. " What about the dressings? "We didn't know they needed to be put in the refrigerator." I must have looked like I was going to cry, because one of the guys said "please don't cry." Well, we threw out the dressing and green beans and the turkey giblets and started over. Two guys went to Walmart and two guys went to Kroger's and the rest of us started to chop and dice. The harmony and love that started that morning was what Thanksgiving is all about. At 2 p.m. the guest started to arrive and the house and all the food was ready for them. We ate around 2:30. The content faces and eyes of the families were all worth it.
Thanks to my Higher Power for the gift that he showed me that morning.
Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!!!!!!!!!!

Honoring Colby Keegan

Yesterday, the members of Grandpa's House gave back to the community by hosting a dinner for the homeless at Centennial Park in west Nashville. The dinner was in honor of a fallen friend, Colby Keegan, who recently passed away unexpectedly prior to entering our house. Although he never got to enter our house, he surely entered our hearts and we wanted to honor his legacy by giving back as Colby loved to do. We were able to serve many of Colby's homeless friends and many more. In a fitting tribute from his friends, the dinner was carried on long after we left to serve anyone in need of a good meal.

Some members of our house have been homeless themselves and knew what to expect. Others had no clue and found many of their views positively altered by the experience. It was truly special to be able to experience the spirit of the people interacting with each other, sharing joy, pain, and all emotion on such a raw human level, stripped of the conveniences many of us consider to be necessities in our life. Some seemed truly at peace in their situation while others carried their pain in their eyes and actions. A very rich experience was shared by all and we hope to be able to do something like this again soon.

After the dinner we attended a celebration of life for Colby. The outpouring of love and loss was incredible. Memories were shared, songs sang, and poems read. The service highlighted Colby's disdain for the ways many of us treat the planet and each other, but mainly his passion for changing all of that and helping those in need. Everyone in attendance was challenged to live out Colby's passion for love of the earth and one another. We at Grandpa's would like to challenge you to carry that out as well and help make a difference in our world.

For more information on Colby, his life, and his legacy you can visit his website at http://www.colbykeegan.info/

New

Tell us your story about Grandpa's House

Grandpa's

This is the begining of our blog