The Feast

Appetizers: Crackers & Cheese Ball!

Main course: Lots of Orange Food...

Dessert:

Blueberry pie, pumpkin pie, and pumpkin bars.

We were stuffed.

When I invited the Sister Missionaries over for Thanksgiving dinner,

I told them I would be making all my favorite parts of Thanksgiving

(and none of the parts I didn't like to eat).

As I planned, I neglected to think about color.

So, we had less color than perhaps we could have:

White cheese with white & yellow crackers,

Orange butternut squash soup,

Pink ham,

Orange sweet potato casserole,

Orange stuffed squash,

White crusty bread,

and Green kale (as a last-minute addition for some color!).

Orange pumpkin pie,

Blue blueberry pie, and

Orange pumpkin bars topped off the meal.

I opted out of the mashed root veggies (they would have been orange)

because I didn't feel like making gravy.

Thanksgiving was a wonderful time

to remember all the good things in my life

and to begin to learn to be thankful

for some of the harder things, too.

And he who receiveth all things

with thankfulness

shall be made glorious;

and the things of this earth

shall be added unto him,

even an hundred fold,

yea, more.

-D&C 78:19

Teaser

So far, so good.

Thanksgiving is going to be awesome this year.

Random Thoughts

Sometimes I have to laugh at myself. Tonight in my living room, I have a laptop plugged into one outlet, my phone plugged into another, the camera in the middle, and the iPhone hanging out on the side. But I'm not dependent on my electronics or anything.

I have a new favorite Christmas song. It's time for Christmas music again!  Yippee! I discovered it during Christmas concert practice, and liked it so much I bought it on iTunes. Come to our concert in December and listen to it!

Today I had two good friends over for lunch. We ate all the food I was going to eat for the next few days until I had time to go to the store again. Fortunately for me, I enjoyed the socializing and it will be worth having to eat emergency backup frozen dinners for a few days to have spent time with people I love. By the way, my second cousin introduced me to the awesomest emergency backup frozen dinners - Lean Cuisine makes sandwiches and pizzas that actually come out of the microwave crispy! They are much better than some frozen stuff I've eaten. But real food is even better.

Yesterday, I had my stylist cut my hair. It rocks. I had about twenty compliments in the first 24 hours. My stylist rocks, too. She's great. Now I just have to figure out how to get her to come over every few days and blow it straight for me, since she does it so much better than I do... or I guess I could learn how to do it myself. Nothing makes you feel amazing like a new haircut that everyone loves. Except maybe the people who love you even when you don't bother to do your hair at all. :-)

I am looking forward to Thanksgiving. Two days off, a reason to cook for most of one of them, and chick flicks. Need I say more? Wait! Yes. I need to say cranberry-orange muffins with glaze, sweet potato casserole, and cinnamon rolls. Get excited!

And that is all. Until next time.

Happy November!

Tomorrow marks the end of Daylight Savings Time.

Good bye. I will miss the sun after 4:30 pm, but I think this year it is worth the exchange for sun in the morning when I get up for work. It's hard to wake up early to read scriptures when it's dark outside.

It was super-fun to be in the temple today with so many of my dear friends, some of whom I haven't seen in a few months (or longer), and it filled my heart with happiness, even though we were so busy that by 3pm my knees hurt from standing and moving up & down stairs so much. One of my friends told me I'm too young to have bad knees. I agree. Now I just have to convince my knees.

My work now requires me to have an iPhone. I like being able to cross-reference scriptures without having to look them up - it speeds up a topical study of a concept. It almost made up for how confusing it was to figure out how to use the calendar function the day before. It would be nice if my smart phone were not smarter than me, but there were moments this week when I wondered... :-)

I am grateful this weekend for good conversations with people I love and appreciate in my life. (And a lot of other things, too, but now it's bedtime so you have to wait to hear about the other things until later.)