Friday, November 23, 2012

Breakfast in the hotel

Hotel breakfast rooms generate great people watching.

There is the older couple leisurely enjoying their breakfast.  She is perfectly dressed and accessorized.  He is doting on her, filling her coffee when it gets cold.  There is the family who obviously thinks this is their kitchen and comes down in their pajamas, usually 5 minutes before breakfast closes.  All children are fascinated with the pancake machine, but still, there are those who are impatient with it and expect it to spit out a fully cooked pancake immediately, then wonder why they get multiple pancakes.  (Pushed the button multiple times).

And then there's me.  I was hoping for a comfy chair in the corner, but there are only dining chairs and tables, so I hang out in the corner watching people and waiting for the family.  They know I need 30 minutes alone in the mornings.  It's starting to get crowded and noisy, so I'm going to take my coffee and a paper and head to the room.

Oh and Thanksgiving was good with the family.  The food was great.  The UNO game was fun and I rolled into bed with a food coma. :)

Best part? I do not do Black Friday shopping!!!

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Are you grateful?

I am.

The establishment of the Thanksgiving holiday gave way to school days of school children dressing up like pilgrims and Indians.  I always wanted to be a pilgrim but somehow I always was an Indian.  I think the Indian costume was easier for my mother.

Truth is:  I'm a pilgrim.  My ancestors were pilgrims. They didn't come on the Mayflower, but did come to the colony soon after.  They lived in an uncharted, unmapped land and learned to survive.  Could we do that if we had to?  Do we Americans have those survival skills?  This is a topic that my husband and children have talked about before and we think we can.  We know how to prepare unprocessed food (i.e. not out of a can or microwaved) and I can cook pretty well over fire.

My ancestors made a home for themselves in this wild land, defended her freedom, and respected her laws.  They credited God with providing this home for them.  And that is what Thanksgiving is about.  I care about my history, the people who had something to do with who I am today (and yes,  I do believe my English, Scottish, and German ancestors who began settling in America in 1609 had something to do with me), and my country.

All you have to do is watch the news and see the conditions under which other countries live.  We have freedoms that they cannot even fathom. Underappreciated.  Taken for granted.  Sometimes it makes me sick to realize many in my country do not understand how wonderful it is here.  I have friends who are not native to the United States.  They, better than I, understand this.  They tell me that on a frequent basis.

This country is not perfect - far from it.  But it is the "land of the free and the home of the brave."  Isn't it time we remembered why we are giving thanks?  So to the Wallers, Kleckleys, Huffmans, Sims, McGlons and many others in my family tree:  Thank you for coming to this land to live and worship as you please.  Thank you for defending these freedoms so that I can live in freedom.

God Bless America.

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

A Mis-mash of thoughts

I've had an interesting several weeks.  Busy with teaching school and busy with taking classes.  And trying to find one of the 5 copies of my college transcripts which I THOUGHT I knew where they were but hopefully I don't actually need them.

I said good-bye to a couple of people.  One who lived a long time and lived very fully and one who didn't live a long time and crammed every bit of living into her almost 19 years.  They are both models to me.  I hope that they have had a chance to meet each other in Heaven this week.  I hope they met my Aunt Ellen who had some very crooked fingers due to breaking them playing softball in her youth.  But, of course, those fingers have been healed - it is Heaven, of course.  I really miss her trying to point at me with those fingers.  Maybe they met the two best uncles in the universe!!  Billy and Bob (no, they weren't brothers but they loved each other like they were).  Uncle Billy would set me on his lap and tell me I was beautiful.  Uncle Bob fixed my car more times than I could count and taught me about brake lines and transmission fluid...  not that I could tell you about that now.

I said hello last week to the promise of new life in my friend's baby.  Such a beautiful baby and she hardly cried and let me hold her for a long time.  So nice to relax holding an infant.

I had a birthday.  Birthday's don't bother me very much as I get older.  Plus, I'm typing this on my new laptop.  It is sleek and shiny like a new sportscar (maybe in a few years that will be my birthday "surprise").

One of the biggest events this week is that my DS is now an Eagle Scout.  It was a long process of merit badges, Scoutmaster conferences, and leading a project - a huge project, I might add - and it became official on Saturday.  Now we wait for the badge to arrive and then get to plan the ceremony.

My whole family is under one roof... of course I'm the only one up.  We had a power outage today and I was wondering how I would get my coffee.  Well boiling water, coffee, a filter, and a measuring cup later, I made some pretty decent coffee, which finished brewing right at the time the power came back on :)  And I sometimes wondered why I had a thermal carafe... now I know. It's to hold my freshly brewed coffee and keep it warm after the power comes back on.

Thanksgiving is my job this year.  My sister has to work so she'll buy beverages and dessert.  And I'll make dinner in my house and transport it to her house.  My grandmother made the absolute best cornbread dressing in the world, and we didn't have it last year, and I missed it so much. My daughter and I said "never again" and so today we will make the cornbread for the dressing.  It is actually a recipe my great-grandmother passed down to her daughter-in-law (my grandmother) and my cousin and I are in possession of the recipe.  Don't tell her... but I make it better than she does.

Over the next few days, I will get to see a lot of people I love.  We don't always agree - and that is okay - but we are bound by blood and love.  We usually only see the best in each other, and in a family, I supposed that is how that it should be.  We are a mis-mash of personalities, lifestyles, and beliefs.  A mis-mash - just like my thoughts today.