Pre Thanksgiving Thanksgiving

Ever since Tyler and I have been together...about 6 years we have never spent a holiday apart. I like spending the holidays with Tyler. He is generally in a good mood thanks to lots of home cooking and football. But alas this year we will be spending Thanksgiving apart. In my life my mother has only had our whole family over for a holiday meal one time. We usually go to someone else's house, because it is more convenient for the majority of our family. But this year she will be having her entire family over for Thanksgiving. And as I have missed a lot of family moments living 8 hours away, and the fact that Tyler will be working the day before, the day after, and the Saturday following Thanksgiving there would be no point of me staying home with him. Although we made the decision for me to go home jointly I was still feeling a little bit guilty. A lot of people love food and football, but my husband LOVES food and football. More specifically homemade cooking and Alabama football. Both of which I will be indulging in on my trip to Alabama. So as I was saying I was feeling a little guilty when the greatest thing happened. My best friend decided to make an impromptu trip to our humble abode. It was then I decided I would whip up (with her help) a holiday meal for my husband and a few of our Florida friends. So this morning Jenny and I went to the store and bought all the necessary ingredients for a feast for 8. It was when we returned home with groceries in hand that we realized what a great undertaking we had signed up for. I had already invited people so we couldn't canceled. Well it is now about 12 hours later. Of the last 12 hours we have spent at least 7 of them cooking. But we pulled it off. Everybody enjoyed all of their Thanksgiving favorites. The leftovers are now securely in the refrigerator, and I am sitting here thinking over the many holiday dinners I have eaten in my 26 years. I never really thought about the hours of hard labor put into these meals. now have completed my first Thanksgiving dinner (with lots of help) I want to thank everyone who has ever helped to prepare a pan of dressing, a sweet potato casserole, a turkey, or any other part of a holiday feast. Thank you!

Clean House

Have you ever been to someone's house only to be met by the homeowner at the door saying, "Sorry my house is so messy." Or "I have just been so busy I haven't found time to clean the house." Or even "I hope you won't mind the mess." It is then that you enter their house to the smell of Lysol, Windex, apple cinnamon candles, and freshly baked cookies. It is then that you decide never to invite this person to your house. I have had this happen on many occasions. It is an awkward situation. Do you say, "Oh don't worry it won't bother me." Or "What mess?" Or maybe something a little sarcastic like "You are right, this place is such a dumb."? I however have never really had the chance to say these things to house guests. In fact I am the one that moves over laundry on the couch to find you a place to sit. I am the one who only opens the refrigerator 4 inches so that you won't see my disorganization. Today, however, my house is clean. I am having company on Saturday and I am thinking of meeting them at the door and apologizing for a mess that doesn't exist. But I have realized that is just not my style. My husband and I spent somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 hours cleaning our house, and I want people to notice. I want people to say, "Wow, you didn't have to clean for us." Or "I never noticed you had carpet, I thought your floor was made out of clean laundry." I am now faced with a dilemma. What will I say when people arrive and stand astonished that you can actually see my furniture? I think I will say, "Welcome, feel free to keep your shoes on. Put your feet on the couch. Just leave your dishes in the sink. I will get to it eventually. Oh, you spilled grape juice on the floor. Don't worry, the dog will lick it up, and what he doesn't get will serve as a reminder of the fun times with friends."

That Kind of Day

We have all had those days that you just look around and say "Really". You know the days when everything seems to be going wrong. I am already running on a little less energy thanks to the shingles. I woke up late. There was nothing to eat for breakfast that could be cooked in less than 2 minutes which is how long I had allotted. I went to lock the door and couldn't find my house key. I went to go out the garage door, but it wouldn't open. I got stuck behind a bus. When I finally arrived at work my classroom was full of trash that wasn't taken out. I forgot my lunchbox, and we were having beef dipper sticks for lunch. It just seemed nothing could go my way. Luckily the day started to turn around when a friend brought me lunch and spared me from the mystery meat. I came home and begin attacking my house, which is now fairly clean, and followed up with a burrito for dinner. So it all turned out okay. Tyler is leaving for the weekend so I am planning a lot of rest and relaxation for this weekend.

Mother Teresa's Anyway Poem

People are often unreasonable, illogical and self centered;
Forgive them, anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you willl win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you've got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and your God;
It was never between you and them anyway.

Fall

Today is what I call a good fall day. I woke up this morning at 6. That left me with lots of hours of productivity. I went yard saleing with a friend and found some cool buys. I don't love shopping in people's driveways and garages but it is a great time to people watch. There is such a range of people are yard sales. Next we were on a mission to find a Halloween costume for myself and her son. My costume has to be from a book so we were racking our brains for an easy book character. I decided I wanted to be the cat and the fiddle so we stop by a costume store and picked up ears and a tail. We were then in need of a fiddle. We called many stores looking for a fiddle. Well as you guessed a fiddle is not an easy thing to come by. We then stopped by Goodwill and you will never guess it....a fiddle...an iron fiddle just sitting there. So we swooped that up and we were then off to one of my favorite places that I rarely visit...Sam's. I really have no need to buy things in bulk, but I think it is a passion handed down from generation to generation. My dad will be the first person to buy a gallon of sour cream or a case of peppermint Mentos. We then went and picked up my friend's son and friend's daughter and were off to a fall festival. I have been to a lot of fall festivals. This one was not incredibly huge, but I was impressed by the spread of food. Which when you don't have kids of your own what else are you really looking for at a fall festival. Now we are sitting watching Alabama make some huge mistakes. I have had to quarantine myself to the game room because I can watch. But we pulled it out. And who says there is no such thing as miracles.

Homecoming!

This week is an exciting week at our school. Although I do try to convince my students that every week is exciting this week is especially exciting. This week is homecoming week. You know the week where each day has a theme and one gets to dress up with each daily theme. I do love this week. I think it is because when I was in high school I was far to unpopular and embarrassed to dress up with these preposterous themes. I received enough ridicule on a daily basis that I didn't want to add goofy outfits to the mix. Today was cowboy/camo day. I guess that they did both of these things just in case your Wranglers were in the wash. I truly enjoyed watching all my kids walk around in belt buckles and cowboy boots. They truly thought they owned the place. I also didn't even mind the joke "Where is -___________. Oh I didn't see you in your camo" Even though I did hear it at least 100 times today and it is possibly the worst joke ever uttered. Well anyway I am now getting to relive those dress up days and I am loving every moment. I am very thankful for my finally discovered self esteem that lets me walk around with boots on and a handkerchief hanging out of my back pocket without listening for laughter coming from corners. Now if only come Friday morning there was a huge mum with long ribbons this week would be perfect.

California

After finally arriving in LA this morning at 2:00 local time 5:00 eastern time I was shuttled to the hotel where I had a short nap and then it was time to begin exploring. First, we went to Roscoe's were we had fried chicken and waffles for breakfast. Starting your day with such a great combo leaves one with high expectations for the rest of the day. We then took a series of trains and subways to Hollywood. We went to the Chinese theater, the walk of stars, the wax museum, and saw lots of interesting people. We also visited Sunset Blvd. and Chinatown. And now after another confusing progression of trains and subways I am enjoying resting my feet in the hotel for a little while before we tackle Long Beach. Katie is off somewhere with her engineering friends (who I do not have enough intelligence to hang with), but I will be spending the day with her tomorrow. So after a long day of seeing many of California's most famous spots I find myself trying to tackle a blog. I thought that I would share with you a list that I created all day that may be more interesting than me describing famous hot spots. So here it goes:

The Top Ten People I Do Not Want to be in California (if you are one of these I am not saying it is bad, I am just saying it is not for me)

1. A senior citizen screaming at a teenager through the subway station about his missing pot (not the kind you cook with)
2. A person living under the tram overpass
3. A person selling burritos out of a white van
4. A person eating a burrito purchased out of a white van
5. A person wearing thigh high leather boots going to a casting for Gotham something at Universal Studios
6. A person sleeping (or maybe dead) on a pile of trash bags in the subway station
7. Anyone without a metro pass determined to walk the city
8. Someone paying 1 dollar to have my picture made with a 90 year old man in a faded Spiderman outfit
9. A 90 year old man having children pay a dollar to have their picture made with me in a faded Spiderman outfit
10. A tiny woman peddling my house cleaning services on Hollywood Blvd.

All in all it was a very interesting and eventful day. Although I don't know that I appreciated it all because I had already walked 1000 miles before arriving at some of my destinations. Also I am confused why maps are such a rare commodity around this place. It seems with a city this large and so many tourists there would be people peddling maps all over the place. But I guess the house cleaning industry and botox (yes you can get it done in seconds) keeps everyone in business.