Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone out in the blogosphere!

This year, since we can't afford to go home for both Thanksgiving and Christmas we're doing a small celebration at our place. A friend from school and her family who are in from LA are coming over to the feast I prepared. I say prepared because even though it's 9am here on the West coast, I cooked most of the things yesterday (or at least prepped them enough so all I had to do was pop things in the oven today. I love to cook, and I'd much rather spend two days cooking at my pace than spending one day going completely crazy doing all this cooking, and having no time to be with my guests.

So what did I make? Here's my menu (I've linked to the recipes on this blog):

Appetizers:
- An assortment of cheeses and crackers
- Blue cheese stuffed dates wrapped in bacon
- Caramelized onion puff pastries
- Baked Brie with Brown Sugar and Walnuts

Side Dishes:
- Asparagus with Hollandaise sauce
- Cornbread Casserole
- Smoked Gouda and Bacon Mac and Cheese
- Dressing (that's stuffing just not in the bird)
- Smoked Gouda Mashed Potatoes
- Green bean casserole
- Roasted butternut squash with blue cheese and walnuts
- Orange Cranberry sauce

Main Course:
- Rosemary Chicken with Apple salad and pearl onions (I hate turkey)

Dessert:
- Pumpkin Pie
- Blackberry crumble

But of course Thanksgiving isn't just about food, it's about being thankful for all the things you have in life. Last night Nick and I watched one of the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving specials. This one was about the Mayflower Voyagers. I really hate the tradition of going around the table and saying what you're thankful for (as ironic as this will sound, I'm not a fan of being put on the spot and sharing my intimate thoughts in front of people), but the little cartoon did get me thinking about things.

Regardless of how you feel about Thanksgiving and what it may or may not stand for, the Pilgrims still took a big gamble coming to America and many of them died. Meanwhile we get to sit here and be comfortable in our warm houses and eat a ton of food and take for take for granted the true meaning of the holiday.

So if I had to choose my top five things I'm grateful for this year it would be these:

1. I'm always grateful for Nick. He is the most amazing man/person in my life. He has such patience for me when I am stressed out over things, he always knows how to make me smile or just love me so I feel better about anything. He helps me instead of expecting me to do everything all the time, he's not lazy, and he appreciates cleanliness as much as I do. He let me get my kitties even though he is a dog person, and he let's me run around and be crazy with my ideas (we're a very Lucy and Ricky couple). He followed me to California, 3,000 miles away from our family, and he was excited about it! And most importantly, he loves me.
2. Second most important thing are all the friends I have and the new ones I've made since coming here. I'm so blessed to have a good group of people around me.
3. I'm thankful the move worked out well. No one got hurt or sick, generally our things were unharmed, we had financial assistance from Nick's job, and we made great time with the drive and the unpacking. We lucked out big time with our apartment as well.
4. I'm grateful this quarter is over. I worked my ass off, and I'm pretty sure I at least passed all of my classes. Fingers crossed the grades are halfway decent.
5. I'm grateful Nick has a job. Living on one salary isn't easy, but he at least has a salary and I can only imagine how hard it would be to make my student loan stretch thin like plastic wrap while he tried his hardest to find something in this tough economy. Regardless of where you live and what the market is like, these things don't happen over night. Having been there once, and not having enough money to pay all of our bills, it was very hard and I'm so glad we didn't have to do it again during our relocation.

Of course my list is much longer than this, but you get the idea. Hope your lists are long this year too!

Happy Holidays.