let us thank him for this food...

it's been a while for me, but i'm still kickin'! i'm getting a little bitter about the seasonal job thing again. the thought of working at ski school for another winter makes me want to throw the covers over my head, refuse to get out of bed and cry into a pint of ice cream. however, i'm able to balance out my mood with the excitement of the holidays. that's what i wanted to talk about.

the holidays. i LOVE the holidays! the magic, the lights, the movies, the music, the togetherness. it's my favorite! having a house that feels a little more like a home helps too. this year, i kicked off the holiday season by hosting a spectacular thanksgiving dinner that, get this, i made ALL BY MYSELF. yep, that's right! im pretty proud of it. turkey, dressing, green beans, mashed potatoes, the whole shebang! i have to give some credit to luke too. he helped, especially with cleaning up behind me so we didn't have a huge mess when everything was finished. all in all, it couldn't have been much better! all of the food turned out pretty well, especially considering it was a first for a few of the recipes i tried. i feel that i've completed some domestic rite of passage and that makes me happy. it was also luke's first "official" thanksgiving dinner in 12 years. he usually works and gets a plate from the restaurant there or a plate of leftovers, which he refused from me last year, but this year, he was up with me bright and early to make my coffee while i prepped the turkey. i feel very thankful that i could be a part of his first thanksgiving in a while.

thanksgiving has always been my most tolerable holiday away from my family. i think it's because i've always been a part of a large thanksgiving dinner here. when you can bring people together who would otherwise be alone on a holiday and send them away with a full stomach and a little taste of home, it makes you feel good. you feel like you've done something for someone else and that takes away some of the longing for your family. christmas is a bit harder, but that's another story. this thanksgiving was smaller, but more personal. we just had a couple of people over instead of the 20+ i've had in the past. it was nice to give and to share that same feeling of home to people i'm really close to. even though i missed my family, i feel that god richly blessed me with the people i spent thanksgiving with. it's nice to be at a point where i've narrowed down the acquaintances i used to party with to friends i share my life with. for that, i'm thankful.

i also got a good start on my christmas shopping :) we don't really have black friday here, but i participated online and that'll do for now. it's also luke's first "real" christmas in a while so i'm going a little overboard. i'm turning him into santa too. i don't care what he says, he's just as excited as i am and why shouldn't he be...

IT'S THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR!

oh and here are a couple of the hit recipes i used on thanksgiving. they're easy and delicious!

lemon garlic green beans

mac and cheese

that mac and cheese isn't easy on your waistline, but boy was it good! my friends asked if they could come over for leftovers for 3 days after thanskgiving. i used 6 slices of turkey bacon instead of ham. that probably brought the calorie count per serving down to 955 from 1055. :)

ENJOY!

giving thanks...

in the spirit of thanksgiving, xerox has created this website. go there, pick out a card designed by a child in the us, they print it and mail it to a us soldier fighting in the middle east FOR FREE. it doesn't get much easier, folks. GO THERE. NOW!

LETS SAY THANKS!

thanks xerox and thanks soldiers! happy holidays to you and yours!

you can call me nancy...

as i've mentioned in previous posts, i try not to be so negative. i think i do this mainly because i know all of my blogger friends and i don't want you to think that i absolutely hate life. however, since most of you do know me, you probably already know that i'm sarcastic and sometimes bitchy, but "mostly upbeat". it's just my personality and my sense of humor. that being said, i'm just going to throw it out there...i think the world is completely going to shit!

now i know that's harsh, but the times we live in aren't good. we've got a lot on our plate. national debt, individual debt, healthcare, education, war and that's just in our country. we often forget about the rest of the world. just here in america, the economy is crap. the government is crap. the morals of society as a whole are crap. i think it's that last one that really gets me. noone trusts anyone anymore. how do we expect to band together and fix the mess we've gotten ourselves into when people think the way they do? selfishness and greed that passed down through the generations. that's what got us here in the first place. it's morphed into this hideous monster that controls the world. how can things get better when kids grow up thinking nobody loves them? when they're worried about being too fat or ugly in the first grade? when a 12 year old thinks the best way to get attention is having sex? when people start off what should be a life-long commitment by referring to it as their "first" marriage? when the majority of the population picks quantity over quality?

it's people that matter most, not things. period. if we hadn't allowed ourselves to lose sight of that, i think we would be in a much better place right now. well, duh! that's pretty obvious. however, i think we need to remind ourselves of that in our own lives. daily. i'm guilty of letting greed and material things take over sometimes too. i have actually been plagued over the last two weeks with an uncontrollable urge to shop. it's bad. for real. anyway, back to the subject at hand, seeing as how i personally know each of you and where you come from (for the most part), i know you value family and friends and hopefully just others in general. we're raised with that understanding. coming from this background, i think we take these things for granted. we think that everyone grew up as loved as we were. that everyone was blessed with the unbelievable bonds of friendship that we have experienced over the years. we don't really look at the options of changing the whole world from smalltown, usa. we don't have to. we have zeb for that ;) seriously though, i'm not saying give all your money to the shoeless kid in africa or even st. judes hospital. although both of those commercials almost always bring tears to my eyes. i just think we need to realize what we all have that others don't and be willing to show that to them. i believe there is good in everybody. some people just require someone who cares enough to work through all the bad before everyone else can see the good and before they can develop a new way of thinking. fortunately for us, we haven't needed that as much as other people might.

i'm laughing out loud now as i realize that my post has come full circle. what started as a rant about the shitty world we live in has now turned into a feeling of warmth and comfort in how lucky i am. i know each of you probably feel the same way. so i guess that's our answer. we may not be able to change the views of the world or our sadly corrupt nation. we can't pay off those trillions of dollars or make sure everyone has healthcare and freedom without insanely high taxes, but we can remind ourselves of how lucky we are to have the morals we have. we can do something to make ourselves realize how much we love the people in our lives. we can do something to let them know that everyday. we can pray that we get the opportunity to show it to someone who doesn't know that that exists. even if it's just one person, maybe that will come full circle too. maybe the morals of society will stop going down the tube one person at a time. maybe i'm not-so-negative nancy...

it sure feels good to finally feel the way i do...

now i'm not usually the type of girl to tell you all about my day. for me personally, i don't feel it's necessary for me to write down everything i do to share with you. i'm single and childless. i have no words of wisdom, not many anyway, and most of you would be bored to tears with my day-to-day activites. i write to get things off my chest. it feels good to put my thoughts and feelings into words sometimes. ultimately, this post, too, is a reflection of those thoughts and feelings. however, it will be presented in the form of my absolutely, positively fabulous sunday...



first, i'll start by letting you all know that bow hunting season here in colorado started on saturday. most of you are familiar with the importance of hunting season, but for those who may not be, this means i will not be seeing much of lucas for the next month. he had to work saturday so his adventures were not scheduled to begin until 4 am sunday. i've never seen a grown man so excited. he was like a seven year old trying to go to sleep on christmas eve. he got himself so worked up after working two 14 hour days that he couldn't sleep at all. at 4 o'clock he decided it would be best to wait until the afternoon so he could suppress some of the exhaustion that was quickly catching up with him. even though i felt bad that he hadn't slept a wink, this was a pleasant surprise for me. sleeping in is a very, very rare occassion for us. for the ten months that we have been together, we have always worked opposite schedules. i could count the number of days we've had off together on one hand. it was the best 4 am start to my day that i could possibly ask for.



after rolling out of bed at what seemed like afternoon hours, but really it was 10 am, we headed for city market to buy breakfast food and went back to my empty house. (i failed to mention that i've had company for the past week and they left for a bluegrass festival for the weekend and that my roommate is in nc for the next week.) i made breakfast for my still sleepy-eyed boy, while he caught up on sports news online and relayed the important stuff to me. we ate our breakfast at the table and i left the dishes in the sink to be cleaned up later. we sipped coffee and watched a tnt sunday morning movie then i sent him off to woods scentless and camoflauged.


i thought about getting motivated, but decided against it. i picked up the book i just started reading. it's called redeeming love by francine rivers. i highly recommend it. it's an amazing love story based on the book of hosea in the bible. i'm so addicted to it and boy does that feel good. i'm not going to pretend i've been the best christian or even a remotely decent one over the past few years. i still don't have a church here in steamboat. i've actually only been twice. there's noone to blame but myself. shame on me. anyhoo, great book. you should go get it...NOW!

i interrupted my reading with a little nap on the couch. when i woke up, i contemplated getting motivated again, put some dishes in the dishwasher and decided against further motivation for the second time. there was a storm blowing in and i picked up where i left off in my book as the thunder rolled through the yampa valley. perfect reading weather :)

i finished up a chapter just in time for army wives. while i watched, i had myself an oversized mug of light mint chocolate chip ice cream. after another fantastic episode was complete, i finished up my lazy sunday with a cherry blossom bubble bath and more reading.

now there's nothing particularly special about any of those activities. it wasn't exciting or adventurous. it's doesn't make for a great story. sorry. however, it made for a spectacualr sunday for me. i think the best part of it all is that it's these little things that make me happy now. maybe it goes back to my edge of reason post. maybe it doesn't matter what you're doing. what matters is the relationship you have with those around you and yourself. i feel like i'm on the right track for both. bloody marys and breakfast from creekside are good, especially for your hangover from saturday, but doing nothing with no hangover, that's so much better. that's what i love about sundays! it sure feels good to finally feel the way i do...

laughter is the best medicine...

typically, i'm not a fan of e-mail forwards. however, this one is worth sharing. if some part of this doesn't get a belly laugh out of you, then there is no hope for your sense of humor...


i'm having some trouble pasting the text so follow this link:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/note.php?note_id=246617715197&ref=mf

grrrrrrrrrr...

what i don't love is the spacing and uploading on blogger. consider this my apology for the terrible layout of my previous post. i couldn't be bothered to fool with it anymore, which is shocking. (i'm really meticulous and i will not be able to look at it ever again as it will drive me absolutely crazy!) everytime i uploaded a picture, it threw off the spacing of everything else. maybe there's a secret trick i don't know about. please do tell if you know it. thanks.

oh and i didn't tag anyone because i'm pretty sure all of my blogger friends have already completed the list.

ooooooh, i LOVE the way you...

a bit delayed, but still complete, here is the list of six things i love that mrs. kace requested oh-so-long-ago:

1. mountains.















they are glorious. i can't imagine not living in the mountains. rolling hills or rocky peaks, big, little, i don't care. it's where my heart belongs.

2. photography. pictures are worth a thousand words. i LOVE that people see beauty in the simplest things and capture it in a way make other people appreciate it as much as they do. i also LOVE that with the right lighting, etc. you can share the beauty of things that are obviously so. the picture above, for example. i really want to lie and say that i took it. i didn't. luke did. i was there though. it was breathtaking.

3. this place.








lakes in general, but particularly lake chatuge.


4. these people.

and my mama and my sister.



5. thunderstorms.

6. febreze.
it's a breath of fresh air. however, their new commercial is absolutely horrendous. i may reconsider this one just for that reason.