Life in Denim and Flip Flops

Silent gratitude isn’t much use to anyone. – Gladys Bertha Stern, British author, critic (1890-1973) Someone sent this quote around at work today. It really got me thinking. I always give up something during Lent to mark the season, but I never really do anything special during Advent. I think to mark the passage of December I'm going to send out a not-so-silent email of thanks to a different person each day. Someone I don't tell nearly enough how much I appreciate them. Or someone who I appreciate for something they might not know they do. I realize this is a bit insane to do on top of all the stuff I need to be doing in the next few weeks, (and blogging everyday for another 2 weeks), but I like projects. And doing a little bit at a time is nice. And to be honest, it's been one of those years where I think we can all use a little extra smile during the holidays. So keep your eyes peeled for an email. :)

Wow. A 9-day break from work makes it awfully hard to go back. It was a nice break from reality, but I need to get working on prep for next semester. Just remind me next year, not to schedule 4 classes on the first day back! I'll see you on the flip side!

So when you celebrate 2 holidays over the course of 4 days involving a total of 19 people over the age of 12 (and 2 toddlers), you need a lot of food. I thought I'd chronicle a little of that for you. If you've visited my house during this festival of food, you know I'm not kidding when I say we have a lot of food. You saw a bit of the candy prep earlier this week, but that's just part of it. We have the traditional spread for Thanksgiving: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, corn, green bean casserole, rolls, fresh veggies and dip, etc. The countertop looked like this: Our dessert table was a bit ridiculous this year though. There are always way more desserts than necessary, and they tend to last us the whole weekend. This year was no exception. There were the following desserts this year: 3 pies (apple, cherry, pecan) 2 cheesecakes (pumpkin, mint chocolate chip) 6 kinds of cookies (chocolate chip, peanut butter, chocolate w/ peanut butter chips, snicker doodles, butter...

I've found a new aerobic exercise. We play ping-pong (table tennis) at my house during Thanksgiving/Christmas. Usually we tend to play round robin, which for those of you not lucky enough to have witnessed this involves playing with multiple people, hitting one shot, dropping the paddle and running around the table. When all of the grandkids were little they would be someone's handicap. You'd carry them with you while you ran around the ping pong table all the while playing. If you were good enough (or lucky enough) to make it to the finals, you hit the shot, drop the paddle, spun around, picked up the paddle and hit the shot. Rinse and repeat this til someone missed. When you had a kid in one arm this spinning element usually came with a burst of giggling. I was never really old enough to be the carrier rather than the carryee in this situation until now. My friend Shanna brought over her adorable children: 3 years and 16 months. Playing round robin ping-pong with Sophie o...

I know that I am truly blessed and have much to be thankful for. I have wonderful parents and a great sister. I have a job I love with fabulous co-workers and office-buddies. My friends are incredibly amazing. Even those of you I've never met IRL. Seriously you have to be to put up with me. I have my health and I'm genuinely happy where I am. My students keep me busy and laughing. What are you thankful for?

Today was a calm one. A little cleaning and tidying around the house. A few more groceries to buy. Mostly today involved being with the family. We had a fun lunch which ended in us laughing loud enough that we got a few odd looks from nearby tables. We watched the Badgers win 3rd place in their holiday tournament and welcomed our first relatives to the house. The rest show up either tomorrow or Saturday. Right now Manda and I are camped out in the front room. We did so to watch Glee in private. If you really want to watch something during Thanksgiving you need to quarantine yourself from the family as they have the bad habit of talking through anything. *Anything they don't watch they ask about, and anything they do they give opinions about.* Nothing wrong with that, I just want to watch Glee in peace :) It was adorable if you haven't seen it yet. Tomorrow brings more family, a few family friends, lots and lots of food, the Packers-Lions game, probably the Mythbusters marathon,...

After dragging my butt out of bed this morning at a semi-decent hour (the Badger game went til 1:30am), the family jumped into the truck and the SUV and drove out to the Christmas tree farm to bring home our tree. For those of you who don't know, my extended family does both Thanksgiving and Christmas in one weekend. So we do Thanksgiving Thursday, put up the tree and decorate it on Friday, and then celebrate Christmas on Saturday morning. Which means...we need a tree before Thanksgiving. No matter who is around, this is always an immediate family thing. I took the camera along to document the day. Hope you enjoy the results.