Giving Thanks

Where to even start with all the things that I am thankful for? Well, starting is easy, but listing them all is tougher. Obviously, I believe that everything I have in my life- the good, bad, ugly, happiness, sorrow and love all are a gift from God. I am most thankful for Him sending his Son to be our Savior. All the time, talent, gifts, friendships, opportunities and prosperity I enjoy are a direct result of God's blessing and his plan for my life.

The second thing I am most thankful for today is my husband. These past few years have been so amazing, and I've never been happier to share every day of my life with him. Every morning, he makes my days brighter, and every evening I still can't wait for him to get home. We have so much fun together, enjoying life, learning, reading, traveling, cooking and loving each other. I'm thankful that he is my partner & my best friend, that he's patient with me when I need it and encourages me when I'm down.

The next thing I am thankful and grateful for is my family. I picked this photo of my brother & sister with me back in 2002 at my Grandma's for Christmas because it's one of those memories that just reminds me of family. Holidays can sometimes be difficult to juggle having divorced parents, but I am still so thankful for my extended families and my mother-in-law. Although I won't be seeing my dad's side of the family today, with the aunts & uncles & cousins, I will be thinking about them. My mom and dad have both played and continue to play such an important part of my life everyday, and I'm so thankful that all of my family is healthy, happy and lives near us.

I could spend all day listing other things I'm thankful for on Thanksgiving, but I'll just add a final one that seems timely. I'm so thankful I was born in the United States of America. I'm grateful for all the freedoms that we have that have been fought for by so many other people. I always wonder how different my life would be if I had been born in Germany or Kenya or India. I've been so prosperous here because of all the things for which America stands. There is something great and amazing about our country that everybody wants to be here or be like us. We're not perfect, but the spirit of Americans embodies so much hope and courage that I'm proud and thankful to live in such a wonderful country. My faith in America is renewed by the election of the most unlikely President to hopefully lead our country through this difficult times.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: With all I have to be thankful for, every day is a great day!

Baked Scallops & Spaghetti

Last weekend, I was still all motivated on my quest to keep cooking up new things. We were at Sams, doing our Thanksgiving shopping, and I noticed some yummy looking scallops and decided I should use them to cook something on Sunday night. I searched around the Internet & found this Baked Scallops Recipe.

There were also some yummy looking asparagus at the grocery store that were just begging to be steamed. I love steaming things- so easy & quick! Wash, cut, season & steam!

I threw some salt & diced garlic into the steam basket & drizzled some olive oil on them. DELICIOUS!

The baked scallop recipe is pretty easy- mix a few spices & some diced garlic.

Throw in some Parmesan cheese & bread crumbs to perfect your outer layer of flavor.

I dipped them in butter & then rolled them in the mixture, before placing them into the oven to bake.

I decided to serve this with some spaghetti & marinara sauce. Topped off with wine, this made a great Sunday evening dinner.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: I'm only working till noon today, and it looks like H won't have to work this weekend either!

President Elect Obama

I promise this is the last Obama post until Inauguration :) I wanted to share/display/keep a few more things from this historic election. I've got my poster at home, ready to be framed, and a few commemorative magazines.

See some of the best photos of the campaign, at my new favorite photography blog, The Big Picture. There is also a wonderful photographer who has been out on the trail with Obama for almost 2 years & has some great photos. The book is on my Christmas list. :)


The final state map was only released last week, when Missouri was called for McCain. Nearly 3 weeks later, the re-count continues in Minnesota and the run-off in Georgia is in a few weeks to determine the final 2 Senator positions.

I really like this map as it shows we are not simply red & blue states, but numerous individual counties that make a much more purple map. But, some very interesting map analysis - breaking it down by counties & also weighting those counties/states by population. It was very telling the counties that McCain performed better in than Bush- mostly Oklahoma, Arkansas and Tennessee.

Worth watching over & over again is MSNBC as 11 ET call the race for Barack Obama.

Also, you can see all the front pages of newspapers worldwide here and a neat pop-up view of other newspaper front pages here.

This was our "Election Central" spread with laptops going, plentiful food & wine, all my maps and analysis with what to watch for and evening time lines.

We had to wait until nearly midnight to watch Obama's victory speech, but after nearly a year of waiting, it was so worth it!

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Only 1 more work day this week & then Thanksgiving!

Printing up a Storm

So this is where my husband has been spending 12-18 hours a day the past few weeks. Not exactly in the warehouse, but driving in traffic, meeting customers and getting jobs onto press.

Although I'd been up to the plant before, I always find it fascinating to watch these machines spitting out paper, hundreds of sheets at a time.

It comes off either of the printing presses and then gets stacked, so it can go into the assembly machine that makes all the booklets.

He was nervous about the status of his jobs last weekend, so we headed up to the plant on Sunday night to see how they were progressing.

He was very happy to see so much of the work boxed and wrapped up, ready to be shipped out.

These are the new presses. Yes, they are really glorified copy machines, but considering they can cost up to half a million dollars each, they do a large chunk of his business every month.

It's pretty neat to see these glorified Xerox machines compete with the big presses, and how they are creating digital printing with online ordering for their customers. It's all really great, except when H has to stay late at night and feed the *copier* more paper!

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: We had a pretty good (restful, work-free) weekend, and this is a short week (even if H is having late night).

Desperate Housewife

So after planning to spend my Saturday exploring San Francisco, I suddenly found myself sitting at home with nothing to do. I was able to get quite a bit accomplished this weekend as a desperate housewife with time to kill! First, I watch a few movies, including Sex and the City. I was a HUGE fan when it was on HBO, but I was hesitant to see the movie. I was afraid I'd be disappointed or would want more. I really enjoyed the movie and missed watching the show every week. It was the perfect girlie movie for a lonely Saturday morning.

Next, I ran errands, which included dropping of the dry-cleaning and taking Zoe to the park & giving her a bath. I also decided to do a little shopping :) We have had our old bedspread for almost 2 years now, and Zoe tends to be a bit rough on it when she's excited that H is home, so we needed a new one.

So I bought a lovely new bedspread and a few other things we needed around the house. It's a bit darker blue than our old one, but I like the color and the texture. I also got started on my Christmas shopping- let's just say I'm excited that H will be getting a mini-indoor herb garden :)

I also discovered that we suddenly have jalapenos! H walked in the back door & proudly showed me our surprise harvest! I can't believe things are still growing in the garden.

The tomatoes are still growing, and there are quite a few now, but I'm not sure they will ever turn red.

I also watched a movie called Manufactured Landscapes. It's a very interesting documentary about how manufacturing and progress, particularly in China and Asia, are forever changing the landscapes.

It looked at it both from the physical Earth standpoint and how it's changing the lives of workers too. It's actually based on a photography exhibit that tries to grasp the GINORMOUS scale of some of these manufacturing plants.

I also thought it would be the perfect weekend to knock one more thing off my 101 List- make a cheesecake! Given my very limited cooking & baking skills, I wanted to keep it simple for my first attempt. I bought a pre-made Oreo crust, and followed this very simple recipe. It was YUMMY! Next time I will attempt to make my own crust & use a real cheesecake pan. And of course, I made my soup Sunday night. All in all, not San Francisco, but not a bad weekend either!

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: I'm off to do a mock trial today.

End of the Season

Haley's last volleyball game of her first season was a few weeks ago & I missed blogging them! As usual, the team huddle before the first game. That's Haley directly to the right of #7.

And in the spirit of good sportsmanship, the usual "Good Luck! " to the opposing team before the game.

She's been really improving and she's now starting during the first game.

An action shot...sorry for the poor quality! Indoor photography, especially when it's dark outside, really isn't all that great.

And of course, we're still working on some basic form issues. :)

Haley did great in the first game, and her team beat their opponents so bad, I almost felt sorry for the other gals!

Her serving has improved a lot this season & I'm very proud of her!

The easily won the first game. Almost all the points were scored off the serve; the other team rarely even returned the first volley.

She was on the bench for the second game, but her *friend* showed up to watch her last game. All the girls on the team were excited when he showed up and they all started acting like cornballs.

This is the popular boy of the hour- a friend from church. This photo is from her birthday party, but I just want to give her grief in 10 or 15 years, when she's gone through about 50 more boys!

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY:

Chicken Tortilla Soup

It's been a while since I've made any progress on my cooking goal on my 101 List, so I thought this past weekend would be the perfect time to find a new recipe to concoct. Given the colder weather, I thought I'd try this Chicken Tortilla Soup recipe I found. The hardest part for me about this was getting all the special ingredients together, but the rest was easy- throw in crock pot!

I cheated a bit on the pound of chicken because it was after church & I wanted to get this mixture cooking ASAP so we could have it for dinner. I bought a pre-baked chicken & just de-boned it.

Throw in some fresh cilantro, canned tomatoes, canned green chili peppers, salt, pepper, fresh garlic, some chicken broth, enchilada sauce, cumin & chili powder.

Add some water & frozen corn, then realize I forgot to pick up onions and sweetly ask my poor hubby to run to the store.

Chop up and onion & cook for a few hours! Enjoy as the house starts to smell yummy.

I threw a few tortillas in the oven with some olive oil just to brown them. I really should have cut them before baking, but now I know.

I served it with some Mexican rice & H said it was his favorite thing I've ever cooked!

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Off to Memphis, with a drive through Mississippi.

Bayou Stroll

As part of my leisurely Saturday, I started off by running a few errands for H & then took Zoe to the park again to run. It was CHILLY out & she was loving the colder weather.

Sometimes when she runs, she does the strange little thing where her front legs run normal (left-right-left) and at the same time, she hops with her back legs. I hope it's not a sign of any future hip issues...

I even caught a little (crooked) point on camera!

There are some LARGE cranes that live down along the bayou. They are beautiful to watch as they soar gracefully around.

This one took off as soon as Zoe neared the bayou.

They must have recently cut the grass, because it was much shorter than when we were here recently.

She did stick her front legs & face down in the water, hence the bath, and I was worried she'd fall all the way into the bayou.

You can see her surgery scar is healing well, but he's still got a skin pooch where the top of her scar was. Also, the hair in that area, especially towards the front side of her leg is still very thin.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Gram had a shoulder replacement a week ago, and her recovery is coming along pretty good so far.