I am my mother's daughter - Loud and Proud...

I love my Mom for never telling me I was "too". I was never too quiet or too loud. Never too dressed up or dressed down. Never too serious or too silly. She of course guided me as to what was appropriate to a given occasion, but overall, she let me be me. And I grew up to be a women who was not afraid to ask for what I want, speak my mind, love and be loved, or generally mold my life into what I feel I need. I am a powerful woman, and I am a reflection of my powerful Momma.

Happy Mother's Day to my beautiful Mother.

Turkey Day happiness...

Here in Seattle, we are having a white Thanksgiving. I don't remember one since I was a wee little girl, so it is magical. It will turn to rain soon, and get slushy and yuck, but hubby and I are enjoying the winter wonderland immensely for now.

I have begun cooking, and the house is already filling with delicious smells. Honestly, we really began yesterday morning when I cooked up the brining liquid, filled our cooler with salt/suger/stock/allspice berries and plopped our 20lb bird in to float around for 18 hours in said cooler set up on the snowy back deck.  About five years ago we started brining our bird in a simple water/salt/sugar blend, and two years ago we began to bypass stuffing our bird and instead using aromatics as recommended by our beloved Alton Brown--we will never ever make a turkey any differently ever again, and it even informed how we bake whole chickens throughout the year.  In a word: YUM! This year we're going whole hog and using Alton's full recipe from brine to finish, and I am completely confident it will be the best bird yet! I am searing the skin now, will tent it and cook until our family arrives this afternoon. Chris' sister and her husband, and Bapa will be joining us this year.

It's a bittersweet holiday this season, not having Pat here. I find myself trying not to cry now and again, so I cannot even imagine what is in Chris and Steph's hearts as they face the first holiday without their beautiful mother.  It makes me reflect on my family, on how little I get to see them, how much I miss my father and my grandmother... but it also makes me feel even closer to my new family I married into. Getting to spend time with them has become such a joy for me as I have gotten to know them better in recent years, and we are even closer now after what we have gone through this summer.

To sum it up, this Thanksgiving, they are my greatest blessing. I am so thankful for my family, and how warm they are in my heart this season in particular.  I am thankful for their kindness, their humor, their generosity, and their love.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. May yours be as sweet and full of love as mine is today.

Daily Gratitude: A Day of Rest

Daily Gratitude: I am thankful for the choice to take a day of rest. Many people on our planet work nearly all day, every day, and barely make ends meet. A day you can choose to do almost nothing is a blessing indeed.