Skip to main content

thanksgiving morning

Really, how could this city get much better?  I walk out on Thanksgiving morning to take Maddie to the bus stop and it's snowing.  I was already dressed for a run but the sidewalks were too slippery.  So, I decided to hike up the mountain that sits behind our complex.  It was amazing.  I had in my ear buds, listening to Newsboys singing about everything that makes our God so awesome.  In Chariots of Fire, Eric Liddell says to his sister, "...when I run I feel His pleasure."  And on this morning I totally knew what he meant.  It was like I had stepped outside and God said, Julie, I love you so much.  Do you realize that?  Do you realize that the  mountains will crumble at my name, that one day every knee will bow before me and that I love you? Needless to say, it was a good time out.

We had 8 local friends over for Thanksgiving supper.  It was good.  It's good to eat good food and be around good people.  I just have to say that I think the turkey is the most over emphasized and unjustly adored meat among North Americans.  Now, I've never had a deep fried turkey, which I'm pretty sure is worth all the turkey hub bub, but turkey really isn't all that good.  Even well cooked turkey isn't all that great.  What do we do with turkey meat?  We cover it with gravy or cranberry sauce.  Good gravy could cover a multitude of sins.  And well, cranberry sauce it could make a dead parakeet taste good.  So, like I say every-single-year, the turkey is totally not worth it.

And just like every other Thanksgiving day past, I always wonder why I don't make dressing every single day of the week.



 

Popular posts from this blog

moving time

Well my house looks like it did at some point when we moved here about 2 years ago. Boxes lying around, no pictures up, hammers, cleaning rags and tape sitting in random spots around the living room. It's a mess. Another move, more good-byes and mixed emotions. I'm going to miss... ..real CH food whenever I want it for dirt cheap, ..a tailor that made all my curtains and waves to me every time I walk past her shop, ..the little boy who's parents own the light bulb shop and yells, "hello!" every time we pass by, ..all the little kids that very politely say, "Ayi" (Aunt) when they pass me, ..our first friend in Chengdu who owns a local shop and buys birds as a hobby - bird guy, as we call him, ..the best dumpling makers, the steamed bread makers, the shopkeepers that deliver our milk for free and know our address by heart, ..the courtyard of our complex where Maddie can play by herself or with her friends while we keep an eye on her from our 4th floor, ....
Read more

Fickle ol' solidarity

At some point in March when this virus deemed that it had spread so far that it could be called a pandemic, I told the girls they should do video journals to remember the days of living in a pandemic. Here now in the middle of April, I realize that I need to write for myself and the girls can just have lots of regret when they're older because they didn't do what I said. When the whole world started moving to stay-at-home orders, I felt such a strong sense of solidarity.  I looked at all of us (literally all of us - okay, most of us) in our different areas of the world facing this beast together.  Jimmy Fallon's wife filmed him hosting from home.  John Krasinski started SGN in his home office.  Everyone was joking about toilet paper, sweatpants, and cutting your own bangs. Italians were singing from their balconies.  Wuhan folk were singing from their high-rises.  Hospitals in NYC were being surrounded by patrol cars each evening with lights flashing and ...
Read more

spring rain and various randomness

This morning feels so fresh.  Apparently, we had rain last night and the air is cool and clean now. I would love to be on a farm doing the morning chores and then coming in to a big country style breakfast.  With biscuits and gravy, of course.   I have two never wavering dreams for my life - one, have a small farm with goats, chickens, sheep and a dairy cow or two. Two - buy a house on a lake (ideally in the NE or NW of the US) that is used several times a year for family gatherings.  I want us to be the great, great, great grandparents that the house was originally bought by and has been in the family forever.   There were lots of people out this morning exercising .  One lady was doing the breaststroke as she walked.  I can never get the video going quick enough to catch these precious moments of inhibition .   Exercise is one thing our neighbors do really well.  I watched a lady in her late 50s early 60s doing kicks and bends the other day that I haven't been able to do sin...
Read more