gratitude, schmatitude

Sadly...that has been my attitude waaaay too much this last six months. It has felt often times painful to be grateful. I suppose after fighting for so long and feeling like I'm making very little headway, and after loss compounded on top of loss....I got scared to be thankful. I didn't want to be too grateful for anything because who knows how long it would be around until it was taken from me, too. Being really, really, really grateful for something and expressing it to the best of my ability--as I had all my life-- didn't seem to be the lucky talisman for keeping the blessing around the way I hoped it would.

That's a hard thing to admit.

Because I know very well that ungrateful people are not pleasant to be around. That hopeless people are dark and bitter. I do NOT want to be the star of my own tragedy.

I don't think I'm to that point yet. My heart still overflows with love for all that I have, it just does it in a more cautious manner than it ever has before. But as a reminder to myself, these are the things I am grateful for most of all this Thanksgiving Eve...

I am so grateful for my children: for their smiles and their smells and their laughter and their messes. I am grateful that they are intelligent, talented, and strong in their faith. I am grateful they are strong and healthy. I am grateful that they love me, no matter what, and that they teach me something new every single day--usually patience related :). I would be a mere shadow of what I am today without the blessing of parenthood.

I am grateful for the home I still have to live in. For the way it embraces me each time I walk in the door. For all its myriad soft places to land. To rest. For its cupboards full of food and walls full of pictures. Grateful for the family and dear friends who often gather here and the memories we have made together.

 I am grateful for the seasons, each with their own particular beauty. And that I am able to go out and engage myself in the outdoor world around me--drinking in all the smells and sounds and textures.

I am grateful that we live in a time where we can all do more than survive--where we can concentrate and appreciate such luxuries as music, fashion, art, poetry, and television sitcoms. Grateful, too, for this country that allows such freedom of expression.

I am grateful for the talents I have been given. There are many, and though I haven't--in my opinion--mastered any of them yet, I am grateful for opportunities to grow and share them. Writing, especially, has been such a blessing in my continual healing. I am thankful for the ability to express myself and interpret the world around me in words, and for those people who I have been blessed to have in my life who have made me a better writer.

I am grateful for a mother who taught me to laugh and appreciate the humor in everything. So many times when I have felt angry or overwhelmed, laughter has been the key to putting everything back into perspective.

I am thankful, above all, for my God. When it felt I had lost everything, I knew, because of my faith, I still hadn't really lost everything. Faith has kept me going through trials that should have crushed me. It has kept me humble, given me access to an intelligence beyond my own through scriptures and prayer, and made me know that my burdens did not have to be carried alone. It has kept me mindful that this life is but a blink in the scope of eternity. Everything I am asked to pass through is an opportunity to be refined and made into a more perfect Follower of Him.

Yes, Life is good. Life continues to scare the pants off me right now....but I cannot deny that it is good. And I am even pretty certain that it will only get better.

***Wishing you all the Happiest of Thanksgivings and the gift of gratitude daily.***

friday fotos: i finally took a months worth of pictures off my camera. but i'll only make you look at a few of them.

One final down...two more to go. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Come on semi-Genius--don't fail me now!!! I did manage to get one of my poems published this week. It's in the English majors magazine, but since English is the most populated major at my school--there was a lot of competition..... so I'll call it a little victory :).

Anyway, here's what we've been up to these last few weeks:

I celebrated Festivus with my friends. This has to be my favorite picture from that night. My friend wore her ugly Festivus sweater and posed for me near"the pole" which was covered in grievances to be aired. ... It was a Festivus miracle! :)



Got the old Christmas tree put up. I keep thinking I want to mix it up--try pheasant feathers and tortoise colored ornaments, but I just go back to the same way of decorating...because it makes me happy....

The boys get to eat the animal crackers off it on Christmas Eve:
After Thanksgiving, I swore I'd never eat again. But looking at all the food again, I take it back! I'll be hungry again by next November for sure!

Mmmmm.....my turkey. We never eat more than the breast. We're ham people. But this was tasty too!

The Thanksgiving table:

Green Eyes and the boys playing a few games Thanksgiving morning:

SOOOOOO many leaves to rake. Ethan was a real trooper. My Ninja friend came to help too. The next day I rented a leaf vacuum. The day after that, I couldn't lift my arms. Man! What a workout....but for someone who loves to vacuum like I do, it. was. AWESOME!

Whew! That was quite a month!

I have a lot of baking to do this weekend. Tell me your favorite Christmas-time treat!

and..... ~ Happy Weekending! ~

friday fotos...thanksgiving day (and another traditional minor disaster)

~Here is the story of Thanksgiving 2008. ~

This is the third year I've had my family gather here for Thanksgiving dinner. And every year, there's been some minor disaster we've had to get through.

Year #1: Everyone but my family and a friend's family gets violently ill Thanksgiving night-- so ill that a few even go to the hospital. It was assumed it was from the deep fried turkey prepared by said friends. And somehow everyone still came back and ate here come Christmas time! :)

Year #2 (last year): It took me 3 attempts to make my Nutella Brownie Pumpkin Pie. I burned one, put the wrong kind of pumpkin in another, and then the third never set up right-- so we ended up eating the burned one. Well--at least a few of us did. This is what happened to most of it......

and also our neighbor's dog, whom we were *dogsitting* for at the time, decided to pick an hour before Thanksgiving to have a seizure. (he was ok--but it was time consuming enough caring for him to cause the burnt pie).

So, now we're to YEAR #3......the year I'm glad I buy my paper towels at Costco, because some things require a whole roll of them to clean up.

Everything was going along really smoothly. I made mesquite roasted, sage rubbed turkey breasts. Stuffing (out of a box--because even homemade doesn't taste better!). Green beans with lemon. Rolls. and two kinds of potatoes:

I'm not a gravy girl, so I make these instead..... garlic, Parmesan, rosemary smashed red potatoes. Oh my head! are they ever delish! I think it has something to do with the stick of butter and the 1/2 cup of cream that goes into them.... anyway--

Guests arrived.

and everyone ended up in the kitchen. Typical!

Here is one of my brothers (the other is a race car driver and NEVER around!) and my sister. (Did you even know I had siblings? I know I only tend to blog about them in flashback posts--but they are still living!)

Do you see that pitcher in front of them? Take a good look at it. It's old---like from my bridal shower old--and it was starting to crack--but I thought it would be fine to use. Plus, it was so pretty.....

Everyone was eating and having a grand old time, when my nephew (17) decided to pour himself a drink. And the handle broke off the above mentioned cracked crystal pitcher---leaving a gaping glass hole---which spewed forth cranberry juice/ Sprite mixture. A LOT of it. All over everyone and everything!!! There was much laughter as we all crawled around on the floor trying to clean it up. My nephew's girlfriend hopped up to try and help and in doing so, spilled her drink all over herself as well. My nephew had to eat the remainder of Thanksgiving dinner in some homemade kilt he concocted out of my bath towel and his belt while his pants were in the dryer. At least I let his girlfriend borrow a pair of my pants---so no towel kilt for her!

Here's what was left of the pitcher. And did I mention how thankful I am to have wood floors? Can you imagine a pitcherful of cranberry juice on carpet?! Oh my!....

This made everything feel better. Pumpkin cobbler with cinnamon-caramel whipped cream.

Everything ends happily with dessert.

Can't wait to see what year #4 has up its sleeve. :)

***Hope your Thanksgiving was blessed by the presence of your family and friends. Love to you all!***

We were all much thinner before we came to dinner....Happy Thanksgiving!

It was a wonderful Thanksgiving here at the Peterson house. I made pesto-stuffed Turkey breasts with bay and citrus infused butter, sweet potato french fries, mashed potatoes with Manchego cheese, green beans with shallots, apple cider gravy, and Stove Top stuffing right out of the box. My sister brought a wonderful ham, my niece brought a whole plate of yummy chocolate goodies, and my brother brought cranberry juice and Sprite to drink. I was thrilled with how everything turned out, and how it tasted. We had just enough guests to keep things interesting, but not so many as to make me want to pull out my hair. There were some 'glitches' (see my next post), but all in all it was a wonderful Thanksgiving day. I got a great deal on the silver chargers--four for $6.88 at Wal Mart. Not top notch quality, but they looked pretty!
The table ready for company. (I had to put all the chairs in the family room until it was time to eat so James and Liam wouldn't 'help' me UNSET the table!)
The centerpiece for the kids table. They thought it was pretty funny. We also drew hand turkeys on paper plates for them.
Mmmmmm....makes me hungry just looking at it all again! Hope you all had wonderful turkey days too! *To my dear friends who may have attempted shopping on Black Friday, I hope you are all still with us and doing well. As for me, I lined up outside the dollar store hoping they would have some fabulous 98 cent door busters but I seemed to be the only one (just kidding!).

Me oh my!-- my pumpkin pie

I make a pretty mean pumpkin pie if I do say so myself. I am actually not a huge fan of pumpkin in pie, but the one I make has a brownie layer made with Nutella, and how can anything with Nutella not be good I want to know?! Then you slather the top with my homemade chocolate-cinammon whipped cream and it tastes like you died and went to Thanksgiving heaven. I have been making this pie for the last five years and it is much anticipated by my husband. So on Wednesday night, I made not one but TWO Nutella Pumpkin pies and set them to cool. They didn't look quite right to me, so I had a small piece of one. Sure enough it didn't taste like normal. I discovered I'd used pumpkin pie filling in a can rather than the plain pumpkin. I went back to the store EARLY Thursday morning, and got the ingredients to make another. While it was in the oven, our neighbor's dog (whom we've been 'dogsitting' since the first of the week) had a seizure. While we were busy caring for him and calling his owners, I realized pie #3 had over-cooked nearly 1/2 an hour. Back to the store I went for things to make a FOURTH pie. And what happened to this one?................






JAMES happened to this one. While we were all 'digesting' and waiting to eat dessert, little destruct-o baby helped himself. Darn cute thing thought it was wonderful!



Here are the pie 'remnants'. I think he just put the fork in and banged away until he pulverized the filling!

So what did we do? I pulled out the over-cooked third pie from the fridge, which turned out to be not so overcooked but very tasty. It was quickly devoured and much enjoyed.


I also tried to cook enough to not have any leftovers (crazy I know, but I really just wanted to eat like a maniac for one day, and not have all the little tupperware containers calling my name for the next week!). No luck! Everyone ate till they were stuffed, and I still had "leaning tower of leftovers". Fun memories!!!

Gratitude

I thought I'd give a little 'sermon' in honor of Thanksgiving--just my thoughts on gratitude and its role in our lives.

As we think about civilizations in history that have prospered and been blessed because of righteousness, there are two ways they can go. The first is the pride cycle. Righteousness leads to blessings, and because of their abundance, they become 'respecters of class' and prideful, which leads to wickedness. The wickedness grows until they put off those things which made them righteous in the first place--namely God and keeping his commandments, and begin to trust in their own strength until they are finally destoyed from inside and/or out. Stripped of all their pride, they then become humble and repent, bringing them back to their previous state of righteousness. Do they then repeat the cycle of pride? What is the key to a lasting change?

It is the second way a people can go and that is the cycle of humility, and the keystone to this cycle is gratitude. Righteousness leads to blessings, and then-- instead of becoming prideful of those things they have-- sincere gratitude is expressed. They realize the source of their blessings is God. With their abundance and with their service, they give to those who have less. They realize they are nothing unto themselves but that "with God all things are possible". This leads not to destruction, but to further humility and continued repentance, and they are able to continue on in righteousness and receive further and richer blessings.

So whether in the life of whole nations, or in your own life, remember that gratitude is the great preserver.

"And now I would that ye should be humble, and be submissive and gentle; easy to be entreated; full of patience and long-suffering; being temperate in all things; being diligent in keeping the commandments of God at all times; asking for whatsoever things ye stand in need, both spiritual and temporal; always returning thanks uno God for whatsoever things ye do receive" (Alma 7:23).

Hope you all have a wonderful and happy Thanksgiving!