Category: Thanksgiving

A Little November Recap

November was a very busy month, and December isn’t looking much slower.

Shane and I went to Atlanta to see Monet Immersive and had a great time. We discovered that Atlanta has several Super H Marts, and a bunch of other fun farmer’s markets that we got to check out. A few days later I headed back to ATL for a couple of days for work reasons. I ended up getting stuck there for an extra night because I would have driven directly into Tropical Storm Nicole and while my car is getting a bit old, I didn’t want to wreck. During my time there, I missed our 16th dating anniversary, but since we don’t celebrate much, it wasn’t terrible.

That same week Shane’s grandma died, which was expected but still very sad, so we packed up and headed to her funeral that weekend. It was nice to see his family, but the circumstances were unfortunate. I did learn that she really liked true crime tv shows, so now I wish we had watched those together.

Shane had a birthday on the 15th but his best birthday present didn’t come until that Friday – his best friend Matthew flew in from Portland for Friendsgiving. When we started our drive upstate, we swung by the airport and picked him up. I made the sacrifice of sitting in the back of the truck so they could have quality time. Friendsgiving was fantastic. There was a BBQ Around the World theme and we took banchan (naturally) and bulgogi. Everything was so delicious and it was so so good to see our friends. The majority of the group has known each other since college, but the additions this year were awesome people, and I hope we made them feel welcome and part of the crew. There was Matthew in from Portland, a couple in from NYC (Queens, to be exact), and one from San Francisco/the Bay Area. More locally, we came up from Savannah, and our other friend drove up from Columbia, so a lot of people made a lot of effort to be there and it was worth it (for me anyway). We dropped Matthew off at his brother’s place, then scooted on home. On Wednesday, we met up with them again to get Matthew, and I took him to the airport on Thanksgiving.

I insisted on a “real” Thanksgiving dinner, so we made some stuffed chicken breasts, devilled eggs, brussel sprouts (for Shane), carrots (for me), and mashed potatoes and gravy. It was super tasty. I think my goal of celebrating all the holidays was definitely met for the Thanksgiving portion.

We spent the rest of the month cleaning, organizing the garage, and decorating for Christmas. His mom and aunt rolled on November 30th (yesterday), since Shane has some days off.

It was an exhausting month, but full of so much happiness and good times. November 2022 was a solidly good month.

-S

Thanksgiving 2022

Thanksgiving 2022

I was going to make this blog post into a list, since I love lists so very much, but nothing I wrote felt right. I’m not really sure why, but I wrote several versions, and didn’t like any of them. Maybe because 2022 doesn’t feel like it can be reduced into a list – even a long one.

I’ve mentioned before that this year has been the first good one in a long string of pretty awful years. Over everything else, I’m thankful for that. It might be a change in my perspective on things/life, and not a “better” year in general, but my point stands.

My list of things to be thankful for starts with the shitty job I had at the beginning of this year – I had a great time in Vegas and got close to 2 coworkers that I still count as friends. If that man hadn’t cursed me out and made me cry at work, I wouldn’t have quit and wouldn’t have the job I have now. Speaking of my job – it feels like this job is something I can make a career of long term. That remains to be seen, obviously, but the hopeful feeling is really nice after being in a string of jobs that I only applied for because I just needed a job.

Shane has been a major support this year, during the awfulness of Job 1, my unemployment/vacation, and getting prepped for Job 2. It’s really nice to live with my best friend and have that really strong foundation when things go sideways. He’s my favorite person, and I’m glad he’s on my side. Also, that horror movie project would have never gotten done without him.

I feel like the cats should get a shout out here, too. Klaus especially. Bear is a great cat, but he loves anyone who will hand him a treat and gets annoyed with my repeated attempts to keep his coat in some semblance of groomed. Klaus, though. I swear if Laurie was able to send me a cat, it would have been Klaus. Every single afternoon, he comes to visit me in my office & have a snuggle session. He likes to follow me from room to room and every night if I’m not already in bed, he comes to fetch me from the living room when he decides it’s bedtime. He has been a beacon of comfort all year.

There have been so many people giving me support this year that I don’t even want to start naming them because I’ll inevitably forget someone. Luckily, most of them don’t read this blog, so very few people will notice that I’m leaving this section of thanks to this: if you’ve been any kind of support, even if it’s just a thought here or there, I appreciate you. There have been so many small kindnesses this year, both intentional and unintentional, so many times I have been boosted out of a funk, and I’m beyond thankful for all of those moments.

I’m writing this the day I post it – Thanksgiving – and I’m going to cut it short to go make some Tgives dinner in my adequate kitchen with the love of my life in my nice warm apartment.

S