Happy Thanksgiving friends!

This month has flown away from me and I can hardly believe it.  Work has been very busy and stressful. Lots of deliverables, lots of those ~hard-earned~ lessons about project management as I continue working through this steep learning curve. Can’t I just skip the part where I make mistakes so I can just be good at something? No? That’s not how life works? Okay.  🙂

It’s been quite a month. We received our first real snow!

I’ve been resistant to snow. I loved snow when I lived in Texas, because it happened so infrequently (every 3-4 years, if even) that the entire city would shut down as we reveled in the 0.10 inch of frozen precipitation.  But snow is just part of the experience up here. And accepting the snow also meant that it was one more thing that wasn’t home, another reminder of how different things are here.  But my heart softened as I watched the snow gently fall while I worked from our home office, some soft music I’d put on to calm Apollo a comforting soundtrack to the beauty.

We also hosted a Friendsgiving last weekend! Some close friends of ours flew up from Texas to visit.  I’ve never cooked for so many people, and I’d say that I just recently gained the confidence to cook for people other than my husband.

The photo quality is poor but here’s the spread we had. Also! We just bought a dining room table this month. (I’d left the dreaded circular glass table behind in Austin).

Husband’s arm clearly wanted to get into the shot.

I focused on making the main entrees homemade and getting ready-made sides.  No one is going to care that I opened a can of corn and microwaved it instead of carefully husking each and every cob.  I made a whole roast chicken and a mushroom marsala pasta bake (which was VERY popular! I’d say this is a must-try dish.)  Husband prepared pumpkin mac and cheese.  Then we had other ready-made sides, like ham, potatoes, stuffing, and peas.  It was a wonderful feast and we were so happy our friends could join us.

It’s our first Thanksgiving without our families, which will be a little sad, but we have a visit to Texas next month (!!!) to look forward to!  We have zero desire to cook after last weekend’s feast, and to us, that was our true Thanksgiving. Tonight we’re going out to eat downtown. There’s a yummy restaurant on Mass Ave that is preparing a Thanksgiving feast, so we are looking forward to that. I think I’ll fit in a cardio workout today to prepare :p

I haven’t had a ton of time to work on crafty projects, but I’m hoping I’ll get some time to unwind this holiday break.  I’ve been working on this project from Sublime Stitching. It’s been the perfect stress reliever at night that allows me to focus on the task at hand, rather than ruminating over whatever had happened at work that day.  I purchased it probably 4 years ago, but am now feeling just confident enough in my embroidery skills to tackle it. I don’t think I could even do a French knot back when I first bought it.

Look at mah French knots!

Not to say that this is ~Grade A embroidery~ or anything, but it’s definitely better than anything I would have attempted back in 2015.

Well, I’m going to get to work on some projects.  If you are in America and celebrate Thanksgiving, then I hope you have a warm and cozy day with your loved ones.  If you are my mom and mother-in-law reading this, we love and miss you, and we’ll see you next month! 🙂 If you don’t celebrate and/or do not live in America, I wish you a warm and cozy day regardless 🙂  I leave you with a picture of Apollo in a puppy sweater, because is this not the cutest dog ever*:

Have a wonderful day!

*I admittedly am very biased, but he’s also objectively extremely adorable, so there’s that.