Happy Thanksgiving!

***Scheduled Post***

I love Thanksgiving - a holiday dedicated to delicious food and being thankful for the many fabulous things in our lives without the fuss of figuring out presents, elaborate activities or the morning mass schedule. Truly, Thanksgiving is a day to relax and enjoy the company of great friends and family.

For the past four years, Thanksgiving meant a break from college, cold weather, time off school, and a chance to see family and friends from back home. It meant a gathering of my kindergarten-til-now best friends for a mother-daughter brunch. It meant waking up super early to deliver Meals on Wheels around the Twin Cities with my mom and any brothers, uncles, or cousins we could get out of bed. It meant at least 4 pumpkin spice lattes...at least 2 of which my father could be encouraged to purchase for me.

This year, Thanksgiving means a break from my 100 ever-so-lovely 8th graders and a Caribbean Island. Stay tuned from which one I prefer. ;) (Just kidding Mom!!)

While I am away enjoying all the sun, sand and surf that San Andres Island has to offer, here are a few things (serious and not-so-serious) I am thankful for this year:

• My parents & how they raised me. There is nothing like teaching 100 children on a daily basis to help you understand the terrors of adolescence. With all the changes a kid goes through growing up, and me being the first child and all, I am pretty impressed my parents managed to do so well.

• My grandparents. Probably the number one reason my parents didn't screw it up - cause their parents rocked too. :)
• Newly discovering my love for the Big Bang Theory and all its hilarious math jokes. :)

• Joe Mauer = MVP.

• Faith in the common good. In a world where it isn't always easy to give people the benefit of the doubt, and it's often easy to shut down than open up and trust someone, I really do still believe that people are truly good at heart. Despite my frequent sarcasm to the contrary, the human race is full of amazing people with stories to tell - you just have to listen.
  
• Rain. Rain doesn't happen very often in Colombia, but when it does I find it absolutely stunning. Usually when it rains, it pours, and the thunderstorms here are stunning. They cool the temperature down immensely and make the sky turn some crazy cool colors. I love sitting on my balcony watching the rain fall in big drops to the ground.

• Cinnamon Oat Squares cereal. I don't care if they are $11,000 pesos ($5.50) a box. They make me delightfully happy each and every morning.

• Music with lyrics that mean something. I think I could Google search lyrics all day long. Is there a job where you get paid for that??? :) Those artists who can so meticulously describe emotions, thoughts and feels in well-crafted phrases full of life and creativity leave me stunned. I love those songs that make you think someone else, at some point, felt exactly like you do right now. See John Mayer, Bruce Springsteen, Gavin DeGraw (below), Landon Pigg, Matt Nathanson and the Jayhawks for lyrical inspiration.

• In exactly 32 days Allison will arrive in Colombia for a 15 day adventure that will probably end with me wanting to kidnap her and keep her here forever.

• My wonderful-crazy-quirky-thoughtful-inspiring-magnificent friends who love me, support me, keep me going and tell me how much they miss me. Everytime someone tells me "I wish I could call you or text you right away when _______ happened," I am reminded of the amazing support system I have.

• My new roommates who so graciously offered to have me live with them for second semester. There are so generous!!
• New friends in general. Teachers are amazing people and they make fabulous friends - and you can always count on them for Friday (or the ocassional Monday...) Happy Hour.
• Barack Obama is our president. Living abroad, I am not always proud to call myself an American, however, his election, with all political opinion aside, was a historical moment that made me proud to call the US home.

• My straight-out-of-college full-time job. Newsflash: When I graduated 6 short months ago, the economy....kind of....sucked. I'm just happy to have a job doing something I love.