Happy Thankgsiving!

To be honest, Thanksgiving has never been my favorite holiday.   I have always thought of it as a milestone you just have to cross so you can finally start putting out your Christmas decorations.

On Thanksgiving, you get together with all of your family and cook throughout the day while everyone stresses about who gets the oven and if all the food is going to be ready on time.  When food is finally ready and everyone is sufficiently hungry and slightly cranky, you stuff your face repeatedly while mumbling what you're thankful for in-between bites and mentally cursing whatever family member just said what you wanted to say. Afterwards, you wander off to watch some football game you probably don't care about while you moan miserably and vow to never eat that much again.  Then, after a while, people start rousing themselves to sort of help clean up, at least enough so they don't feel guilty, and then everyone leaves to go home and sleep.  Not to mention, we're celebrating a historical time period where Native Americans were killed off and had their land stolen.

That's pretty much how I have always viewed Thanksgiving.  A day of eating specific food that you make once a year and thinking of stuff you like about your life and saying it out loud.  It's never been a big deal to me.  I'm thankful every day for my family, friends, daughter, and husband.  Why should I have to make a big deal out of it once a year?

Well, after doing some thinking, I realized that I want this holiday to be more than a milestone.  I take so many things for granted which I was reminded about while browsing through one of my favorite websites yesterday (www.humansofnewyork.com).  A man on there (pictured below) said: "I grew up on a rice farm in Guyana.  We didn't have running water or electricity, or anything like that.  I didn't come to America until I was 14. My friend has been struggling lately because she can't get a job she wants, even though she's really talented.  She's lived in New York her whole life and hasn't traveled very much, and she said to me: 'I don't understand why anyone would want to immigrate to America.'  I told her: 'Trust me, if there is a heaven, this is it.'" 

I realized that I forget these things sometimes.  As my husband tries to find a job right now, and I stress about finals and my job ending, it's hard to remember that there are much bigger problems out there.  We have a wonderful home, heat, food, and running water.  We have loving, amazing families that would do anything for us.   So today, I'm going to spend the day really and truly giving thanks.  I don't want to just mumble something about how I'm thankful for my dog (which I totally am!).  I want to give thanks that I live in America because life here is so much better than in other parts of the world.  I want to give thanks for our soldiers for giving their lives so that we can be free to celebrate holidays. I want to give thanks for our firefighters, police officers, and hospital staff that help keep our community safe.  And I want to give thanks for all the people that have to work on this holiday so that the rest of us can still have luxuries like getting gas on the way to dinner, or calling the help line when the TV stops working, or running to the store to get a forgotten ingredient.  Maybe having a day to remind ourselves that life is pretty great, isn't such a bad thing after all.

Happy Thanksgiving from our little family!

So it begins...

Hey everyone!

Welcome to my new blog! Recently I have been sort of struggling with who I am now that I'm a mom and wife and trying to find my place in this crazy world.  I thought I had everything figured out...after all, I had been working towards a high-powered, awesome job my entire life and them BAM!  Surprise pregnancy...six weeks after I married the love of my life and 6 months before I was supposed to graduate from college.  Oh, I love my daughter more than life itself and am grateful every second for her (except maybe at 3am. I'm kidding!) but I'm no longer sure what to do about my degree (should I be an engineer, work part time doing admin stuff, or should I be a stay at home mom??) and I'm constantly second-guessing myself as a parent and wondering if I'm good enough.

Well that's why I'm here.

I came across someone's blog earlier tonight and I thought about how nice it is to write thoughts and share them with people. I hate not knowing what I want out of life.  I miss having goals and lists and a sense of accomplishment as I work towards/complete them.  Hopefully as I write this blog, I can look back over time and see how life has changed for me and how I have changed.  And maybe somewhere along the way I will figure out who I am now and what I want again.  Or maybe this will simply end up being just a fun place to share my adventures and connect with people like me.  So listen to me babble and talk to you through this crazy thing called life and I hope you enjoy!

Until next time ~