Things to be Thankful For

A short list of things to be thankful for, in no particular order:

A good grilled chicken sandwich with mayo
French fries in all their varieties
The home furnace
A warm bed
New shoes
Cheese and crackers
Books and reading and learning
Good conversation
Good tv shows. There are so few, maybe that’s what makes them special
Pens and notebooks
Hand crème
Sweaters
The first snow. I know, I know, but it is pretty
The office closing at 1:00 because of the snow
Finding a really good gift idea
Having friends at work
Having friends at home
Stuffing
Quiet time
A day to yourself – again because there are so few
Hugs and kisses
Thanksgiving Day
And, of course, I’m thankful for you.

Happy Thanksgiving!
You are Loved

Some Useful Spanish

Here in the Missionary Department we work with mission presidents in Central and South America who speak Spanish and only Spanish. Some try to piece together English phrases to ask for the person they want to talk to, and I have a few phrases written down (given to me by my friend Nicole when I was new here) to help me tell people that so-and-so is on the phone or to ask if I can have so-and-so call back. It's not conversational Spanish, but I get by.

Today, though, the language barrier brought a president and me to a dead stop, so I asked Tim to please help me out. Tim, along with a few others, are fluent. In fact, he was a mission president in Guatemala for three years. Anyway, I asked him to talk to the president for me, he did, and then he came to my desk and told me that I needed to learn some Spanish.

"The first thing you need to know is, 'quieres combate?'"

Me, "What does that mean?"

Tim, "Do you want to fight?"

I'm going to be challenging callers to put up their dukes from now on.

I'm Not Dead Yet

I was looking through the blog and realized that I haven't really written anything for almost two months. What the heck? I suppose the fact that there have been other kinds of posts here tells you that I'm still alive, but I thought I'd send confirmation out to the blogosphere just for good measure.

The truth is, there's nothing going on with me. Oh sure, there's the usual getting up and going to work and going home, having dinner, watching tv, reading and going to bed routine interspersed with shifts at the bookstore and an occasional movie. I still drink too much Diet Coke and start a new eating plan every Monday (Melissa came up with a "game" to help us stay off the sugar. We put out a jar and had to put a dollar in it every time we had a treat. I put my dollar in the first two times I cheated, and then just started cheating on the treats and the dollar. She was telling me one day about all of the times she's thought about eating something but then remembered that it would cost her a dollar, and I finally came clean, "I've totally been cheating on that." Badly done, Angie. Badly done). But nothing in my day-to-day has seemed blog-worthy. I don't want to bore you anymore than is naturally unavoidable.

Of course, it's not that there's anything wrong. I'm happy enough. No big problems clouding my mind or making me retreat into a dark abyss. I am starting to feel some anxiety over the looming Christmas season at the bookstore (is it really time for that already?) and am practicing some relaxation techniques to get me through it. Actually, over the last few months I've come to appreciate my DB friends more, and have taken strength in the fact that we're all in this together. Sure the days can be long and frenzied, but my job is no worse than theirs, and if they can get throught the holidays without killing someone than so can I.

So anyway, this post has no point, other than to check in, acknowledge my own presence, and to say that I haven't forgotten any of you. I hope you haven't forgotten me.

You are loved.

Halloween

Some pictures from Halloween, without much commentary, mostly for my mom.