Thankful

Now that it is November and the month of Thanksgiving is upon us, I think it time to join others in expressing my thankfulness. 

"Be joyful always, pray continuously, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." I Thessalonians 5:16-18 

This one of my favorite passages and tells us to give thanks in all things. It's easy to be thankful when things are going beautifully, but to be give thanks for even the crummy days, this I need to work on. I've come to realize it's really all about perspective. Many times we think we have it bad, yet honestly, we are living the dream.

Today I'm substitute teaching in my alma mater, Chapman Middle School. I don't know very many of the students, yet some of them take me back to the past when I knew them when they were small children. I don't know very many of the teachers anymore either as most of my teachers have retired or moved on to other things. I also am not familiar with this school because it's brand new, clean and shiny, and definitely not the CMS I ran around in. But I'm super thankful to be here. I'm thankful that I have a flexible part-time real job that allows me to do random substitute teaching jobs on Friday. I'm thankful that I live close to my hometown, so I can get out my green clothing on Fridays and fit right in with the other teachers. I'm also thankful that these students in general are really good kids. There has only been one student that had really bad breath that continued to stand close to me and tell me stories about video games. He seemed disappointed when I told him I didn't believe in video games nor thought that him telling me about his newest game was very educational. I tried really hard though to listen, knowing that this was the social outcast student and most people simply ignored him. 

I'm thankful today for the beautiful sunshine that is shining in the windows. They have really great natural light in this building and I'm thankful to be here.

What are you thankful for?

Sunset on the beach

A few pictures of the gorgeous sunset I was able to view several weeks ago at Kanopolis State Lake. It was simply fabulous enjoying the evening with my dear friend, Alecia.

 

Living Art

This gorgeous painting is not living. However, it does reside in my living room and I'm in love with my one of a kind art piece. Earlier this year when I moved into my humble little abode, I furnished the place with all second hand, sometimes, third or forth hand furniture. I had virtually nothing to go on the wall and I thought to myself, I should paint a giant canvas for this large empty wall. I actually pondered doing just that before I realized that I'm not a painter nor do I want to add that to my list of hobbies and collection of supplies. I decided to employ a good friend of mine, Lauren, that is an amazing artist to paint me a picture. 

 

I think it's perfect and absolutely makes the space better. It's also perfect for this season and I'm even thinking that maybe it would be fun to have her paint me something different for a more spring/summer look. We'll see. 

Just this past week I had a new couchsurfer that was traveling through the state as she walks across the country. She is walking and conversing with people to prepare for a book she has in mind to write about poverty. An amazing lady with a great story and passion for the marginalized people of this country. Check out her moves on her website. We had some great discussion in this room and she indeed commented on the painting.

Supper Club

I hosted my first Supper Club gathering this week. It was a lot of fun and a really great way to join with other lovely single ladies for a delightful dinner. I decided that a supper club would be a great way to cook great food and enjoy it with others so I invited several ladies that I know enjoy great food and would enjoy meeting some new people.

We enjoyed a lovely fall minestrone. Courtesy of Alice Waters, The Art of Simple Food.

Sauteed onions, celery, carrots, garlic

Swiss Chard fresh from the garden

Added butternut squash, water and simmered

White Northern beans & pasta

Grand Finale!

Green Apple

This past week I took the time to do some apple foraging. I plucked the few remaining apples off the tree of a kind family near Junction City, KS. These people own a house that is host to several giant old apple trees. They are in desperate need of pruning and in years past have produced a plethora of apples for use. This year, however, was a bad year for growing a lot of things in Kansas and there were hardly any apples on the trees. I ended up with about 7 pounds of good apples slices after discarding the bad parts. They were nice and tart green apples. My original idea was to make apple pie filling with my apples, but I also realized the difficulty of finding Clearjel that is necessary for canning apple pie filling. I decided to can the plain apple slices instead and will then later obtain such thickeners for apple pie filling. Yummy!