What I am Thankful for

This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for (in no particular order): 

My family 

delicious food 

music 

my bed 

a warm house 

JD's chippery 

finding out who my true friends are (and reuniting with one of them in particular this break!!) 

Travis Nelson Montie 

my puppy 

hummus 

trees 

coffee 

gummy vitamins 

and, because I just love them so much I can't help but mention them twice...my family 

And now a side story: I participate in this program called HOSTS (Helping One Student to Succeed) and every week I go to a local elementary school and tutor a little boy in first grade for 30 minutes. He is very sweet, calm (for the most part) and has really loosened up around me the past few weeks. He has actually taught me more than I think I have taught him. His home is a broken one, his parents can't even see each other and I can only hope that this doesn't effect him as he grows up because he has a lot of potential. Looking at the differences between his childhood and mine have made me that much more thankful for what I had. So this is my shout-out to my HOSTS kid (who will never read this). Thanks for being so fun and being a better teacher than me! 

HOSTS buddy: My favorite it mashed potatoes with gravy at Thanksgiving. 

Me: I don't like gravy. 

HOSTS buddy: Why?

Me: It is just so runny! 

HOSTS buddy: Well, water is runny, does that mean you don't like water?

See? Such a smarty-pants

Happy Thanksgiving!

My Weekend in San Antonio.

I realized that I never posted anything about my weekend at my Grandmother's house in San Antonio! 

Well, it was really fun, a lot more fun than I expected to be honest. I've had a nagging guilt for the past year or so that I have never been the best granddaughter. Forgetting to call her back, not being very pleasant during Christmas/other visits to her house...petty, silly things like that. 

But my weekend at her house made me realize that a lot of the things that make me who I am are actually very important to her as well. 

First of all, we both love to cook. I could talk about cooking and baking all day long. I love food, I love making it, I love learning about healthy food, the list goes on and on. Just ask Travis, or my parents, I could talk their heads off about food. Turns out, my Grandmother can too! In fact, we talked a lot about food. I got to thumb through her recipes and copy down my favorites, she taught me all about her new special diet she has to follow and I even took a copy of that as well. It was fun to see that my love for food probably came from her (no offense Mom). 

Second, books! Now, I don't read nearly as many books as she does but I do love to read when I have free time. Not only that, but when I brought up to my Grandmother that I don't like kindles/nooks she agreed and said that she likes the whole experience of having a real book in front of you. This sparked a conversation about how we love to turn the pages, see how far we come and after we finish books, we feel too connected to them for it to be an electronic version. 

Lastly, our love for photography. My Grandmother takes a lot...and then some more pictures. It is actually one of the things I sometimes dread about going to her house, "say cheese!" (as I am sitting next to my Christmas stocking early in the morning wearing my pajamas with dried drool on my face) hasn't always been my favorite phrase. I've always loved taking pictures too, I cherish my photos and the memories that I connect to them. She has a huge shelf of all of her photo albums in order by date. One of my favorite things to do at her house is go to that shelf and look through pictures of my Mom when she was my age, when she met brought my Dad home for the first time and when me and my brother were little. Sure, I may get annoyed at all the pictures but the payoff is huge, I can look back and see so many pieces of my families history, I think my family should thank her instead of getting annoyed by it :) 

I know these similarities seem small but in my family I had yet to find the origin of these passions I have. I think I found it in my Grandmother.