Thankful.

Tomorrow is FINALLY Thanksgiving!  Does it seem like it took forever for Thanksgiving to get here to anyone else??  

Oh well, I'm not complaining!  How does one complain about more time to think about all that you are thankful for?  To be honest, this year has come with its share of disappointments, but there are SO many things that I can say I am truly thankful for. 

First and foremost, these three: 

I've always known I couldn't live in a house without a cat.  But now, thanks to the sweetest golden puppy in the world, I also could never imagine a house without a dog.   And obviously, there's Mark.  I don't know what I'd do without him.  I am thankful every day for that man.

I am extremely thankful for the opportunity to travel!  So many people in the world never get to see more than their backyard, and I will never take for granted how I've been blessed to see the world. 

If you've stuck around this blog for awhile, you know I've had my share of health issues.  I am incredibly thankful that I can still practice and teach yoga despite ongoing hip and GI problems. 

There is so much more.  I could go on and on…

…and on and on.

Weekend of the Great Soup Swap.

I'm not sure where I first heard about soup swaps, but I knew it was an idea that I wanted to try.  I have close group of girlfriends that I knew would be up for this, so I hosted our first ever soup swap party over the weekend.   It was great and everyone decided that it should be an annual event!  If you want to host a soup swap, here is how we did it...

1. Decide on a date/host/who to invite

2. Everyone picks a recipe (and tells everyone what they are making ahead of time to ensure a good variety.)

3. Everyone makes their soup and divides it up into enough single-serving containers for everyone at the party.

4.  Freeze said soup.

5.  The party host makes their soup for the party....plus other goodies.

6. Consume soup.  Mine was an African sweet potato and peanut soup.

7.  Everyone gets to take home a sample of everyone else's soup!

This was such a fun idea to try out!  I've heard of other soup swaps where everyone just makes one big batch, and basically everyone chooses one that they want to bring home (with some sort of lottery system I guess...), but it seemed more fun for everyone to get to take home a little bit of each!

We ended up with the sweet potato soup I made, chicken noodle, wild rice, cream of asparagus, lentil and sausage, and ale & cheese.  Seriously, so much goodness in my freezer right now!  And the best part is that we have meals all week long!

I'd highly recommend having a soup swap party sometime this winter, you will love it!

I know this isn't a recipe (although I plan to share my soup recipe sometime), I am linking up with the ladies of Taste of Tuesday!  Visit Ashley and Jessica for more :)

Ch-ch-ch-changes!

As you can see, things look a little different around here.  I am sort of bored/confused about what to do with my blog.  Sometime I have no desire to keep writing it, but then sometimes I miss the community and connection with the people I've become "blog friends" with.

Writing in a private blog is sort of boring, but I still don't want so many people in my "real life" reading it.  Maybe changing my blog name will help to be a little.  Let's be honest though, I have no idea what I'm doing.

Patience

Here's the deal- I am a pretty patient person most of the time.  I've been working with people who have severe and persistent mental illness for the past several years, and they test my patience every day.  I have my own serious health issues that have tested my patience for the last 6 years now.  Lately though, I am dealing with something that I can't be patient about.  It's shooting my anxiety sky-high and I feel like the end is sooooo far out of sight.  

I'm practicing mindfulness and meditation.  I'm trying to live in the moment.  I'm working on acceptance and tolerance. I'm trying to trust God's timing.  Mostly I'm trying to accept God's will...but I'm failing miserably. I want what I want and I want it RIGHT NOW gosh darn!

In other news, its Friday.  And no, the weekend isn't what I'm waiting for.  I'll take it anyway though. 

Why I Love the Red Sox

There is really only one reason that I cheer for the Red Sox every year.  It's not because I think Boston is an insanely cool city.  It's not because my aunt, uncle, and cousin live there.  Nope...its all for one reason.  This guy:

I was so happy that the Red Sox won the world series.  I knew that my friend Paul, a HUGE Red Sox fan and Bostonian, would be watching the game.  He'd be jumping up and down, cheering, yelling, crying tears of joy and excitement.  But he'd be doing all of that from Heaven.

Paul was an amazing friend.  I have so many memories of Paul, he was one of the most genuinely nice people I've ever known.  What the world really needs is more Pauls. 

Paul was killed in a car accident over Memorial Day weekend, a few days after I graduated from college. He lived in Boston and was killed while riding in a taxi on his way home one night.  The car that hit him was a stolen SUV being pursued by the police through a residential neighborhood. 

I can barely look at these pictures of him.  He was an incredible singer and fronted a band in Boston called TheMark.  It's been several years, but I still can't listen to their songs.  I can cheer for his favorite team though.  Go Red Sox!  That win was for you, Paul.

Another weekend come and gone...

Fall is in full swing around here and I am loving it.  The trees in Minneapolis are stunning this time of year, which tends to make my iPhone full of nothing but tree pictures.  I'm not complaining.  We had a really gorgeous weekend, the weather was perfect- sunny and cool but not cold.  I started out the weekend teaching yoga on Friday after work, it was a low-key class with a couple of laughs and a lot of gratitude. 

Saturday morning was spent at the gym getting in a good workout before a day of football watching and beer drinking.  We headed over to NE Minneapolis to check out Dangerous Man brewery and 612 brewery.  Both were cool places to hang out.  We caught the Gopher game at Dangerous Man and the start of the Notre Dame game at 612.  The beer was good both places, though I preferred 612.

On Sunday morning I had the pleasure of teaching yoga to 5 students, including Kelly, Madison, and my college friend Katie.  We had a nice little brunch after the class, which I really am finding is the perfect way to spend a Sunday.

                 

Sunday afternoon was spent cooking up some food for a family dinner that night and being lazy around the house.

Also, this isn't technically from the weekend, but Shay loves the fall weather too!

Big Friday and Sleepy Weekend

Every couple of month of work, we put on a big program for families of the teenage patients we have.  Usually both parents come and any siblings that can make it.  They are there all day, from 7-4:30 doing an intensive therapy/education day with their teen...as you can imagine, it is quite stressful and tense for everyone.  I'll give you one guess who is in charge of representing the OT department and who gets to plan and present to the families? Thats right, me.  This day happened to be on Friday, which made for an incredibly early morning.  I felt like a nervous wreck all day even though I've done this program 3 times now...you just never know how the parents will respond.  I always fear they are going to just glare at me from their chairs and not ask any questions.  Fortunately, I had a lot of parents (mostly dads) who participated a lot in the conversation.  I had one dad come up to me afterward and say how helpful it was, which made me feel much better.  I'm hoping it was helpful for more than just one dad,  but no one would have had a chance to tell me because I had to book it out of there FAST to make it to my yoga studio for my first Yin class!!

I got to the studio and fully expected no one to show up, but I had 3 students! Not bad for it being the first time this class was offered.  It can be so hard to read the students and know whether they like the class or not.  For some reason, people like to make an angry face while they do yoga.  I know that it's really them concentrating, but they look frowny.  Next time you take a yoga class, try to smile for the teacher if you like the class!  Anyway, everyone said the class was good and they wished it was longer, so that's a good sign.  Come to my class if you are in Minneapolis, I will give you details if you leave a comment!

As you can imagine, I basically crashed on Friday night.  Except that I couldn't sleep at all.  And then I had to work Saturday and Sunday, not really sleeping on Saturday night either.  Does anyone else ever get so exhausted that you can't sleep?  I think that is what happened.  I didn't do anything social this weekend since I was at work/trying to sleep. The good news is that I don't work another weekend until December!  So crazy!  I am not ready for winter yet!!