Giving thanks

First of all:
I have found success in a can.

Victory dance.

(What about all that pumpkin puree you crazily made yourself, you ask?  I used that for the pie I made Monday for our small group's Thanksgiving celebration.  I needed reinforcement for Thanksgiving Round Two.)

Happy Thanksgiving!  I actually woke up this morning in a terrible mood, for several reasons.  One: I am seriously jealous of everyone on Facebook with their "Great to be home, bleh bleh bleh" statuses.  Two: In recent news, WashU Res Life has seriously screwed me over for next semester, and, long story short, I'm going to be randomized.  Three: The omnipresence of cuddly British couples is doing a fantastic job lately of rubbing my face in the fact that I'm very, very single.  But you know what?  It's Thanksgiving.  And my life really isn't that hard.  So today I am thankful for, among all God's blessings, these things the most:

1. My wonderful family who loves me and misses me, my home which I want to go home to, and the fact that I will be there in less than a month.

2. A place to live, both now and next semester, that is safe and warm (or cool, as the case may be come May in St. Louis) and, in all reality, a really awesome place for a college student to live.

3. My awesome friends literally all over the world whom I love and am loved by and who make all my days good days.

(Of course, I'm thankful for lots of other things too, including but not limited to an incredible semester in Europe, wool sweaters, the fact that you're still reading my silly little blog, and pumpkin pies.  But those are the big ones.)

Plans for today?  I do unfortunately still have to go to class.  But as soon as that's over our flat jumps into full Thanksgiving preparation mode.  Me, Canada, and Germany are hosting dinner for two other Americans and a Brit, and as of now (2:45 pm) the only thing that's made is the pie.  (And it's not actually done yet.  It's in the oven smelling deleeeeeshous.)  I'm slightly amused by the fact that at the age of 20 I'm hosting my first Thanksgiving.  (As long as I don't turn into Monica from Friends, I'm cool with it.)  It's going to be entirely legit...except for the fact that Lidl is out of turkeys, soooo instead we're having duck.  Yeah that's right.  In addition to the duck (which is going to be a cooking adventure in and of itself), we'll have mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing (contingent upon us figuring out exactly how it is you make stuffing...), sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce (found a mini-jar hidden in a dark corner of the grocery store), rolls, green beans, pumpkin pie and brownies.  And then we'll all collapse in a food coma.  Rock it.

Pumpkin pie is out of the oven.  I am le pleased.  Ready for this?

It looks way more beautiful/less awkward in real life.  Really.

So, that's how we do Thanksgiving in foreign countries.  Now you know.

Love,
Melody