Thursday: a blessing of beauty, tea and hot chocolate...

Today began better.

I slept better for one thing.

I remembered my morning Holy Water and Prosphora (blessed bread).

Had a nice breakfast of Pascha treats from our freezer!

Hot chocolate in a new to me mug from my Mom,

who finds such incredible thrift store finds!

We had a lunch that I described to a friend this way:

"Believe it or not, we found a pasta and chicken summer salad in the freezer from 2015. Defrosted it and (well the grapes were not the same but not bad or mushy, amazingly, I know since my Husband does not like fruit with meat so I was given all of them!) we had it for lunch, really was not bad and the pasta was not funny, which after 2 years in the freezer I thought was pretty good!"

Dinner was delicious chicken soup with hot buttered baguette, 

the soup was from a dear local friend!

My Husband and I ordered this pretty Delft charger plate form etsy

and it came last night... it's really lovely and my Husband did a GREAT job

hanging it up tonight!

He also helped me clean the bedroom and we washed the bedding today.

So that was a blessing!

I was reminded of some simple but powerful truths today...

about our personal unbloggable HARD:

basically we are in a waiting stage right now, there is some 

uncertainty but I was reminded that I need to keep redirecting my thoughts

when I get stuck in anxiety and also that rehashing things can make me

anxious and not give me new information or wisdom about the thing at hand.

It reminded me of a story my sister-friend told me years ago,

about how she and her roommate realized that it takes

faith to rest.  We were all students at the time, with

lots of deadlines and assignments.... which when

you are in undergrad in early years, can seem really daunting. 

And then my sister-friend took a nap and was so refreshed.

She learned that sometimes trusting God means

just resting and taking a nap.

Somehow the encouragement I got today reminded me of this.

We don't always know the outcome of things, just like

in undergraduate years when you have lots to do and are unsure 

of what grades you will get; and you just have to do one's best

and at the same time, when given a time that is for rest,

just do that: rest and try not to think ahead of what one can know, 

in terms of outcomes and just rest.

So I am thinking about this and am encouraged to do so...

***

Thought I would share this day's 'thankful list'... doing the 

30 days of thanksgiving for November... which is really for me, just

getting back to my normal writing what I am thankful for lists:

Thankful list: 1. Folks, I have been given and seen a picture of my future white (gorgeous!) Turkey patter. !!! I am thrilled. Husband's reactions to this have kept me cracking up all day. Hello Thanksgiving Turkey! My first time :) ... 2. My Husband said that it's fine for me to get my thanksgiving meal kind of 'on wheels' this year. While I am doing much better, we have decided that we will get our Thanksgiving meal from our local small grocer (i.e. we only have to re-heat the Turkey and food). This seems like the best way for us this year and I am VERY thankful!!! 3. Husband hung up a beautiful new to us Deft Charger on our wall (basically a 15" round delft plate with winter scene) and it looks so nice! We picked this out together on Etsy. :)  4. Cleo is so funny. 5. A hot bath with salts and bubbles, candles lit while listening to Classic FM from the UK on my mobile. it was 1 AM there and the music they played was so nice... 6. Emily of New Moon. I am finally reading it and am just enjoying it so much! 7. Soon: Christmas movies, Christmas music, Christmas tree. :)  I think the day or so after Thanksgiving should commence the beginning of our Christmas decorations :)  8. Seeing pictures of my family in MI from my brother-in-law. I really miss everyone in MI ... we had thought we would visit this summer but my broken foot pretty much changed all our plans.... so the pictures were extra special to see!

***

I don't remember if I mentioned that I wanted to have a Turkey platter

but my Husband was not for the idea ... basically worried about me and dishes

and space.... I do love dishes and we do only have so much space... 

anyway, dear friends of ours are giving us one and I am

so happy about it.  Wait to you all DV see pictures of our Thanksgiving dinner! 

I am really looking forward to this!

This is what the meal we are ordering will include... I hope it tastes as well as it sounds!

I really wrestled with what to do for this Thanksgiving.

I dream of one day being able to make the whole meal from scratch

and I have 2 lovely cookbooks *devoted* to Thanksgiving.

But this year has been a challenging one, the hard stuff is still on-going and 

after talking to the small Grocer a bit about this, I realized that this was really

the way to go for us this year.  My Husband actually encouraged me to do it this way!

I will have to re-heat food but not have to make it all. 

I lost a lot of strength that I am still re-gaining and with our own 

personal 'hard' + a newly defrosted freezer (i.e. we have a lot of food that we 

can easily access so no buying of breads, meats etc needed = lower weekly grocery bill) 

+ the cost of having this is really quite reasonable for 8 people and having the

meal made for us and a few friends is going to be a much better way to go. 

So I am really happy about this.  I have had pre-made stuffing and mashed potatoes

from our grocery delivery place (not the local grocery whose picture I have above) and

really liked it, so I know it can work out well. 

I kept thinking: 

I would love to have a Turkey. But what do I serve it on, I don't have a platter big enough.

I know you could carve it before putting it on the table but I just wanted to have

the Turkey there looking nice. So I am so excited that we are being given a pretty

white platter that I can use for Thanksgiving and all year round! 

I am planning on adding apple sauce and a bit of cooked corn, 

both of which we have on hand.  I grew up LOVING my Grandma's cooked

corn with lots of salt and butter!  

And I will get to use all my pretty dishes, DV!!!

so that's FUN! And gives me something happy to plan and look forward to,

as you can tell by my writing here. 

Well, it's late

and I better get working on that good night's sleep...

***

ps: a bit about the new tea we had today, a gift from a dear friend, as I wrote on

social media earlier: 

This tea was really pleasant. A sweet warm tea with a depth that is hard to describe. ... a warm kindness would be one way to describe it. I felt like it had a hint of honey in it..... or that it had inside it a taste of summer's sunshine that I remember from when I was a kid and would be swinging on the swing, singing yet another song that I sang to God (I remember something about owls, I told God what ever I was thinking about) .... those swings I remember using after dinner in our back yard, and I knew my Mom could see me as she was washing dishes.... ♡♡♡♡ Such a wonderful happy memory!