"courage does not always roar. sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying 'i will try again tomorrow'."

back to reality.

i'm so not ready for this.

it's finals week.

i have a million things to do at work.

tomorrow it's supposed to snow and i'm driving around a rental car (and i did not purchase enterprise's insurance because i felt like they were just trying to scam me for money) and i have a million meetings tomorrow before school which means i can't take the bus.

this break from school & work has been great.

charlie and i had such a nice time cooking, eating, and decorating for the holidays these past few days. he even squeezed in a ski trip while i was writing a paper.

i can't wait until december 9th when i can ski, too.

but until then ... more writing.

happy holidays!

it's the little things ...

i see a stocking.

... snickerdoodles.

... snow!

... spending a cozy day at home, paper writing, baking cookies, and watching the dogs lay by the fire.

... starbucks christmas mugs.

... mayo + mustard.

... a seasoned pan.

... a delicious and relaxing thanksgiving.

... tea.

... a snuggly dog.

... a sweet husband.

... christmas decorations. bring 'em on, people. it's officially christmas time.

... sharpie highlighters.

... 2 weeks until winter break.

... which means one more semester until graduation!

... champagne corks.

... caramel pie.

... the van morrison station on pandora.

... our santa hat tree topper.

... geico. they've redeemed themselves since our jeep debacle.

... the strands of the big lights.

... wine bottles = makeshift candle holders.

... our "L" wineglasses. the only ones that have remained unbroken despite some determined lab tails.

... our camera.

... a stranger finding charlie's lost keys somewhere on copper mountain. and turning them in.

... reading in bed.

i started this list a few weeks ago. since then i have burnt the seasoned pan past saving. but it was nice while it lasted ...

thanksgiving dinner

this year was my first year cooking thanksgiving dinner.

it was the first year we didn't go anywhere for thanksgiving and also the first year we were celebrating by ourselves.

all of our local friends were out of town for the holiday & between work, school, and the dogs this is the worst time of year for us to travel.

actually it was nice that it was just the two of us since it was my first year cooking. there was no time pressure or worries about hosting anyone. and it's always nice to spend quality time cooking, eating, and hanging out together.

the plan was:

.. smothered brie for an appetizer

... stuffed mushrooms

... turkey

... mashed potatoes

... sweet potatoes

... green bean casserole

... caramel pie

... apple crisp

looks like a huge amount of food for 2 people.

and yes, we have 2 coffee makers on a very small amount of counter space.

charlie did the stuffed mushrooms and mashed potatoes.

i was also planning on making rolls but decided we had more than enough food without them.

i was most worried about the turkey since i had never cooked one and i didn't even think about looking up a recipe until about 15 minutes before i was planning on putting it in the oven.

all ready to go ...

and, done!

i think next time i'd let it brown a bit longer. but it tasted great.

and yes, that is henry's nose. what a well behaved dog :)

smothered brie.

i ate about 3/4 of this in 10 minutes.

and then charlie yelled at me for not leaving enough for him.

the L family's, stuffed mushrooms.

and my favorite part of thanksgiving, caramel pie.

the fact that i cooked something that has the potential to explode is nothing short of a small miracle.

and .... dinner time!

i had three helpings.

we had a great thanksgiving & even though we weren't able to spend it with family we did video chat with both families. as good as it gets without being in maryland.

hope everyone had a great holiday!

i am thankful for ...

the ridiculousness that is our family.

... green tea that keeps me warm at work.

... my job.

... new brakes for my car.

... season ski rentals.

... spending all day cooking and eating with the hubs on thanksgiving.

... my family celebrating xmas with us for a second year in a row.

... my hardworking, snow-loving, grocery shopping, dinner-cooking husband.

... 2 cars that run.

... a roof over my head.

... dogs to walk with and cuddle with.

... clean water.

... the ability to buy the food that i want.

... a savings account.

... school.

... books to read.

... a washer and drier.

... miles and miles of hiking trails.

people are good ...

i suppose we're given a choice to believe that in general they're good or that in general they're bad.

today i choose the former, not because i'm an eternal optimist but because if i choose the latter i'll be forever bitter and that's just not the way i want to live my life.

today as i was driving home from work i was hit by another driver who immediately fled the scene.

i was going straight through i green light and he was making a left hand turn.

i also did everything i could to avoid him, i swerved, i tried to stop & he accelerated and plowed into me.

i drive a toyota carolla. he was driving an escalade.

he faked stopping by pulling over to the side of the road and once i stopped he accelerated and took the immediate exit for the highway. despite the fact that when he hit me, he completely blew out his front tire.

multiple people stopped. to make sure i was ok. to flag down the police. to get the license plate number of the driver who hit me. to give their statement. i started crying. not because that jack-off hit me and drove off, but because so many strangers stayed to help me, to check my car out, & then wished me a happy thanksgiving.

don't get me wrong. i'm still angry. very, very angry. i became even more angry when the police officer called me after tracking down the guy who hit me to tell me that the guy who hit me was driving without a driver's license, without insurance, and because he's an illegal immigrant, he was only issued a citation.

but i am okay. my poor car (it's pretty much a bulls-eye for deer, bad drivers, & "unstoppable" cars) will eventually be okay. geico was super helpful. and charlie (who usually flips out about this stuff) was insanely helpful and calm.

Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here. Instructions: Copy this into your NOTES. Bold those books you've read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or read an excerpt.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6 The Bible

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

34 Emma -Jane Austen

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Inferno - Dante

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

i did a lot worse than i was hoping for. for a self-proclaimed book nerd i'm more than a little disappointed. at least i did much better on this 100 book list than the other one floating around, where i think i had read about 3 books total. although i blame faulkner for that one. that guy is seriously weird. you win this round, abs.