thanksgiving weekend

It is Sunday morning and the only reason I am up at this time is because I got an email to my phone that woke me up, from my legal writing professor that he posted our grades for an assignment. It's not the final grade, but at least it's a grade, for our second of four total assignments and I have been waiting anxiously to see whether my grade has improved from my first assignment. I got a 75. I feel like doing a dance! A 75 in law school is equivalent to a B. And it's a whole letter grade better than my first assignment. So, even though it was really nice and warm and comfortable just curled up in my new fuzzy bathrobe my parents got me, now I can't go back to sleep.



So anyway, I managed to spend Thanksgiving weekend with my family. It was not easy, but I got through it. I haven't forgotten to be grateful for everything I have, but I think I have an easier time being grateful when I am away from them. We are just so different. Our views are so different. And all of us have a really hard time communicating through our differences to one another. I know that they mean well, and in the end we all love each other, but we are all so absolutely and completely different and it's hard to get past that...

Here's a picture of me and my 60 year old father:

I still enjoyed trying to find the right gift for my dad, even though we failed miserably and ended up just having a nice dinner in Tahoe. The highlight for me was the Run to Feed the Hungry race (my first!) in the pouring rain, and all the turkey and fix ins I cooked and shared with friends. And I am glad now that Thanksgiving is over, we can get on with Christmas, and get the holidays over with. I like the season of the holidays without all the stress that comes with it. Besides, my favorite holiday is New Year's, where we can start all over and start fresh.


The race was amazing. In previous years, I had only watched, but this year I finally got to run the 10K. It was pouring rain when we got up in the morning, but I finished making the turkey, made all the fix ins, and then jumped on our bikes and braved the rain. Paul kept looking at me and pointed at the sky, as if to say, we're really doing this? But we both knew we were going for it.

We rode right onto the Sac State campus and barely registered in time to make it to the start line as the gun went off. I was impressed that most of the 26,000 registrants showed up, despite the weather. It was great. I couldn't break out into an actual run for most of the race because it was just so crowded, but I still managed to keep a 9 minute mile pace and finished in just under an hour. I was especially impressed at all the kids I saw out there, and one time a woman dropped her keys and immediately a loud chorus of people screaming "Keys! Keys! You dropped your keys!" got her attention and she turned around and got her keys. It was really sweet. There were plenty of people running with costumes on. I really liked the turkey hats, and I think I want to get one for myself for next year.

Towards the end of the race, I started getting really excited. With the rain in my eyes, my clothes drenched, and the finish line barely visible off in the distance, I started shouting "Yahoo! Way to go runners! Great job everybody!" and gave myself goosebumps. It was such an awesome feeling, running alongside all those people in the rain and getting closer and closer to the finish line. It was the best part of my Thanksgiving this year. This is Paul and me after finishing:

My turkey this year was not that bad, either. I think it definitely improved from last year. Last year I threw bacon all over the bird and hoped that would be enough to keep the meat moist. This year, I made sure to cook it at a lower heat for longer, and basted it with a yummy, tangy, spicy bbq sauce I made from scratch with raw honey every hour to keep the meat moist. That sauce made up for the turkey not being as moist. I almost gagged when I cleaned that turkey though. It's been a while since I cooked meat, Paul and I have been pretty good about staying pescatarian and not eat any meat. So when I was preparing it, I was trying my darnest to forget that this thing was alive and running around at some point. This is food being made at 6 AM on the morning of Thanksgiving Day:

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I've been thinking a lot about myself and how I can improve as a person. Definitely in the last few months, I have become unhappy. And this has affected my overall ability to shake little things off. I feel like my equilibrium has been shot, and I am having a harder time recovering from little things that I would normally know to shake off. And no one is particularly keen on cutting me any slack. So I gotta work on fixing this. Because I can't walk around being a grump everywhere I go. I'm trying to find the exact source of my unhappiness and looking for ways to rectify that. I don't think resorting to comfort foods and flipping through gossip magazines will help me to escape the unhappiness I'm feeling. I've been doing some irregular things, thinking it will relieve me of my unhappiness, and I don't think it's working. Hopefully I'll figure it out before the end of this year and start the next year happier and refreshed. I need to work on balancing my equilibrium and being a source of cheerfulness, not grumpiness. No one likes a grouch.