there's no place like gnome.

Family, friends, turkey.  It’s all happening in one week on Thanksgiving day.  I’ll hop in the car on Wednesday and be home for the festivities; it’s the one major holiday of which I can spend the whole day at home.

And it’s an important one because this is also the holiday which features the Thanksgiving Day Bake-Off.  Very important.  Critical.  Crucial.  This is serious stuff, dudes.

This year will mark – gosh – the seventh annual bake-off?  [We took a year off last year because Connor was in Ghana.  A good enough excuse, I suppose.]  This year we’re back.  The theme?   A dessert from another country.

Game on.  However, there may be some contestants who have a leg up in this competition.  Connor, a student at Roosevelt in Chicago, is bringing home some international friends from Brazil this Thanksgiving.  They’ll be joining our family in celebrating and will also be entering desserts.  Connor says they’ve been practicing. Oh, dear.  Competition is stiff this year.  Stiff.

I know what I’m going to make.  I know that it has to travel well, as mine will have to be made here before I travel home.  Also know that my dessert will nod to the other holiday celebrated this Thanksgiving – a holiday celebrated by our Jewish friends.  It will also be delicious.  That’s a guarantee.

Who will get their name on the coveted Thanksgiving Bake-Off apron?  Goodness, the anticipation!  I’ll keep you posted.

[Just as a slight aside: I love this shit.  I love crazy, random traditions.  I was ready to facebook Connor and call it off this year; I don’t have a whole lot of extra time in the coming week.  But, no.  It’s a tradition and it’s fun and a little bit crazy.  My grandma will unpack the apron and hang it on display.  We’ll make it a big to-do and it’s fun.  Love it.  You can bet that when/if I have a family of my own, our holidays will be filled with crazy, random shit like this.  Like this – Dinovember.  Those parents are my heros.]

Do you ever look at the floor and think, Hey, floor.  I want to lay down on you right now.

I’m there.  I’m at that point.  I’m exhausted and the floor looks so … so … nice.

Monday was a three meeting day that lasted into the evening.  Yesterday was a three meeting day that lasted into the evening.  Today is a care-center-worship-and-confirmation-day that will last into the evening.  I’m exhausted, physically and introvert-wise.

But mostly introvert-wise.  Which makes me think of this buzzfeed list I saw earlier this week: 27 problems only introverts will understand.  I heartily echo nearly all of them.  And happily adopt the phrase from number two as an explanation of why strangers tell me to smile.  [Can I also adopt the man in number two as my cuddle buddy while I nap on the floor?]

Thankfully, tomorrow is only a one meeting day that will not go into the evening.  You will find me at home recharging my introvert juices all night.  Until then, the floor still looks tempting …

Last night, my younger brother posted a photo to facebook from the trip my mom, sister, and I took to visit him over the summer.  Take me back – now, please – to kayaking on a glacial lake outside of Valdez.  See that valley of ice to the right of me?  It’s a glacier.  nbd.  Sometimes it’s still hard to realize that my brother lives there, in the midst of gorgeous scenery each and every day.  [Then I remember that he also deals with hundreds of inches of snow a winter and constant darkness for part of the year.  And then I’m okay only visiting every other year in the summer months.]

Sister Em and I

First, church.  Ho hum, ho hum.  It was okay.  I was a little off … and so was the congregation.  I NEVER have to tell them to stand for the alleluia before the gospel; they automatically do it.  Except for today.  It was weird.  But so it was.

After church, I ate a quick lunch and then was off to the Blooming Prairie High School production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.  It was delightful and full of laughs.  When leaving, I ran into a couple that I married last summer – one of the most delightful couples ever.  They don’t live nearby and so I don’t often see them at church.  She saw me and didn’t even hesitate before she gave me a big hug.  She’s so awesome.

I came home and all I wanted was a nap.  I was tired from the moment I got up this morning – probably a combination of cold-stuffy-stuff and the fact that hanging out with three kids named Carter, Penelope, and Graham yesterday afternoon wore. me. out.  [How do you parents do it?]  We did play some epic legos though.  Legos these days have awesome hair.

Right.  So I was tired.  It was only 3:30 but I promptly put on my flannel pajama pants and settled in on the couch.

*knock, knock, knock*

Sigh.  It was my fun fifth grade neighbor.  She was delivering fundraising goodies.  And then her dad and brother needed the church unlocked for a cub scout meeting. Across the parking lot I trotted in my blue pajama pants, unlocked the door, and then back to the parsonage.  When Mabel decided to run away.  Twice.

Which led to Lindsay trotting down the road – in her pajama pants and slippers – to search for her dog.  Twice.  I bet I looked awesome.

Neighbor girl: Why are you in your pajamas?
Me: Do you think it’s too early for pajamas?
Neighbor girl: Well … kinda …

The neighbor girl wanted to chat for a bit.  We sat on the stoop until it got too chilly and home she walked.  And that, my friends, is how today went, no nap and all.

I received this magnet in the mail, direct from friends who recently had traveled to Las Vegas.  *cue giggles*

And seems to me, I recall a song about gnomes written to this tune already … one of the many wonderful ways the gnome folk of Dawson sent me off at the end of internship over three years ago.  Sing along here.