Thanksgiving

I love Thanksgiving - it signals the beginning of the holiday season and encourages indulgence. Thanksgiving also gives us pause to reflect and count our blessings, the things we are thankful for.

This year I gave sincere thanks for my family, my friends, my job, and, of course, Laura. I am defined by those I am thankful for and, in turn, am eternally grateful. I am luckier than most - and I am thankful for that.

On Thanksgiving, my parents and I descended on my sister's house for an awesome meal (and football). Laura left earlier that morning for Iowa to visit her parents, but left me instructions on how to prepare an awesome salad (she's so awesome).

It was great to catch up with my parents and watch football with my dad - he was an excellent advisor for my football picks, although I did blow it big time on the Philly/Arizona game (ugh).

My niece, Sarah, played the shy girl with me for half of the day, but she and I met across from each other at the dining room table and I was able to get some fun photos of her.


After dinner, Sarah warmed up to dad a bit and let him read to her. I love this picture!


She let me read to her too, but we don't have a record of that. Trust me, it happened! It was a book with a lot of flaps in it, so hidden characters were abound.

We had a great day overall - and it's great to think that mom and dad will be back in three weeks to celebrate Christmas!

I'm back

After a few months on hiatus, I'm back. To usher in my return, I thought I would indulge you (and myself) by participating in THE TAG! I've been tagged by a couple of friends, so I felt it was a good way to get back into the groove.

What's THE TAG? Thanks to a little copy and paste from my friend, Erin, here's the deal:

1. Post the rules on your blog
2. Write 6 random things about yourself
3. Tag 6 people at the end of your post
4. If you are tagged, just do it, and pass the tag along!

Okay, so the rules are now posted. It's time to reveal 6 random things about myself:

1. I am a closet rock star. Depending on the song (and my mood) I am the singer, the lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass guitar (my favorite), or drums. Give the keyboard to someone else. I know it's completely dorky, but I love to jam out to my favorite songs, sans any instruments.

2. I'm a morning person. I would never have thought I would turn out this way given the fact that I slept in very late during my high school summer vacations. I'm sure my years at Target as Logistics Manager (at the store by 4:30 a.m.) helped mold me in this regard. Depending on what I'm doing, I can be a night owl too, but typically I'm done by 10:30 p.m.

3. I have Amish heritage. Yep. My dad's side of the family is Amish. I am very thankful my dad had the courage to leave his family and blaze his own path. Otherwise I would be on the other end of a horse and buggy right about now.

4. I am a very optimistic person. I approach each day as an opportunity to achieve goals and make today better than yesterday. Along with this, I tend to give everyone the benefit of the doubt on just about everything - I'm not a very suspicious person. But don't let that fool you - if you're trying to screw around, I'll get it.

5. I love golf. Even though I'm really just a hack, I love getting out on the course. My dad has commented that golf is a game for optimists. I think he's 100% correct. Even a lousy day of golf is better than any day at the office.

6. I'm a comic book fan. I've collected comic books since I was old enough to read them. For me, a good comic book has to have a good story and really great art - I'm a very visual guy. I'm a mainstream DC and Marvel fan (The Avengers, Spider Man, Justice League of America, Ultimates, X-Men, etc.) and can tell you pretty much about any of them, so if you have questions, just ask. Riiiiiight.

I'm supposed to TAG 6 more people, but I don't have that many people on my blog list, so I'll just pick KATIE and JODIE (if they haven't done this already).

More to come!