Turkey Day...in Turkey

If you ask LeBron James, Kobe Bryant or Nike Sports Marketing about it, they'll be sure to tell you "Basketball never stops!".  Well, that is certainly the case within our tiny family today.  Mike is on the road - playing in Istanbul, Turkey tonight.  He's out there fighting for a W and inadvertently leaving me to fend for myself on this chilly Thanksgiving Thursday. 

I'll tell you, it's pretty strange being abroad during an American holiday.  Back where I come from (great Kenny Chesney song, by the way) people are presently surrounded by friends and loved ones...taking down deviled egg after deviled egg and raising their Crate and Barrel wine glasses high, toasting to the good life and remembering what they're thankful for. 

Regardless of which coffee shop they visit, everyone back home is being greeted with a "Happy Thanksgiving!", potentially handed their festively spiced latte and sent along their merry little way.  Not trying to throw myself a pity party here but thank goodness for skype or I wouldn't have received a single Thanksgiving greeting today.  To people here in Poland, today was just one more day until the weekend.  Just your typical, pre-blizzard, mundane Thursday.  Knowing I'd be flying solo and trying with all my might to keep from getting home-sick, I put on some mascara and ACTUAL pants (with a zipper and everything) and decided to make the day special, none the less!

After a quick skype session with my family (hanging out in Lincoln City and loving every second of fall on the Oregon coast) I ventured out in hopes of tracking down Christmas decor for our apartment.  Shoot, if I couldn't really celebrate Thanksgiving I was going to at least get a jump on the holiday next in line. 

So you know how sometimes you get an "artsy" vision, but 9 times out of 10 it amounts to a heaping pile of garbage?  Well that was ANYTHING but the case tonight!  After getting my heart set on hanging Christmas stockings this year, I found myself inquisitively humming an old tune..."On what shall I hang them, dear Liza, dear Liza?  On what shall I hang them, dear Liza, on what?".  Tell me you remember that stupid ol' song!  Anyway, decided our fireplaceless apartment needed just that, a fireplace.

So I constructed one...

Crazy what a little crate paper and some pinterest inspiration can do for a person.  I might add here, that this will be my first official UPLOAD to pinterest.  So far I've just been "liking" and "repining" but today will mark my very first original, quasi-creative idea!

So this Thanksgiving I'm thankful for...

- this genius brain sittin' just behind my eye sockets
- a healthy and happy heart and soul (again, just a great tune)
- a family that keeps letting me say good-bye, without holding it against me
- a husband to navigate this crazy world with
- friends who you just can't hold a candle to (what does that really mean, anyway? what I'm trying to say here is that my friends are the hands-down greatest!)
- and of course, good beer