Thanksgiving, Part Two

Since we already had the huge pot of hot oil.... we decided to go ahead and fry up a few other things. We went to the store and got everything we thought would do well when battered and fried. The receipt speaks for itself:

After freezing everything overnight, we prepared the batter...

... and then set everything up by the deep-fryer...

... battered them, fried them... and they started to come out golden crispy and yummy...

... to be cut into bite-sized pieces and then quickly devoured by the entire family!

Yes, they look potentially disgusting, but the fried Twinkies were possibly the most delicious things ever. You really should try them once in your life. Once. Probably not more than that or else you might increase your chance of a heart attack by 587%.

Thanksgiving, Part One

The turkey.

In case you haven't known me for that long, you might not know that I beg my dad every year to fry a turkey for me. If you've never had a fried turkey, you're missing out. It's possibly the most succulent, moist, delicious turkey that you could ever imagine. A regular-sized turkey cooks in about 45 minutes, sealing in all the yummy juices.

All you have to do is take a turkey, inject it with some tasty juices, and spear it like this:

Once the oil is piping hot, carefully drop the turkey into the oil, hoping that you didn't fill the container too full with oil. Ours was a teeny bit too full, but thankfully not too much oil bubbled out over the edges. (Note: please, please do this outside and not in a garage... burning down your house is not a fun thing to do on Thanksgiving day... or any day, really)

Let the turkey cook in the boiling and bubbling oil. In case you're curious what that would look/sound like, here's a video (courtesy of T).

And.... voila! Your turkey should come out golden brown like ours:

Carve, eat, eat seconds, and enjoy the fried turkey.

More to come later on other things we fried after the turkey was done...

Advent

ad·vent (dvnt)n.

1. The coming or arrival, especially of something extremely important: the advent of the computer.

2. The liturgical period preceding Christmas, beginning in Western churches on the fourth Sunday before Christmas and in Eastern churches in mid-November, and observed by many Christians as a season of prayer, fasting, and penitence.

Advent was always one of my favorite things at church when I was growing up. It meant shorter sermons to sit through, watching someone light a candle, singing Christmas carols.... oh, and yeah -- it meant that Christmas was close!

Now that I'm a little bit older (and hopefully a little bit wiser), I've been thinking more about the actual meaning of the Advent season. The desire to prayerfully await the coming of Christmas and the celebration of the birth of Christ. Just recently I stumbled upon a list of daily readings for Advent season on the website of a former church on the other side of the country, and I'm going to try to follow it. In case you're interested and would like to follow along, you can find the list here. Should be some good "grounding" amidst the craziness that is holiday parties and cookies and gift buying, etc.

So random.

What's your Christmas Elf name?





My Christmas Elf Name is




Get your Christmas Elf Name at JokesUnlimited.com

Christmas music!

I just realized that I put Christmas music on my work laptop -- yay!

Sleigh bells, here I come.

What is your favorite Christmas CD or song? I'm always looking for more good Christmas music.

Some of my favorites are Amy Grant's "Tennessee Christmas" album, the MW Smith album that has Chris Rice's "Welcome to this World" on it.... and oh! Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas." You can't forget that one. But in my mind, the AG album really should just be on repeat from Thanksgiving to Christmas.

Come on... answer! Broaden my knowledge of good Christmas music =)

Thankful.

Yes, I know that Thanksgiving was last week.

That being said, I wanted to share the rest of my list of things that I was thankful for both last week and today:

1. Family who are not offended when I show up in the Hometown wearing sweatpants, a sweatshirt and a baseball hat after having to get up at 315AM to make a 6AM flight. Yup.

2. Getting to see T over the break -- for twice as long as our previous 2 visit weekends, which was long enough to not feel "long-distance" anymore.

3. Deep-fried Thanksgiving turkeys. More pictures to come later, but it's seriously the yummiest thing ever.

4. Not burning down the house or catching anyone on fire while deep-frying the turkey.

5. A hockey win on Thanksgiving day against the Big Bad team from the Up-North Hockey Crazy place.

6. Deciding to not get up at 4AM on Black Friday to go shopping.

7. Instead decorating the Christmas tree while listening to some quality, old-school Amy Grant Christmas music.

8. Sharing the wonders of the Lake House with T.

9. Friends who will pick you up at the airport!

10. An instrument that works... now I just need to start "doing science" again. Yikes.

11. Friends who come search for me behind the big glass window in the middle of the afternoon to see if I want to go get coffee. (S, I still really miss our walks to SBucks!)

12. Having acquired all but about 5 addresses for mailing out Christmas cards in approximately 24 hours. Now I just need to finish the cards...

13. A microwave that works.... as opposed to the old one that died the day I got back in town. Yay for Walmart.

I'll post the deep-fried turkey pictures ASAP! Happy mid-week "hump" day to all.

Thankfulness, day 2.

Things I am thankful for today:

1. Gingko trees. There were a few on my undergrad's college campus, and they were by far my favorite trees on campus. I had never seem them until going to college. They're beautiful when the leaves turn yellow, but they're tricky because all the leaves fall off within 7-10 days after they first turn yellow. So you really have to enjoy the trees when they're showing off all their golden splendor because it doesn't last for long. All that to say, there were 2 gingko trees on my walk to work this morning, and it made me possibly the happiest person in the world to realize that the Big School's campus had them too. Here's a picture from Wikipedia of a gingko tree right when it turned yellow:


2. Friends who will offer to pick you up at the airport. I have been amazed at how friendly my new friends out here are and how supportive they are of each other in terms of airport rides. My coworkers are that way too, which is such a fun thing. Moving to someplace new at the same time as others builds another fun community of those who experienced/survived the move together.

3. California life. It's gorgeous here today. Some days life here feels like a dream. Seriously.

4. Gingerbread lattes.

5. Music. I've been listening to the new Caedmon's Call CD a lot recently. It's incredible. I'm really glad that they brought Derek Webb back for it.

6. Getting to see T tomorrow!!!!

Thankfulness.

In preparation for Thanksgiving this upcoming Thursday, I want to use this week to reflect on what I am thankful for in my life -- and to share them.

I've been thinking about this on-and-off all day long in anticipation of writing this post. I am thankful for my family. And my friends -- new and old. And T.

The thing that I find myself thankful for today is something that I didn't expect when I first starting thinking about this: hymns. Yes, you read that right: hymns. I am thankful for hymns, for the people who wrote the words, for the people who wrote the music, and for the people who are updating some of the music today. Hymns take the critically important pieces of faith and boil them down to poignant truths that I always need to hear. Thus I am very thankful for the way that God works through hymns.

In Christ Alone

In Christ alone my hope is found; / He is my light, my strength, my song;
This cornerstone, this solid ground, / Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My comforter, my all in all— / Here in the love of Christ I stand.

In Christ alone, Who took on flesh, / Fullness of God in helpless babe!
This gift of love and righteousness, / Scorned by the ones He came to save.
Till on that cross as Jesus died, / The wrath of God was satisfied;
For ev'ry sin on Him was laid— / Here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground His body lay, / Light of the world by darkness slain;
Then bursting forth in glorious day, / Up from the grave He rose again!
And as He stands in victory, / Sin's curse has lost its grip on me;
For I am His and He is mine— / Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

No guilt in life, no fear in death— / This is the pow'r of Christ in me;
From life's first cry to final breath, / Jesus commands my destiny.
No pow'r of hell, no scheme of man, / Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home— / Here in the pow'r of Christ I'll stand.

Beautiful. Just beautiful. What are you thankful for today?

I'm ba-ack!

That's right... I'm back. The previously alluded to Big Secret is still in the works, but I have done my "fall cleaning" and all my blog posts are back up.

What's been going on here? A lot.

I spent a week in Salt Lake City at an academic conference and gave a presentation on my research. I saw some interesting work presented there, which was good. It made me excited to do a really good job finishing up my project and getting my Ph.D. -- and then to find a slightly different research field. It's nice to remember that there are areas of research out there that exist outside of my small, narrow field.

The highlight of SLC, however, was getting to spend the week hanging out with one of my best friends from my previous life in the Big City. She's one of those friends that you can just "be" with so comfortably and easily. So fun. I miss her a lot!

SLC was my first trip out of town from here other than going back to see T. It was weird coming back home and not having him here; for some reason it felt like he should've been here. Long-distance is not fun!

On the flight back from the conference, the girl sitting next to me pulled our her NAIL POLISH and started to paint her nails. Um, hello? Noxious fumes? Small, confined space? Not the best idea. What would you have done? I kindly asked her if she minded waiting until she got off the plane after she was through about three nails; she was really nice and apologetic about it. But still...

Then this week has been a super-social, "Jennifer-has-crawled-back-out- from-under-a-rock" type week. But in the good way. I haven't felt that my extroverted side was exhausted. IT was exercised, but not worn out. It was also really good to get back out and continue building my relationships here. I still am amazed at the providence of God in the community that is here. I feel like I haven't been giving my all in terms of engaging with that community and building up relationships, so I want to work on that. I need to learn to be a little bit less guarded with my evening, not-at-work time. I also need to learn to be more productive during my at-work hours so that I can be more giving of my nights. So much to learn. Life is fun!

Winner!

And.... after a very scientific random drawing (pulling a name out of a hat), the winner of the giveaway is JGR! I'll be in email contact with you....

Thanks everyone for playing!