The start to the holidays, 2011

We roasted our first turkey this week - and it was a success! I might even go so far as to use the term huge success, thanks to all of the exclaiming about it's perfectly moist meat and deliciousness... But it might just have been beginner's luck, so we'll wait for a second attempt before actually making that statement outright. Michael and I spent Thanksgiving with our good friends the Pratt's (their daughter is my goddaughter, Jasmine), and several other families. There was way too much food, but it made for quite the variety and everyone enjoyed themselves greatly. The weather has been spectacular by anyone on the West Coast's standards, though I do tire of eighty degrees as we near the beginning of December, and all of my stylish winter wear remains unorganized and unworn as of yet. However, I look forward to sporting it in Washington when we are home next month.

Since I last blogged, I've come into a small job, but one that I make my own hours and also decide how many hours I'd like to work. It's a company that does mainly transcription, but also translation; for now, I am proofing transcriptions since that is what they hired me for, but I plan to ask for the chance to translate once I've been working for a month or two. All work is done online, which is nice since one doesn't necessarily need to cart their personal computer around to be able to work. It's been quite the learning curve, since it's all through Google applications such as Chrome, Gmail, Docs, etc. However, it's been good for me to learn something new and manageable, and the work is quite interesting as the audio files are from all sorts of surveys for products and habits. For example, the past few days, I've been hearing several about how people go about planning their Thanksgiving meals and Black Friday shopping trips. So, we'll see where this leads. It's a treat to be able to literally do it at anytime of the day or night, and also to not have to worry about keeping all of the files I've worked on or proofed for reference, since it is all stored and updated constantly online.

Michael and I will be home for Christmas in a few weeks; I leave in just about a week and a half and he'll follow a bit after. I'll get to help my dad for the end of his tour, which is always fun since we inevitably see many old friends and acquaintances at the shows. I especially look forward to seeing one of my dearest friends while we are in Corvallis; now that Michael and I have more of a normal "life" down here but I haven't had much income personally, the chances for visiting friends anywhere have really been limited. Unfortunately, we won't be staying on to celebrate New Year's as we usually do with my family, as Michael returns to work too soon after and will need to make sure to be well-rested. It will be the first year I'm not with my parents for this holiday, and that will be very strange. This year really feels like we are making a more solid transition into our own family, even though our situation in Georgia is definitely quite transitory. It's very challenging to actually make one's own decisions when our families are both so close, but it's important that we do. All we can do is pray that we don't make any decisions that we might regret later, but I think that most anything becomes a learning experience in this stage of life, whether due to a less-than-ideal decision or a near-perfect one.

I'll try to post a few new pictures from the past weeks in a day or two. Blessings to all of you, and I hope this finds you joyfully entering into Advent and the holiday spirit.