Thanksgiving

This year, I deviated from my usual pattern for Thanksgiving and went to J's J's Parent's House for Thanksgiving, and was indoctrinated into Other Ways of Thinking About Thanksgiving as a result.

Meaning, I tried new food.
I had some homemade pickles for the first time on Thanksgiving. They were delicious.
I also had some chocolate mascarpone pudding-ish goodness. It was like...a pudding brownie. Or something. Words can't describe it but it was really yummy. Good enough that I felt like saying, "These mashed potatoes are so creamy" about fifty times because it was, in fact, that creamy. (No, they weren't chocolate potatoes. But the movie quote was just irresistible.)
I also had mashed potatoes with leeks in them. They were also good.
I also had no stuffing. (at least, on Thursday. I had crock pot stuffing on Friday, which was surprisingly delicious.) I didn't even really know I liked stuffing until it just wasn't there. It's still definitely not my favorite...I guess it's all about expectations.
Zucchini-thickened gravy, instead of made with flour or cornstarch. Which didn't make it taste like zucchini, but it added some color to it.
I also had an entire drumstick and didn't gnaw on it. I was proud of myself. The turkey was also soaked in beer, which I had never had either.
I also ate cranberry cheese. That is, cheese with cranberries in it.
And chocolate tortilla chips. Yep. Actual chocolate in the chip. They took me by surprise, and not in a bad way.
And I eyed a "Mock-Apple pie" with distaste and refused some. Apparently you can make apple-less apple pie if you dunk Ritz crackers in apple pie spices and bake it. (Or some such nonsense. It wasn't plausible enough that I wanted to test it out.)
Kale salad with cheese. I had never seen so much kale in my life. The dressing was also very good. And there was cheese on the salad. 
Oreo whipped cream. Or, cookies n cream cream. Oreo whipped cream sounds better. Also less like generic brand. (I usually don't much care between brand name and no name, but in Oreo cases, Nabisco always wins.) 
I also had some grapefruit, strawberry-jello pie. That's right. Grapefruit, coated in strawberry jello mixture stuff. It was actually really good. The tart of the grapefruit and then the sweet of the jello was a surprisingly attractive mix. It was just the aftertaste that I wasn't sure about.

I also saw a Yoda-head earring in the process of being made, a blue heron, high high tide, a beautiful view of the Sound, won at Sevens, and met twins. Oh. And did some black friday shopping. So all in all, it was an eventful weekend.

I'm thankful that I have a good life. It could be better, but I think a lot of the reason why it isn't earth-shatteringly great on most days is because I could simply have a better attitude and be more grateful for the things I have and try harder to get the things I don't have that are really important to me.  But I'm thankful that I do try, and you know, sometimes bad things just happen. But a lot of how good my life will be dependent on how I choose to react to the bad things.

I'm going to go forage for leftovers. In the meantime, hope you all had a great Thanksgiving weekend!