Heeeey, it’s been two weeks since your letter!  I meant to write to you from France, because how cool is that, but then I got stopped by paralyzing I Can’t Do Anything.  This still comes in waves, so honestly I’m very impressed with myself right now.  It’s just…so hard to be alive, you know?  Haha, WHOOPS, that got very dark.  What I mean is, I’m in the lower part of the ups and downs of life right now, because transition + unknown future makes me want to curl into a ball for days.  Luckily I have a cat and many library books for those moments.

I don’t want this letter to be a therapy session (actually, I want EVERYTHING to be a therapy session), but for the sake of blogging frivolity, I want to respond to one of your suggestions:  “Let’s choose some themes again!  Like a dream Christmas gift or search Realtor/Pinterest for a dream house…ah i dunno.”  I’m choosing DREAM HOUSE!

Now, I have two.  In my first dream life, I would live in a very modern, technologically up-to-date tree house.  I LOVE forests and nature, and I just can’t imagine anything more peaceful than living in a tree house.  I want something like this magical place that only seems to exist in Google Images, but look at this place available for an AirBnB vacation – gotta go to Atlanta now, byyyye!

My other live-in love is a tiny home.  I am so enthralled by the tininess, coziness, and ingenius space-saving tricks.  All I want is to find a (full-sized) man to share a loft bed with me and my two cats (in imaginary land, both Rory and Hans Harrison are with me in one country).  Something like this (I’m hyperventilating just imagining).  Added bonus that I could just move by driving my home away, so long as I stay on one land mass.

This was fun!  I’m curious to know what Magnolia-inspired home you’d most like to live in, so if you want to write back with your own dreams, I’d love to find out!

Love,

Tricia

Happy Thanksgiving!

I’m sure that today will be both stressful and joyful for you, full of family and food (and the good and bad that both of those bring).  Did you make something for the meal?  Was it some cool twist on a classic?  Did you use a Pioneer Woman recipe?

Probably none of those things, because as of this writing, it’s 6:30 a.m. your time.  My bad!

Everything’s a bit wonky because we celebrated Thanksgiving at HD yesterday.  If we do group meals, it’s always on Wednesdays, and since I’m the only American, no one really cared about celebrating on the actual date.

Why celebrate Thanksgiving in Greece at all, you might wonder!  Good question, I dunno.  But it was really fun!  We all came to the house at 10 and spent the morning cooking and setting the table.  A couple volunteers joined us, so we had ten people eating together.  After the food, Dina had me read an explanation of the history of Thanksgiving (Pilgrims/Civil War/Native American massacre – I covered it all).  Then we read out the things we were thankful for, written on turkey hands that we had decorated the day before.

It was a really lovely day, full of laughter and stories.  My favorite moment was during the cooking, when I realized we didn’t have milk for me to make mashed potatoes.  I asked D if she wanted to go to the store with me, so we walked together.  She complimented my Greek, which gave me the confidence to debate with her about whether or not people should have pets (in Greek – I debated that in Greek!).  This started when we saw two baby kittens sitting on the sidewalk, and D and I fell all over ourselves with how cute they were.  Anyway, D and I don’t often have time alone together because of the language difference, and I really loved having a moment with her individually.

I’m thankful today because:  You know who I’m talking about!  I can say “D,” and you can picture her and know what kind of jewelry she likes to make.  I’m so happy that you came to Athens.  I hope you’ll come again next year!

But before that…I’ll see you in just two weeks and two days!  AHHH!

Happy Thanksgiving, friend!

Tricia