The Day of Thankfulness

November 23, 2006 (12:22pm)
42º F, Warm sunshine, S wind 3 mph.

Good afternoon,

The day of thankfulness has arrived. We certainly are thankful for the over abundance that God has been given to us in this country. Personally we have been so blessed, even when we didn’t think so. It is amazing to look back in our lives and see how everything has really worked for good. Often times we didn’t, or don’t, want it too.

The leg of lamb rolled roast, just went into the oven. Won’t be long now. Margriet has been busy getting all of the ingredients for our feast ready. Now it all comes together. She put out a plate of goodies to chew on, since we have a late meal planned. To go with the lamb will be sweet potatoes (even though the Yam-yam Lady, Brenda, isn’t here) and broccoli. I managed to make the cranberry relish by grinding the berries and an orange together. Always look forward to having that and it just sounded good with lamb. Of course the required mint jelly will be around too. For dessert the pumpkin pie is ready and waiting. It has been very hard to just look at it, smell it, and wish - but not eat.

The appetizer platter kind of surprised me. Of course Margriet had a good time with it. Lots of vegetables, cheese and sausage to nibble on. The last time we went shopping, she picked up some green onions, grass onions, and I forgot about them. If I had remembered them, they probably would not be around today. They are good for sure.

Three years ago, Margriet received her Permanent Resident Card (Green Card) and today it expires. We will go to Milwaukee in a couple of weeks to renew it so she will be legal once again. Seems like only yesterday that she got it. Now she is able to get her Naturalization Paper in and become a real citizen of this country. Yesterday I decided to go to the immigration website and find out what the steps are in detail. After finding several things I wanted to print out, I discovered that my printer was out of ink, with about half of the material still needing to be printed! Didn’t really want to run to Green Bay last night and I know I don’t want to today, so I guess we will be going tomorrow. They call tomorrow Black Friday with all of the folks buying for Christmas. That is not a good prospect to have a nice trip either. Guess we have been printing more out than I thought and for once I don’t have any backup supply. No printing until the new ink tank is in the printer!

The process for naturalization is expensive. I think the most expensive of all the procedures we have gone through so far. Apparently there also be a need for another biometric scanning, with the added cost of it, even though she will be having one in a couple of weeks. Past that it is a matter of completing 2 page (I think) application, then attaching a bunch of supporting documents - again. Most, if not all, of the supporting documents have been submitted at least once already. Sounds like government work to me!

The weather continues to be hot. In the mid or lower 60's toward the center of the state. Here is it some cooler, thankfully. The hunters have something to complain about this year, other than not enough points on the racks of the deer shot or the number of deer seen to shoot at. Cooler-ness is supposed to start coming back again tomorrow with some possible snow or freezing rain on Sunday or Monday. At present we are having temperatures about 20º F above our normal highs.

We hope this finds you and your special folks enjoying the day, but most of all, thankful for all of the blessings received - too.

Time to get a-going.

In Christ My Saviour,

Chris <><