Today, despite less sleep this weekend than I have been getting, I am just the right amount of rested and contentedly exhausted. I'm thankful for the invite from one of my new housemates to join her and her friends for Crispin and cooking dinner Friday night. It was so sweet of her to invite me, and it was nice to branch out from my usual rice and beans and salad to help the collective make swiss chard rollups and a carrots and rice dish. We all also bonded over dreams to travel more internationally and dark chocolate-covered espresso beans.
I'm thankful for a nice girls' late happy hour in the Cities with high school friends before another one of us left our hometown. I'm thankful for a lovely surprise of my friend making smoothies, eggs, and hash browns the morning after our sleepover. I'm thankful we can still have sleepovers as semi-legitimate adults.
I'm thankful to have had the opportunity to join my boss in representing Witness for Peace at a trade policy training put on by the Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition on Saturday. It was helpful to think about how trade policy in fact connects to so many aspects of our lives, from job availability in our own communities, to mental health, to community dynamics, to the way we treat immigrants. We can all do more to be aware of the choices we make not only as consumers, but also the kind of fair trade policies that will promote good living standards and sustainable development of communities around the world rather than just racing to the cheapest way of producing and distributing a good or service. Policy-making is always complicated, but I would encourage you all to look into where the goods you are buying come from and think of your fellow brothers and sisters around the world, and also understand the repercussions of trying to have free trade when human beings are barred from freedom of mobility. It is an issue of justice, and it affects us all.
I'm thankful to debrief and catch up with my boss, as we both do our Witness for Peace work remotely and from home, so we cherish the rare occasions when we can actually talk and also connect with others in our network. I'm thankful for having carpooled to the Cities with my friend who also lives south of Minneapolis so we could have even more time to hang out in the car and treat ourselves to Cherry Berry frozen yogurt on the way back.
I'm thankful to have friends to go to the ridiculously silly Ebony dance performance back on campus that always reawakens my inspiration to dance. I'm thankful to spend time with another friend who I can always count on to just relax and be silly with, as we dashed off to investigate the newly completed Evans dorm renovations (it may have been done a few weeks ago.... and neither of us had been inside yet!), and then settled in to channel surf at my house over hot tea.
I'm thankful for the time and energy to attempt a gluten-free pie crust and use it for lime bars so I could knock out two foods in my stash that needed to be used, plus just to do a little late-night baking! And what a blessing it was to have that time to do that while I perhaps should have been sleeping, but as tennis is still near and dear to my heart, I was staying up to watch the Australian Open men's finals which happened to start at 3am here, so I cranked out some baked goods, some work, and some push-ups while watching a pretty solid match!
From my encampment in our well-windowed game room, I was thankful to not be the guy biking home in 10 degrees at 5am. I was also thankful that I had the luxury of sleeping in until 12:30 and did not have anything to accomplish immediately until I would teach my Zumba class in the afternoon with my solid cohort of middle-aged ladies. They are a joy to teach!
I was also blessed with another night of cooking with friends tonight, complete with fellowship and abundance. Abundance also accurately represents the amount of broomball I played tonight and the amount of fun I had. Today's strange weather left the rinks crystallized so one could actually run on the surface with a certain amount of traction, and the snow fell gently and perfectly. And I'm thankful for the invite from a team playing a game following mine (with MOSES!) because they needed another girl (each team has to have at least two girls on the ice), and that I had the time and flexibility to join them. It was a beautiful night for friendship and broomball.
Lastly, I'm thankful for this encouragement from KTIS that I would like to pass along: "Your perspective could change when you're lifted up." May God's love lift you up today and all days!
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