I'm Feeling Good...
Disclaimer: The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps.

I'm in a ridiculously good mood. Most things have turned up. My computer is working faithfully, except for the DVD player, I've made my peace with the huge inconvience of having to travel out of my way in order to attend a conference, celebrate Thanksgiving and have my cat cat-sat for over the weekend.

I caught myself singing "My Favorite Things" this morning. I have that warm emotional, yet satisfied feeling you get at the end of watching Fellowship of the Ring when May It Be is done playing in the credits and the Shire Theme Song starts (that sone is actually called There and Back Again.)

I have a package from home to pick up tomorrow so I'm looking forward to my favorite tea and some surprises. My kitten is purring in my lap, and best of all is I do get to celebrate Thanksgiving with some friends in their villiage with some Romanian neighbors. This makes a huge difference to me because when I thought I was going to be too busy this weekend and not be able to leave my site city for the holiday during the week I was pretty upset. But not any more.

I made a pumpkin pie over the weekend out of a whole pumpkin. It actually turned out well but the texture is not what we-who-are-used-to-our-pie-pumpkin-from-a-can expect. The Romanian pumpkins aren't as sweet as "sugar pumpkins" grown in the USA. Some of them are pumkin zucchini combinations - hence that green "pumpkin" you saw in the Halloween picture with Bella. I don't know if I told you this, but squash, zucchini and pumpkin are one word in Romanian - so it can be a bit confusing.

One of my friends brought pumpkin seeds from the USA and planted them and I got one of his pumpkins - brought it back from Miercrea Cuic with me and baked it and made into a pie - with no evaporated milk, premade frozen pie crusts or food processor, beater or meat grinder - just a potato masher. It actually turned out like pumpkin pie too, but I think that's partly because I had access to ground ginger and brown sugar.

Pumpkin pie from scratch

I've come to embrace the idea that pumpkin pie is more about sweetness and spices than it is about pumpkin.

Anyway, I'm feeling good. And I can't stop watching this video on Youtube which sums up everything that I'm feeling about this holiday season!