i like your face.: giving thanks.

it's our first thanksgiving, and we're having to be a little creative and flexible. i am scheduled to work on thursday & friday (so no turkey OR black friday madness!), although stu will be off both days. he has a lot of family coming into town, especially some favorites that we don't get to see often (shout out to andrew, kristan & the kiddos, and aunt penny & her crew!), so he will likely be spending a lot of thanksgiving time down in pine bluff, while i'm up here in little rock. so, overall we're a little bummed about that.

however, i'm not really upset to be working the holiday. my patients are very dear to me, and what better place to spend an emotional, sentimental day of thanks than with those who may not live to see another one? (i mean, i certainly can think of better places to be - mostly up in ripley, wv, where my entire extended family is coming together to celebrate - miss you all terribly!) so, you all can find me on H7 at UAMS loving on my patients who are fighting cancer. prayers would be appreciated for this day - already this week, emotions have been running high on our unit. it's really tough for these people to be stuck in the hospital over the holidays.

my much-too-short visit home to nc last week was so perfect and lovely. i missed stuart terribly, and we all wished he had been there, too. but i wasn't quite ready to leave when i had to hop a plane back to little rock. we did all kinds of favorite acree-family things... watched lots of movies, went out to dinner at a swanky place we had never been before and judged it harshly (katie and dad particularly love this activity), played outside with the dogs, cooked a lot of good food and made silly videos. also was able to be at CCC on sunday morning and see my favorite people there, had breakfast at foster's market, walked through the farmer's market with katie, and just generally enjoyed my family. being with them then is making it easier to not be with them this week.

anyways... all of this is to say that stuart and i were not about to just give up our first married thanksgiving to my work schedule, so we just had it early this year. my favorite friend, hannah morgan, came to visit for a few days from kansas city, and we cooked a feast! last night we had all the traditionals - turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry salad (acree recipe), green beans, pumpkin pie & apple cider, and we threw in some butternut squash soup just for fun. it was perfect :)