A Night to be Grateful For

As of late I have been feeling very overwhelmed.  This feeling ultimately is manifesting itself in my actions as anger and resentment.  It is causing me to react to simple things with major outburst.  This is a behavior that I exhibited in the past that I have since put a ton of effort into extinguishing.  So, these recent reactions are coming as a bit of a surprise, however, I will say that I am handling them in a completely different manner than I had in the past.

That being said, I am not letting it take over and control me for more them a few seconds.  Which is showing me that at least the lesson I have be trying to teach myself are paying off.  It's allowing me to recognize the emotion but not live with it. In turn it allows me to give the emotion what it needs to go away.

I bring all this up cause today was a day I got to sit with these emotions and give them what they needed.  I had the day to myself, which I didn't know that I even needed as bad as I did.  Today also happened to be Thanksgiving.  Which gave me a lot to contemplate.

I am getting very close to creating the life I have been working towards.  Which, mind you, is truthfully only the first step in an even longer journey I have planned, but that's a different story.  I can feel it though, which is what I believe is giving way to the feelings of overwhelm.  So today being Thanksgiving made me think about traditions.  That led me to analyze my own traditions.

As far as Thanksgiving was concerned, I didn't really have any solid personal traditions.  Now that I live miles away from my family and by myself for the time being, I felt as if I needed some of my own traditions.  Then a series of events led me to create at least one, and I can use it as a foundation to build upon next year.

I had been planning to actually spend the day with a group of friends that I have become close to since moving out here.  Yet a certain one of them has been not meshing with me recently, but I was still looking forward to spending the holiday with them.  We had ordered a box of fresh organic meat for the feast and we all trough down on it.

As we got closer to the day, I had become more frustrated with the behavior of this certain friend, who was actually starting to act in opposition of a friend.  Which made me decide I did not want to ruin my holiday by being in the company of this friend, and bargained a 6-pound Leg of Lamb from the box of meat.

I have never cooked lamb before, so I was most excited about getting this cut of meat.  Since August I have been on an elimination diet where I have only been eating meat.  Then experimenting with adding back different food to see where my intolerance's lie, in turn doing the holiday by myself allowed me to stay on my diet.  I ended up just roasting the leg with just butter and sea salt, it was boneless.  I started it at around 300-325 degrees on a rack over a pan to catch the fat.  Then finished it on a super low heat and kept reducing it until it was time to eat.

It was amazing and next year I can't wait to cook one with seasoning and sides!  That will defiantly replace turkey on my Thanksgiving dinner plate from now on, and I feel like I want to make a rule for myself, to be home for the day.  Hopefully I'll have my fireplace by next year too, cause ending the night with a story by a fire sipping on some nog sounds like the best way to end.

Oringinal Publish Date 11/22/18 || Edited and Revised 2/26/19