November 26th: Today I Am Thankful for Everything

Today I am thankful for quality time spent with my husband, a nice overnight stay out of town, a safe drive home, cats to greet us, a home that was intact, wood to warm the house, homemade chicken noodle soup, pumpkin pie, Almond Roca, and an early night to bed with a new book to read. Bliss.

Thanksgiving Thoughts From the Blog Archives

Good Grief! What happened to Thanksgiving?
I love harvest decor and the Thanksgiving holiday. When I see cans of Libby pumpkin, canned milk, and little jars of Kraft cheese waiting on display shelves at the grocery store I am taken back to childhood preparations for Thanksgiving. Because of the food associated with Thanksgiving the holiday does still exists in grocery stores.

What happened to the other very large discount one-stop-shopping stores? One day we were tripping over Halloween candy, costumes, and pumpkins with steam coming out of the tops and then out came the Christmas stuff. How did we go from Star Wars costumes to Santas that dance when you walk by? Good grief! I waited too long to shop for Thanksgiving. All I wanted was a table runner that had a fall motif. What I found were candy canes, snowflakes, and things that sing Christmas songs as you walk down the aisle.

When did this happen? I used to love to look at the cute turkeys that could be placed on the table for dinner. I loved the fall colors in napkins and candles. One year I know I found place mats in harvest colors. I found one clearance shelf last week with leaf place mats and finally stumbled on a shelf of turkey paper plates hidden between holiday food and Santa displays. Perhaps the harvest decor was so popular it sold out quickly? Where are the pilgrim candle holders? What about the cornucopias? Grrrr!
Now don't get me wrong. I love Christmas and decorating and all the preparations. Just not the third week of November.

I will return to do some last minute Thanksgiving shopping tomorrow. I will look for a fall bouquet, fresh cranberries, and apple cider. I just hope none of them are already adorned with glittery red and green wrapping. Just give me a brown label, an orange bow, or golden ribbon. Remember Thanksgiving...that holiday some stores keep forgetting. We have much to be thankful for. Gobble, gobble, gobble.

We Gather Together - Thanksgiving Hymn!

Today I am thankful for Thanksgiving songs.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZW73Qzju4A&feature=related

November 23rd: I Am Thankful for Wood

I had never lived in a home with wood heat until I moved into my present home. I have come to love the warmth of wood heat. We have been blessed with donations of free wood. We have been able to use wood from our own property. JEJ has also gone out to cut wood for us to burn. All this wood provides our home with heat. It was 9 degrees when I arrived home today. I loved that the house was 77degrees. Wood heat takes the chill out of your bones, it warms up cold feet, and puts a blush in your cheeks. The animals love to gather around the stove. I sit close by and feel content and a bit sleepy. I can endure frigid temperatures much, much better sitting close to a wood stove, especially when both of ours are warming up the house tonight.

November 22nd: I Am Thankful For Neruda's Words

Here are some of my favorite words:

 You can say anything you want, yessir, but it's the words that sing, they soar and descend . . . I bow to them . . . I love them, I cling to them, I run them down, I bite into them, I melt them down . . . I love words so much . . . The unexpected ones . . . The ones I wait for greedily or stalk until, suddenly, they drop . . . Vowels I love . . . They glitter like colored stones, they leap like silver fish, they are foam, thread, metal, dew . . . I run after certain words . . . They are so beautiful that I want to fit them all into my poem . . . I catch them in midflight, as they buzz past, I trap them, clean them, peel them, I set myself in front of the dish, they have a crystalline texture to me, vibrant, ivory, vegetable, oily, like fruit, like algae, like agates, like olives . . . And I stir them, I shake them, I drink them, I gulp them down, I mash them, I garnish them, I let them go . . . I leave them in my poem like stalactites, like slivers of polished wood, like coals, pickings from a shipwreck, gifts from the waves . . . Everything exists in the word . . . From Memoirs by Pablo Neruda (NY: Penguin, 1974), p. 53.

November 21st:: I Am Thankful for The Psalms

 It is only fitting that I begin the week of Thanksgiving with this psalm:

 Psalm 100 

A Psalm of Thanksgiving

 Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!

 Serve the Lord with gladness!
Come into his presence with singing!

 Know that the Lord, he is God!
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

 Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
and his courts with praise!
Give thanks to him; bless his name!

 For the Lord is good;
his steadfast love endures forever,
and his faithfulness to all generations.