happy thanksgiving

I'm still full. Last night was Thanksgiving dinner at my Grandma Q's house, and as always there was a LOT of food and just as much dessert. It takes days to recover. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending how you look at it!) we don't have days, because we're having Thanksgiving dinner again tonight - or we are if we get invited. We know that there is dinner tonight, and we assume we're expected, but we haven't actually been told to come. It's kind of funny. We've actually almost missed a function or two to this phenomenon.

We'll just show up.

It seems that these days people race from gathering to gathering, stuffing themeslves and enjoying the fleeting company of family and loved ones. I wonder how many of us stop to ask ourselves what we're thankful for.

I'm thankful for many things (here come the bullets again).

• I'm thankful for my husband. He's my everything. Together we have made a family and a life for ourselves. I love his sense of humor and his smile and the way he follows me around and tries to hug me (even if it drives me nuts from time to time and I dodge him). I'm watching video of him that I recorded a few years ago, and I catch myself smiling like a school girl as I watch him on the screen.
• I'm thankful for my kids. They're nuts - in the best possible way ever. They make me laugh, and smile and cry and sigh those big sighs that moms sigh. You know how it is. They bring unspeakable happiness into this home. I can actually bring myself to tears thinking about it.
• I'm thankful for my mom. Through the years she has become not only someone who I go to for advice or help, but my friend too. I love the mother/daughter relationship and I love her. She's an amazing woman and an awesome grandmother. My kids adore her. That relationship is really fun to watch too.
• I'm especially thankful that we live in Canada. I seriously don't mind paying taxes. When I see shows on tv with mothers holding scrawny, hungry children and having no food to give them I know how blessed I am that my kids have more than enough. My kids also don't have to watch people gunned down on the streets, or see their parents beaten to death because they follow the wrong religion. Just by living in this country we are blessed in so many ways.
• I'm thankful for so many things, I can't possibly describe them all in such detail. For my friends who stand by and listen when I need someone to talk to, for my family and Steven's, for people who love us and my kids and want to spend time with them, for our health - that's huge really, even for the baby waking up and crying at night because that means he's healthy, for the times when my husband looks after the night feedings, and so much more.

I know I'm forgetting stuff. I'm thankful that you'll forgive it.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody, give your loved ones an extra squeeze today. I will!