let me give thanks

I hope you all are enjoying the last long weekend of 2009, the weather could not be more fitting for Thanksgiving - sunny skies paired with the crisp Autumn air and the crunch crunch crunch of leaves beneath your feet.  Today I want to list the things I am thankful for, as I am about to close an old chapter and start a new one, and that has found me feeling a litte reflective...

• the tinkling laughter of children – little giggles that remind me almost everything is funny if you open up your mind enough to see it
• Trixy, who constantly expresses her love for me with great exuberance, and Chloe, who does the same with much more subtlety
• the seasons...all four of them, each with their own distinct beauty and the reminder that life always comes full circle
• family and friends who understand that when the chips are down, often I am too – they tolerate, support, advise and encourage...and know exactly when to deliver a well deserved kick in the ass... I love and appreciate them all dearly
• snowflakes, that stay on my nose and eyelashes
• beer
• the freedom to say what is on my mind without risk of ‘formal’ persecution
• having found the courage to try something new, to take a risk, to create something with my own hands and put it out into the world
• celebrity gossip, it is my guilty pleasure
• making a difficult decision, sticking with it, and having it work out the way I’d hoped it would
• people without common sense, they give me something to bitch about (and you know I am never truly happy unless I have something to bitch about)
• supportive women who never made me feel like I didn’t belong, even though I wasn’t a proper member of their club
• being on the winning side of things, for the first time in what feels like an eternity

Happy Thanksgiving! Please pass the gravy and share what you are most thankful for this year...